Saving photos advice

[Baseratefallacy]

Hello, I have had a search around the site but can't find info about this.

Please could some kind person explain to me - in Noddy terms - how I save copies of quite a lot of very precious photos that are currently in my computer and put them somewhere (electronically) that is very safe please?

The reason I am doing this is that my computer is very old and slow and I want to change it to a new one before it breaks down completely. But I don't want any photos of my daughter growing up being lost in the process.

I am happy to buy any equipment that will help this process.

Someone mentioned the cloud but we haven't had a great deal of success with it. (If it's significant, I live in Europe Zone One and not in the UK.)

Thank you very much for any help or advice!

Anyone please?

You could buy a memory stick and transfer them onto that.
The memory stick file will open on the Desktop and you simply drag the photos you want to keep onto that.

Remember to right click on the folder and click on Eject before removing the memory stick.

Easiest way is as Pavlova said.
If there's hundreds of photos then you may need something bigger in storage capacity terms like an external hard drive which plugs into a usb port on your machine, just like the memory stick would. Simple Drag & Drop to copy photos over.
Personally I would have 2 forms of backup anyway for my precious photos.
Link below to a decent memory stick and a usb drive on Amazon
128gb memory stick - tinyurl.com/huypet8k £13.00
Toshiba External hard drive - tinyurl.com/cpzny6tz £40

Hello Pavlova31 and Species5618 I can't thank you enough for your help and advice which I am going to follow to the letter!

One last question; there are quite a few photos and my computer is very old and doddery. Could an external hard drive cause it to finally keel over and die?

@Baseratefallacy

Hello Pavlova31 and Species5618 I can't thank you enough for your help and advice which I am going to follow to the letter!

One last question; there are quite a few photos and my computer is very old and doddery. Could an external hard drive cause it to finally keel over and die?

No, I don't so so. An external hard drive doesn't download anything to your computer which might push it over the edge. You just plug it in, copy and paste your photos over, press eject and you're done.

Thank you very much indeed BlackCatShadow much appreciated!

Memory sticks can fail and also, in the event of a fire backups stored with the computer are at risk of being destroyed by the same event.

Ideally you would have at least 2 backups with one off site, either in the cloud or kept at friend or relatives house.

I would suggest buying a DVD/Blu-ray writer and storing the photos on DVDs/Blu-Ray disks with copies stored at multiple locations.

A DVD will store about 4.5GB and Blu-ray disks will store a lot more, maybe 25GB. I'm not sure of the life time of those disks. I think it's about 10 years? I believe you can get archival quality disks that will last longer, but cost significantly more.

Thanks very much for this additional information CruelAndUnusualParenting. I had planned to leave several copies at addresses other than our home but I will now look in to DVD/Blue-ray writer storage too.