Storage is relatively cheap. I think you’ll find that the way many people work is to save their raw files on an external HDD (preferably Firewire 800 or USB3 and in the future, Thunderbolt) with a second - and often third - external HDD for backing up.

If you use a referenced system in Aperture, you can, if you choose, put your library on your main internal HDD keeping your images on the external HDD. If you use a managed system, you’ll have to just keep it all on the external HDD (which does have its own advantages but is not the way I work).

When your external HDDs approach getting full, buy some more. But it’ll take a while to fill a 1TB HDD even with biggish raw files.

The only JPEG files I save are those that I decide to output (prints, stock, website, competitions, family and friends, etc). With one or two notable exceptions, I tend to name the JPEGs using the original filenames plus various suffixes, so I can always go back to the original if I need to revisit it or produce a different derivative such as a black and white or different crop. There are also files that I save as 16 bit TIFFs that I feel are particularly worthy - for portfolios or gallery prints, for instance. That’s a personal thing though because these days, I think you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference between a print produced from an 8 bit JPEG and a 16 bit TIFF.

The reason I keep the raw files is that you never know if you need to reproduce a slightly different version of an image but also because in the future, raw processors may be able to do things to raw files that we can only dream about today.

HTH

Louise…short answer = keep your RAW files. This is a wide-ranging topic, worthy of a small book, but here’s some key points:

Back in the film days would you get rid of your negatives and only keep a print? Kind of a crude analogy, but if you consider RAW files as your digital negatives it applies. You will (generally) always be able to render a final image from a RAW file. So my advice would be not to get rid of them (obviously delete the junk photos to save space). But also keep in mind that advancing technology might make processing a very old RAW file troublesome in the future. The DNG format is offered by Adobe as a way to combat that problem. But is it a true standard? You can also keep a JPEG of your keepers as additional protection.

In terms of storage, the costs of hard disks is minuscule compared to the value of your photos. Keep in mind that you should have duplicate off-site backups of your local storage, at least of the “best of the best”. Hard disks fail over time. Cloud storage is also becoming more affordable and available for backups of your best keepers.

Like I said, big topic.

Agreed … deleting the original RAW files is akin to pitching your negatives in the past. External hard drives are very economical as it relates to cost per image stored … just be sure to have redundancy.

I keep three copies of everything worth saving (I cull and delete any image that doesn’t have any marketable or sentimental value as an early step of cataloging a shoot). First external drive is for working copy of files. Second set of drives are working on site backup updated automatically using Carbon Copy Cloner over night, or manually as needed. I keep a set of drives off site that are backed up weekly, or as needed after larger jobs or crucial events. So when you buy externals for your work … buy at least two … even then, it’s still considerably inexpensive compared to losing your data.

If you have room for your images on your startup drive, and use Time Machine, this would create one backup of your images already … so you would only need one more backup source for better redundancy. Keep in mind, that if you are shooting RAW, even with judicious and firm culling of your work, you’ll soon outgrow the startup drive capacity.