Machine Embroidery
 

I have been ordering designs for my Emb. machine and just downloading to my computer.. Thinking if My computer would crash I would lose them all. Some places ask if you want a CD sent to you. I'm not sure how that works as I have only had my machine awhile. Any advice would be so helpful.
Thanks Nena

Once you download them, could you not save them or copies to a flash drive?

the CD is what you insert into your laptop computer. You can store your designs on USB sticks for your "back up". Are you ordering designs from online sources? I just create an email folder and store my designs in the folder. YOu can then access them from any PC.
sandy

Yes I have my designs in a folder (most of them) but would I not lose that if the computer crashed? Can I just burn them to a CD for back up?
Donna Jean . That's what I was wondering. Just did not want to lose them. lol I am new to all of this.
Thanks to both for your help.

I put all my designs on CDs so I have them if my laptop crashes.

You are so wise to think of backing up your designs!! Many embroiderers forget to back up their designs and then when their computer crashes they have lost everything... All my designs are backed up on a flash drive. Remember to add new designs to flash drive as you purchase them. You can burn them to a CD also.
Enjoy your new embroidery adventure!

yes you can burn them to a cd and also some sites if you register and create an account will have all you orders embroidery library is one of them and sew weird is another she has really nice vintage designs if you like the hand sewn look

I have tons of designs and they are on both computers, an external hard drive, a DVD, and flash drives. I have even made a copy of the DVD (as well as DVDs with my pictures) for my father to keep in his house, in the event of a catastrophe here. Better safe than sorry....

Thanks everyone for your help. Going to back up right now. Love the new machine. Only bought the Brother with the 4x4 hoop until I get comfy with it, but I already wish I had the 5x7 size and have only did a few things. lol

Some websites will have a record of what you ordered from them and have a place on their website where you can download them again. My computer crashed and I lost my embroidery designs and emailed the company I bought them from and they directed me to my design locations. Embroidery designs.com does this

Use google drive its a free cloud storage and you can access from any computer. I use this and zip drives. Don't keep anything on my computer anymore but can still connect my machine to computer and access designs from google drive

once you download them to your computer you can back them up on a cd yourself or a flash drive I backup my designs that way.

yes you sure can I make two and I have the option to burn them and then add more later

I download to an external hard drive than move the design to a jump or floppy to stitch

That's what I like about Emblibrary.com. They keep an order history of all designs for you. You can download them endless number of times. No need to copy or keep any other record at all. They also have monthly free designs, a large variety of designs, and each design has a page telling suggested colors and what each color of thread is used for in the design.

I did the same thing. I bought a Janome 200e because it has a little bigger hoop(5x5)than a similar priced Brother thinking it would be enough for me. 3 months later I was looking for a bigger machine. Now I have 2 machines and can't bring myself to sell the Janome. When the GKs are here I usually have both of them running. The kids call them Grammas magic machines.

Cari

I purchased two external hard drives last year during the "back to school sales". I copy everthing to both. One, I work off, by just transferring the designs I want to use. The other is at my best friends house, just in case my house goes up in flames. When I buy or download new designs, I copy those to a USB thumb drive and transfer those to the hard drive at her house. We do not live very far apart. She does the same thing, keeping one at my house.

I put all of my designs on a USB stick. I transfer the design I want to use to a 1 or 2GB stick to use directly on my Quattro. By putting it on a 1 or 2gb stick I don't have to search through my designs for the few I want to work with.

We have all our computer files backed up to Carbonite. There is a yearly fee but the backups are continual and automatic so this is one less thing I have to remember to do. Cheap insurance at twice the price but don't tell them I said that!

Definitely make a copy of them and store that copy. As others have mentioned, keep updating it as you buy more designs.

I use an external hard drive to backup my embroidery designs. It wasn't too expensive and worth the peace of mind. I just back up everything once a month

After I download the embroidery files, I sort them into categories on a thumb drive using 6D program. Such as alphabets, animals, children, snowflakes, or what ever makes sense to you. I only store the format my machine uses. If i ever need a different format 6D can convert them. They are never left on my computer long. Then when I want a certain file, I find it on my thumb drive and copy it to machine thumb drive for use. Every few months I back thumb drive up on an external drive as thumb drives can wear out too. I keep both thumb drives on a neck strap for convenient use. Judi

When I purchase designs if there is a cd available I will order that if not then I download and put onto a cd by designer name. Each designer has their own cd. I also back my designs onto an external hard drive. That way I have them several different places. The reason I do this is I did lose all my designs on account of a computer crash, so now I out then in all different places.

Have your designs backed up in several places - flash drives are great but have a higher failure rate so I would back them up to more than one. I have my on an external hard drive, on my computer, and on a 3 TB network hard drive. I am not good about backing up - in all likelihood I would probably loose a few designs but I would not have a devestating loss. I do try to back up to one of those locations once a month. If you do this awhile you will end up with a phenomenal amount of data. The other thing you can do is to subscribe to a data service like Carbonite.

