Multiple hard drives or DVD backup for M8

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eleskin

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All of us who use digital have the problem of backup of photo files. One thing I hate is burning DVD after DVD as backup. This takes alot of time
and I have found it much easier to use 3 external drives that have the same files on them, a sort of poor mans RAID. My files are getting so huge, that this method saves me alot of time, and I have piece of mind knowing that if one drive fails, all is not lost. So is my approach the best, or should I sit in front of my MAC and burn DVD's for days and days? Maybe only the most important shots should be backed up on archival DVD to save time. I am one of those people who treats digital like film, never editing out shots I do not like. I save everything, even if I do not like it.
 
plus DVDs are only stable for 3 or 4 years before you need to reburn. Even the "archival ones" have issues.

I'm firmly in the RAID camp.
 
RAID is really not meant for backing up data. (I mean, what if the computer/enclosure with your raid set up melts?) You should keep two or more hard drives mirrored with your data. You can use rsync or any number of simple tools to do this. It's simpler than managing a RAID array, and you're less likely to have headaches when a disk craps out.
 
Stick with the hard drives, the mean time between failures for drives is so large, they will most likely become obsolete long before they fail. The only thing a DVD would offer would be resistance to a virus (i.e. a virus won't come along and delete your DVD). Or you could always look into tape drives...
 
ASMP recommends a 3-2-1 approach.

THREE copies of important data.

TWO different media (ie hard drives and DVDs for example)

ONE copy located off-site.

HTH
 
The best device is solid-state flash hard drive, now available at 128Gb at about $350. Such hard drive can be housed externally and connected to the computer via USB2 cable. The transfer speed is fast enough for real people.
 
I use the 2 computer approach. I offload files first onto the desktop, then the laptop, then clear the media card. At some point I'll get a flash hard drive, but the 500 gb prices are too high right now, and since both PCs are relatively new, I'm counting on not losing both at the same time.

In the meantime I am researching online backup sites as I'm too lazy to burn DVDs for offsite storeage.
 
My raid set up is this. I have one laptop and two external HD's. I put all scans, workfiles, finals etc on the big external HD. (the smaller is for transferring and works in progress). The two externals, and the computer are backed up in a full backup monthly, with incremental updates when projects are moving fast to an external mirrored RAID. (the enclosure has two seperate 1tb HD's mirrored - 1tb raid 1).

Unfortunately I don't have an offsite backup yet.
 
The worst place to keep your image files is on your computer. Buy a set of external drives with a fan enclosure. Use one as a backup for the other. Redundancy redundancy redundancy

Buy Peter Krogh's book, Digital Asset Management. It is a must.
 
I keep mine on a HD, Plus burn my "keepers" Every two to three months and also keep my website at Zenfolio which holds full size files that can be restricted for download. The Zenfolio site is my last storage. Just in case the house burns down. Knock on wood.......
 
My setup is a LaCie 2Big external drive ($379) with 2 500gb drives that are set to Raid 1 (They mirror each other)... This is plugged into my network in the basement of the house... I use Memeo an application that sits on my Macbook (Or Windows Machine) and mirrors all my data files to the backup mirrored drive on the fly

hd_2bignetwork.jpg
 
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For the time being, I keep 3 external drives. One of them is my working space, which I back up from time to time to the 2 others. My working drive is in the office, the two others at home. I also keep a copy on my laptop of what I am currently working on. Oh, and a 2.5" drive which I use more randomly.

My plan is to have a networked external drive hidden within the walls somewhere at my office, so that I will not be stolen if there is a break in.

Anyway, 3 copies divided between 2 places is what I believe will save me in the long run...

Anybody heard of a new service in England? Apparently you can upload your images and then get them returned as negatives/slides... This would be just perfect as the ultimate backup! Used pictostrats should also be cheap these days, but perhaps the quality is not too good on old stuff...
 
Just use mirrored hard disks. I'll never bother again with dvds, they're unreliable.
Avoid things like software RAID 1 on 2 USB drives (like I did), it's cheap, but you'll end up constantly rebuilding the array because it goes out of synch... USB is ok only for mouses....
 
I sync them manually from terminal on my mac...

Tried other solutions, but this is fast and makes me focus on what I am doing.
 
I suggest a drobo, very handy but a little pricey. DVD's are a big no no, back in the day I did a few dvd's with some pictures on them, 6 months later a quarter of the images were unreadable. AVOID.
 
Be a bit careful of "mirrored" drives - if you mirror at low level, you can end up mirroring corrupted files. You want to mirror files. Preferably to different operating systems/file systems. So, e.g, keep copies of the stuff on your Windows box on a Mac or Linux box. Most NAS storage runs Linux internally, btw. But maybe I'm just paranoid.

Also, don't put much faith in RAID drives for backup purposes - use them for convenience of not having to rebuild your system when a drive goes down, but retail RAID drives (usually RAID 5) are notorious for not always rebuilding properly if a bad sector crops up. And for TB+ drives, bad sectors pop up more often that you'd like. See here for fairly simple explanation: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/314

Sandy
 
If you run multiple drives, it's been strongly suggested that you should avoid consecutive serial numbers. If there's a bad run or qc is having an off day, one could be pooched.
 
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