Any of the photo hosting sites, like Photobucket, store your files on their own server. You upload a copy onto their server from your drive; then there are two separate files. One is still on your drive and the copy is on theirs. When you post a link to the photo on this forum you are linking to their file, not to your computer's drive.

Once you upload (copy) the photo, you can delete the original from your own drive if you want to. I would suggest, if you want to be sure you never lose it, that you buy one of those little thumb drives and save your photos to that before deleting them from your hard drive. I've never lost a photo from PHotobucket, or any other photo host, but I wouldn't risk it and would always keep my own copy.

Watch for a sale on the thumb drives and you should be able to find one for around $10 that will hold LOTS of photos. For $25 you can get one that will hold LOTS and LOTS of files.

If that doesn't make sense, let me know.

Kate

Excellent explanation, Kate.
I recently bought a 4 gig flash drive for 15 dollars and that will hold hundreds of photos.

Ron

Photobucket had some major problems a couple years ago and some people lost all the photos they had stored there. Not everyone, but those that were on a certain server lost them all.

I would not use Photobucket or any online storage place as my only backup.

I am redundant on my backups. I store them on my hard drive, move them over to an external hard drive (those are getting quite affordable and will hold huge amounts of data). I also back up to DVD twice a year, and store those off site.

I don't leave my external hard drive plugged in. I pull the power and USB cords out after I transfer the data over. It is not unusual for me to get a lightning strike. I keep extra modems next to my computer, LOL!!

Wow, iowagirl you are very dilligent. I wish I could be that organized.

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Besides, error on the part of Photobucket that could cause lose of material, they reserve the right to delete or destroy uploaded content.

"Photobucket reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting (including, without limitation, descriptions, comments, images or videos) by you, or to deny, restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of the Photobucket Services at any time, for any or no reason, with or without prior notice or explanation, and without liability. Photobucket expressly reserves the right to remove any or all of your images, videos, account and profile and/or to deny, restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of the Photobucket Services if Photobucket determines, in its sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement or pose a threat to Photobucket and/or its Users."

Also, read up on *Proprietary Rights in Content on Photobucket*. You don't want to lose the right to any creative work or and other intellectual property that you intend to sell at a later time.

Here is a link that might be useful: TOS

I keep the photos I want to share on GardenWeb on Photobucket, and if they are lost I don't care. Other pictures are kept on on Kodak Gallery. I never thought of using a thumb drive as back up, but that's a great idea. I also have the whole computer backed up on a Western Digital Drive.

External hard drives can go bad. Mine did. Your best bet for storage is the flash drives, no bigger than a pack of gum or small ciggie lighter. I just bought an 8 gig flash drive that should last the rest of my life and never get filled up.

Can I ask a dumb question? I am know very little about computers, but have some photo's and other things saved to my hard drive, that I wouldn't want to lose,
What are thumb drives and flash drives?

Thumb drives and flash drives are the same thing, just different names. They are very small (about the size of a thumb) devices that are easy to plug in and out of any computer. It uses one of the USB slots - that's the little rectangular slot that may be on the front or the back of your computer. Newer computers have them on the front because so many different type of devices plug in there. The USB is where you would typically plug in a camera connection to download pictures, or a connector for an iPod, just to name a couple things.
I've attached a link to an ad for one, not to get you to buy it, but just so that you can see what it looks like. Any electronics store will carry them but so do many others like Tar get, Wal mart, etc.
You just plug it into the USB slot, highlight and drag over your whole folder of photos, then pull the drive out of the slot until you want to either add some more files to it or access the ones on it. You are copying your files to the thumbie so they will still be on your computer, too.
Hope that helps!
Kate

Here is a link that might be useful: ad for a drive

Nice explanation, Kate. As an example, would that 4 GB thumb drive hold hundreds of pictures?

Thanks Kate, I appreciate the help. I will check these out cause I am going to start doing some genealogy of my family and don't want to lose anything and have to do it over.
Patty

4GB will definitely hold hundreds of pictures and other files.
Some people buy a few of the less expensive 1 or 2 GB drives and have one for family pictures, one for garden pictures, one for vacations, one for a special hobby or project like the genealogy.