I back up my computer on an external back up. There is always the option of saving things on a cloud storage but if you need the comfort of having a tangible storage I would put it on a thumb drive rather than burning a cd. Many lap tops and tablets don't even have a cd drive anymore but they have multiple USB ports that a thumb drive can be inserted. It is also easy to add additional files to a thumb drive. Back to school sales are a great time to pick up thumb drives.

I completely understand!! I purchased an external hard drive, and I back up all of my designs (store them there)...I will frequently (especially when purchasing a set of designs) pay the additional fee (generally $5 or $6) and have the CD sent in addition to being able to download for immediate use.

If you do not have some alternate storage ( even copying all of your designs on a blank CD) you face the potential of losing your designs if your computer crashes.

I have a desktop and a laptop, and my designs are stored on both of them, as well as on the external hard drive......I have too much invested in those designs to take a chance on losing them.

I bought an external hard drive 500 gig for under $100. About once every couple months I back up my laptop to it. That way if anything happens to the laptop I have all the files on the hard drive. I plan on organizing my embroidery files by type and placing on dvd instead of cd (dvd holds more) for use on my laptop that is in my sewing room. It is easier moving a dvd upstairs than it is unplugging and moving the hard drive. Its not that big but the plug is difficult to get to. Any files that I am actually using I put on a memory stick that can go directly into my machine. (Topaz 20)

I also copy all my embroidery and quilt design files to an external drive. That way I am always protected. My external hard drive holds a 1.5TB so don't think I'll ever fill it!

Do a back-up on your hard drive and save all of the designs to a cd rom or you could have a cd sent to you, but you'd have to wait for the designs.

I've had a PC crash and its not pretty when it happens. Some companies claim they can retrieve your files but my designs came back looking like someone made them into a jigsaw puzzle. Useless to me. I now keep all my files on another hard drive and then back them up weekly. Just the other day I got the "black screen of death" and had to take my tower in to have them fix it. I now know what to do when I goof up the next time though. I had to use my laptop but couldn't get to my files as it was on the extra hard drive in the tower so I'm thinking of adding another external hard drive so I can switch it out between PCs.

And yes, external hard drives can crash too so that's the reason for a backup. There are companies out on the web that provide a backup service for a nominal yearly fee. Some folks like them as it alleviates the worry of losing your files. You can also copy them onto CD/DVD but that's time consuming and if you're like me, you'd have to make new copies all the time.

I back up all of my embroidery designs on flash drives in folders so they are easy to find. This is really the way to go as some of the new computers do not have a CD drive, you can buy the drive as an add on but do you really need that? Not if you save to a flash drive.

You can put them on a flash drive, burn a DVD or CD, or upload to wherever you back up your computer (and if you don't back up your computer, you should.)

External hard drive just for my design folders. I lost them once, it was a frightful day

I have mine all backed up on cds

I save mine to a flash drive when I download..

Some new computers come without a CD drive now. You can use dropbox.com for free cloud service. You can store a lot of embroidery designs there free of charge.

My experience has been that you really do need to put them on cd's...it's the only way you can be sure you'll always have them...I have mine organized into catagories...floral, children, birds, etc., but do what works for you...but do get them on cd's

Nena, I also have an embroidery machine. I have set up a library for my designs and save them to the computer and a Zip drive. So that it is easier to find the design I want to use my library has many sub titles such as, animals, baby, flowers, holidays, etc. instead of searching through all the designs, I look in the appropriate sub folder. This saves time and a lot of frustration, as I have thousands of designs. I best and most successful on line web site for designs is Embroidery Library. They also have a history of the designs you acquire from them.

Just about every online site keeps a record of what you bought; even if they aren't visible like Emblibrary.com. The thing with all of them is that after a while designs are archived so if you don't have the right file name/number you won't be able to get them. I download all of my designs into a folder with the name of the site/company. I also have folders for all of my CD/flash designs with the names of the companies. This way, I know what company I got what from and have a back up copy plus the orginal file name if I ever have to contact the company and get a copy. The only time I order CD's is when that's the only option I have. After the orginal goes into folders with company names, I save a copy out to a folder under the correct category so its easier to find when I need it. I normally make two copies of the cd plus I also have a portable HD. Most of the normal sized laptops being sold still come with a cd drive, its usually the smaller ones that dont'. For that, yes I bought a portable cd drive because some of my designs or programs are on them and its the only way to get them onto my laptop. Good luck with your machine and do back up. There are lots of tutorials out there with different methods of organizine them. Floriani even sells a program for under 100 that you can store all of your designs in and when you open up the program it shows you a thumbnail of all of them. Its good when you know you have something but can't remember where you stored it at or the correct name.

I would definitely save them on a usb stick (flash drive). I have an external hard drive only for all my embroidery designs as well as a folder on my computer so if one goes bad, i have the backup.