How are you backing up your photos?

[KEH]

I use a Drobo RAID drive which mirrors to two drives, then make separate backup disks which are cycled through my safe deposit box. The separate drives are swapped after each trip to Africa, and more often if I feel it is about time...

Kirk

 

[Deleted member 65559]

I put my negatives in a box... 🙂

 

[johannielscom]

Eight years later, I'm still using the same system I described in 2011 in post #41. For both scans and digital shots.

Haven't lost a single file, and can retrieve any file or scan from the name I gave it.

For instance, this has the name in the post on Flickr, "file: 20180401_67Fomapan100_9" so I instantly know where to find it



Luchtkasteel - Castle in the clouds by Johan Niels Kuiper, on Flickr

 

[Erik van Straten]

I keep my negatives in a file, every page is numbered. I am now on page 1093. The file starts in 1972. On the first new page in a new year I write the number of that year. This is to make searching a bit easier.

I make prints on 18cm x 24cm of my most important shots. On their back is written the year when the picture is taken and the number of the page in the negative file where the negative can be found. All the boxes together including the negative files will fit in one cardboard box. If dry and safe from fire this box can survive ages.
I do not trust a digital file because nobody will look at it.

Erik.

 

[Archiver]

So if my endless hard drives are essentially safe from prying eyes because they contain too many pictures for others to look at, then my best bet for images to survive me is Godfrey's plan. Godfrey prints his best images in photo books and gives them to the Library of Congress. That's a darn good idea, and it means that his images will survive in at least one place.

My digital storage and backups run like this:

1. All raw files are sorted into folders according to year, camera, and month. So there will be a 2019 folder with subfolders for camera brands, and in each folder there are subfolders for each month. This is duplicated across at least two hard drives.

2. All processed images are sorted in a similar manner, but by year, and then into subfolders according to place or activity. Family, Work, Travel, etc. Everything is in folders labeled with year and month, so it's all very easy to navigate and find. Again, this is duplicated across multiple hard drives.

3. Each time a hard drive becomes full, it goes into offsite storage (parent's house) and I buy larger hard drives that holds previous work and more.

I'm giving a lot of thought to creating photobooks of my best work, or most emotionally important work, and giving them to trusted family members and friends, as well as seeing if I can get them into local and interstate libraries. Thanks Godfrey, for this idea.

 

[willie_901]

Ransomware Advice

Ransomware Advice

I recently read about recent versions of ransomware attacks where back up drives connected to the compromised computer were also encrypted. I do not know if data stored on a cloud drive could be encrypted if the cloud rive was virtually mounted during a ransomware attack.

So, always physically disconnect a back up of your back ups. How often one backs up their backup depends on their risk tolerance.Or, disconnect your back up as soon as it is finished. Unfortunately this means passive automation is no longer passive.

The best advice is never, ever click on an email link if you ae not 100% certain the link is safe. The same goes for email attachments.

A less common ransomeware attack is via Exploit kits.Exploit kits are hidden on infected web sites. Often clicking on an ad link can redirect you to a web page with a hidden exploit kit. This is results in a drive-by download of ransomware.

Old, unsupported versions of OS or OS that are not updated regularly is asking for trouble. These situations represent low-hanging fruit to the bad guys.

Cybersecurity software that is kept current can make a difference too. The perpetrators are always discovering new ways to beat cybersecurity software.

 

[Jeremy Z]

1. Hard drive on PC
2. External USB hard drive
3. Upload to Facebook and Flickr

Also, I don't save hundreds of thousands of images. One only needs to keep the keepers and family photos.