Photo backup questions and choice of media

Question

I recently bought an external 400GB harddrive connected to my Powerbook via Firewire intended for video-editing. But for now I've used it as a temporary organizing area for all my photos in iPhoto. I have several separate libraries (made possible with the help of "iPhoto buddy") and the biggest libraries are sized at around 10GB, 24GB and a massive 96GB RAW library. The smaller libraries are just sized at a couple of GB each, so they would be easy to transfer to DVD-Rs.
I'm done organizing my photos, so the next step will be to find a suitable way to store and back them all up safely.
1) What would be a good and permanent storage solution for my iPhoto libraries?
The 400GB will be reserved for my video editing, and the internal 80GB drive is too small for all my photos.
An additional external drive is an option, but although drives aren't expensive, the addition of an external enclosure doesn't exactly make it cheap. besides I've read that experts don't recommend hard drives as a means of backup as they're not reliable enough for that.
My powerbook has a dual layer Superdrive which helps, but Dual-Layer DVD-Rs are hard to come by and expensive, and with regular 4.7GB DVD-Rs I would need more than 20 of those for backing up my RAW library (40 DVD-Rs if you consider a second backup for added safety). Doable, but a lot of work.
Other, better suggestions?
It would also be nice to gain regular access to those photos, but as I've pointed out, the internal 80GB drive is too small. The RAW photos only need to be accessible whenever I need to edit something, but the 24GB library consists of all my regular JPG photos.
2) I've read about iPhoto's ability to back up your entire library to DVD, but haven't found answers to the following:
a) Does this procedure just locate all your photos inside the maze of iPhoto folders and dump them to DVDs, or does it actually make a complete backup with the entire structure intact? I've spent considerable time creating albums, smart albums, Keywords, added comments etc. and don't want to loose that.
b) Once a library has been backed up to one or several DVDs (depending on the size of the library), how do I build a new library from those DVDs, hopefully including all the structural information like comments, albums, Keywords etc?

Answer 1

I recently bought an external 400GB harddrive
connected to my Powerbook via Firewire intended for
video-editing. But for now I've used it as a
temporary organizing area for all my photos in
iPhoto. I have several separate libraries (made
possible with the help of "iPhoto buddy") and the
biggest libraries are sized at around 10GB, 24GB and
a massive 96GB RAW library. The smaller libraries are
just sized at a couple of GB each, so they would be
easy to transfer to DVD-Rs.
I'm done organizing my photos, so the next step will
be to find a suitable way to store and back them all
up safely.
1) What would be a good and permanent storage
solution for my iPhoto libraries?
The 400GB will be reserved for my video editing, and
the internal 80GB drive is too small for all my
photos.
An additional external drive is an option, but
although drives aren't expensive, the addition of an
external enclosure doesn't exactly make it cheap.
besides I've read that experts don't recommend hard
drives as a means of backup as they're not reliable
enough for that.
My powerbook has a dual layer Superdrive which helps,
but Dual-Layer DVD-Rs are hard to come by and
expensive, and with regular 4.7GB DVD-Rs I would need
more than 20 of those for backing up my RAW library
(40 DVD-Rs if you consider a second backup for added
safety). Doable, but a lot of work.
Other, better suggestions?
It would also be nice to gain regular access to those
photos, but as I've pointed out, the internal 80GB
drive is too small. The RAW photos only need to be
accessible whenever I need to edit something, but the
24GB library consists of all my regular JPG photos.
2) I've read about iPhoto's ability to back up
your entire library to DVD, but haven't found answers
to the following:
a) Does this procedure just locate all your
photos inside the maze of iPhoto folders and dump
them to DVDs, or does it actually make a complete
backup with the entire structure intact? I've spent
considerable time creating albums, smart albums,
Keywords, added comments etc. and don't want to loose
that.
b) Once a library has been backed up to one or
several DVDs (depending on the size of the library),
how do I build a new library from those DVDs,
hopefully including all the structural information
like comments, albums, Keywords etc?
I noticed this post and I am currently experiencing the same issue. I am new to Iphoto and I just 'came back' to MAC after 2 decades away. Do you have any isight or advice here?
Thanks