I have two external hard drives, both Western Digital. One has its own power source; the other is powered by USB. Both are 1 TB and I have never had a problem. Pooh Bear ==================== This was sent to me thru one of my Yahoo groups: As I have been going through my archived data discs I have been coming across several of them that have become bad over the years and thus I cannot get anything off of them. There are photos and videos that were on some of them that I cannot replace:-( So, I made an account at an online file storage site to save my precious files to the cloud to help save from disc deterioration. As I was looking around to see what my options were for storing my sensitive data I came across this site and found it interesting. The discs are pricey (about ~$3 a disc) but they are known as the '1000 year disc.' It takes a special burner to burn them. The DVD Burner is like $40 at Best Buy so you can probably find it even cheaper somewhere else if you shop around. Not sure if there are any retail sellers for the M-Discs though. I didn't dig too deep trying to find anything. Check out the site because it is interesting. They say it is like burning the data into a rock, lol! Anyway, I found this a while back and thought I would share it with you real quick while I had the time:-) M-DISC, Write Once and Read Forever. You might feel like you're making a "permanent" backup of your files when you copy them onto a DVD or backup to a computer hard-drive, but the truth is these devices suffer from natural decay and degradation. Current DVD technology uses organic dyes and low laser power to make marks on the data layer of a standard recordable DVD. Over time, these marks become unreadable because organic dyes degrade when exposed to minimal levels of light, heat, and humidity. This means all the data you thought was safely stored could be lost because the discs you used have an average lifespan of only about 3 to 5 years! Why would you risk your data based on an average; hundreds of discs taken into account in that average were corrupt and unreadable after only a few months. With Millenniata, we don't subject you to the possibility of losing your data. When we say "Write Once and Read Forever", we mean it. Here is a link that might be useful: http://millenniata.com/m-disc/

the benefit to a program like the EaseUs backup is that you do an image back up which is the best type of back up, it backs up not just your files but the entire operating system, your settings, your drivers, absolutely everything exactly as it is when you do the back up, it is essentially a snapshot of exactly how the computer sits at that moment. Then from it you can go back and select individual files or if you have a failure you can install your entire system on a new hard drive and be up and running in minutes exactly as you were. There are several free imaging software available. If you decide to go with carbonite which does store it away from your home, go to the kim komando site and look for it there you will get a discount buying it through her. here are some links that list the best of the free image software Best free backup software: 11 programs we recommend Free Imaging, Backup and Recovery Software for Windows The best free disk imaging program: a comparative analysis (updated) some ratings tests were performed As to online storage you can get up to 50 GB free storage a ADrive, I have used them for years. It is one more good place to store some of your files off site. Personal Basic (FREE 50GB) you want the Persona Basic Free 50 GB option Personally,my opinion only, the image method is the way to go for backup with the least time, effort, problems at recovery.

I will guess that the first step of the iCloud backup is to calculate how much data you need to back up and when it saw that there was not enough space it reported the error without backing up any of the photos. I don't have an iPhone, but can you connect it to your Windows computer? If so, you should be able to copy the photos from the phone to your computer. When I plug my Android phone into my computer, I open 'Computer' and can see the phone as a storage device. From there, I can copy the photos to Windows (my pictures folder) or delete the ones that I don't want. In your case, you could copy them to the external hard drive that you mentioned. If you already have a Photobucket account, can't you create an album of your Niece's birthday party, upload those pictures to it and send the link to that album to your sister? This post was edited by pkponder on Fri, Jan 2, 15 at 12:29

I was here pk. I guess I should have let you know that the backup was specifically asking for the apple id password. I only brought up email because I found no contacts (but I also pointed out that I hadn't tried to link emails in any way). I also now see that there is an off setting on a 'settings' button for email. I am not sure how she sees her mail. Probably directly via Safari but I do see an email app right on her first page trey below the regular apps. Probably way more info than needed since this was not really an email question. Looking back, I now see that I wasn't clear about what password was wanted; sorry. My general question was about the whole purpose of this kind of backup. It appeared (and still does) that she may not have had anything to backup because she didn't really use itunes for paid music (and yesterday I saw something that implied it didn't do that either, I suppose because apple really only has pointers to the music and always remembers your apple id with those pointers). I was more concerned that perhaps each system update might wipe all apps and perhaps other stuff. As far as I can tell, it certainly didn't wipe all apps out (she still has some), and I see no reason it would clear specific ones. I was waiting for another response and to see if I got a backup. I can't really tell because it doesn't say so. It was not asking to be backed up yesterday (or today) and I can't find where it is indicated. The new update changed stuff on icloud and wanted new legal acceptance (i gave it) but that was after I attempted the backup. BTW I actually read a little of the legal stuff and it included that icloud could wipe your backup if you didn't backup for 120 days!!! Anyway, I still don't really understand the purpose of this backup system. While attempting to follow various directions, I got messages that suggest if there are problems (I don't think there actually were) that I should Reset the ipad. I am suspecting that perhaps that is exactly when the backup would be needed because the Reset Would wipe everything back to a new pad. Not sure of that either.