Saving pictures from camera - online or on laptop?

I just bought a new camera and it comes with a memory that can store 4000 pictures, its a Nikon camera.

I'm not sure whether I should save my pictures on my laptop or online.

If I save the pictures on my laptop, what happens if one day my laptop dies and I can't get back all the memory on there? Also, it would take up a lot of space on my laptop.

If I save the pictures on a photo saving website, then I can access it on any computer in the world. But what happens if one day the website shuts down and doesn't give enough notice, is that even possible? And if it did give notice, how long would it take to transfer around 8000 pictures online to my laptop?

The current website I use to store pictures is mypicturetown.com, it was given by Nikon and they gave me 2GB worth of space and I just buy more space when I need it. Is it a reliable website? It is Nikon's own.

Can you please suggest a good way of saving my photos, or suggest a reliable website I could use?

I prefer to keep my materials accessible on my computer. I'm not worried about losing any data because I subscribe to Carbonite.com, which is about the cheapest insurance deal you can get. The biggest problem you'll face is keeping your photos organized. For free picture utility programs, you should check around on http:// www.komando.com and see what the radio/digital goddess suggests. The site has a wealth of information for all your consumer tech needs…

Save it on laptop so you can edit and upload. Also save it on your pendrive.

Back ups!
You are right… Hard drives can and do die. Websites could close or lose your photos.
It is unlikely that both will happen at the same time, but it is possible.
You may want to set up a good system right from the start - back up to DVD, plus find an online storage space (such as Zenfolio). Some people like to back up to an external hard drive (although that is vulnerable to viruses and you could lose everything from one virus).

What is probably even more important, is to learn about the correct way of dealing with memory cards.

Do NOT treat your memory card as a permanent image storage facility - a very bad idea!

Memory cards can and do fail, and sooner or later there's a good chance that will happen to you.

The correct thing to do is this:

After a day's shooting, download your photos to your computer.
Backup your images (e.g.onto a CD/DVD).
Post process, sort, delete, etc, then back up the "good" copies somewhere else.

When you have them safely on your computer, format (note: this is different to deleting) the card in your camera. That erases the photos, but also erases "housekeeping" stuff and errors. It isn't a guarantee, but formatting improves your chances of trouble free use of your memory card.

There are many mobile options for storing and viewing photos, your camera is a very bad choice for that.

I save my photos in multiple locations.

1.laptop
2.three different USB drives.
3. NAS (Network Attached Storage) device on my home network.

I do not save them online due to bandwidth and space requirements (I have a lot of high-quality photos).

I used to burn them to DVD but I have so many photos this is no longer practical.

But whatever method or combination of methods you use, you should have multiple copies of your photos, as any electronic device can fail.

And use your SD cards for working copies of your photos. Download them to your computer or other device for long term storage.