Originally Posted by
pcsb23
Need to get you in the raw - oops I mean taking photos in raw format ;)
Matt, usb3 is signaificantky faster - would probably cut your time to a quarter.
I went through this exercise last year - not quite as much as you, just under 400Gb, but around a similar number of images. What started it for me was trying to find a couple of images and I couldn't! Basically I had used a variety of unique and novel ways to catalogue and store them. I used a variety of software in my workflow to download, convert (from raw) and edit my photos. In an attempt to preserve my sanity I've settled on one product, LightRoom, to do the downloading, cataloguing and converting - I can also do 90% or more of my editing in there too and have been hugely impressed with it. The older versions of LR were not particularly good at converting Nikon raw files, very good for Canon though. Apparently this is because the developers all shot Canon, they must have got some Nikon shooters on board as version 4.x is very good!
After backing up the originals I went through and deleted all the rubbish ones, it took a few days! Then removed all the ok but not good images to an archive, which has left me with my working catalogues. I have networked storage and have automated backups set up to that. Periodically I back the storage up to an off site location. I also upload (direct from LR) hi-res jpegs of my "best" or important images to an archive area of my website.
When I download off the camera I am a lot more ruthless now. I go through and delete all that are oof, all that have cut off subjects and all that are just plain rubbish. All of them now get keywords added and I put them into suitable collections too.