Syncback SE is what I use. I created a live folder on my SCSI drive, such that anything copied in there will automatically be copied in realtime to the Drobo.
I also have a once in a while backup that takes the contents of the Drobo's "Photos" area (all my work) and pushes them to a 1TB external drive. Unfortunately, I've outgrown that drive.
The software I spoke of though is Drobo Dashboard. It tells you how your drobo is doing. I just like it because it gives you accurate info on how many gigs you have left, etc. Windows does not do this properly because the Drobo looks like a 2TB drive,regardless of actual space. Weird, but then the Drobo is not your average drive bay.
Steve Ickes wrote:
I've never used the Drobo so cannot comment directly about its operation. However, personally I'd much rather prefer to use NAS-based solution rather than USB. For the past two years I've been using a nice little "box" from BitLeap which sits on my network.
Steve- What other NAS boxes did you look at when you purchased? I've been seriously considering one of these in order to access files when on the road. What is the total cost, including your monthly services?
Anyone else out there working with NAS?
PShiz- Does photoshelter accept Tif or RAW files? I have JPG's backed up on my smugmug account, but they don't accept any other file types.
One more Q: Does Drobo or any other "back-up" system out there intelligently back-up files in an automated way?
Let me explain with an example:
I get home from a typical shoot (Call it "Moab Trip") and download files to my internal laptop drive (Macbook Pro). After combing through, deleting, and rating in Adobe Bridge, I copy my newly created folder to two external drives via USB2.
Okay, so two months later, I'm on the road again and decide to work on the files (Moab Trip) from a few months earlier. I end up re-processing two or three shots including some extensive layering in PS and save the new TIf files my Laptop HD. I also delete a few more shots that I missed previously. Ok, so now I get home and have no desire to figure out which files I've re-worked, deleted, etc. so I end up deleting the "Moab Trip" folder from both external HD's and re-saving the folder that has the latest processing applied.
Am I crazy!? I know there's a much simpler way to back-up all new data (including deleted data). Time Machine? Drobo? What is the solution?
Note: With such large files, I'll often dump the folder off of my laptop as new shoots come along and work primarily from the external HD's, and then make copies from one external to another. (but the same principle applies)
all the formats Photoshelter accepts. While they were created by and for photographers, they realized that we work with designers, illustrators, and other creative people who use various formats.
winzphoto wrote:
One more Q: Does Drobo or any other "back-up" system out there intelligently back-up files in an automated way?
Let me explain with an example:
I get home from a typical shoot (Call it "Moab Trip") and download files to my internal laptop drive (Macbook Pro). After combing through, deleting, and rating in Adobe Bridge, I copy my newly created folder to two external drives via USB2.
Okay, so two months later, I'm on the road again and decide to work on the files (Moab Trip) from a few months earlier. I end up re-processing two or three shots including some extensive layering in PS and save the new TIf files my Laptop HD. I also delete a few more shots that I missed previously. Ok, so now I get home and have no desire to figure out which files I've re-worked, deleted, etc. so I end up deleting the "Moab Trip" folder from both external HD's and re-saving the folder that has the latest processing applied.
Am I crazy!? I know there's a much simpler way to back-up all new data (including deleted data). Time Machine? Drobo? What is the solution?
Note: With such large files, I'll often dump the folder off of my laptop as new shoots come along and work primarily from the external HD's, and then make copies from one external to another. (but the same principle applies) ...Show more →
Yes, there exists software to do that, you can download some packages, others come with computers, still others you can pay money to license. Some examples of software backup software (or that use for backup) include dump, rsync, tar, amanda, bacula and cpio.
winzphoto wrote:
Steve- What other NAS boxes did you look at when you purchased? I've been seriously considering one of these in order to access files when on the road. What is the total cost, including your monthly services?
Anyone else out there working with NAS?
PShiz- Does photoshelter accept Tif or RAW files? I have JPG's backed up on my smugmug account, but they don't accept any other file types.
It's been a few years since I went through the process but I pretty much looked at all disk-based systems, comparing price and feature set. For me BitLeap really did offer everything I needed at a price point I could afford. For instance Cisco offers the same type of product/service but their cost of offline storage is like 200% more than BitLeap's. I finally decided on BitLeap after meeting and talking with their president and other employees. They just really seemed to have the focus and plan that I was looking for. They have a great plan for future growth and lots of ideas for adding additional functionality to their system. It is incredibly flexible and extensible.
With regard to your other question....BitLeap's backup service is automated to check those file folders you've marked for backup and copy all files that have changed since the last backup. The one thing I really like though is that they maintain a revision history. Let's say you make some changes to one particular image and save it. It gets backed up. You decide to go back and make more changes a week later. It gets backed up again. But a week later your client decides they want the first revision but you've already made changes to that. With BitLeap, every single revision is saved as a separate file. You can go back and restore just that particular revision because every revision has been saved. Pretty sweet.
They offer several different products with different capacities and configurations. Additionally, for those who don't necessarily want to buy one more computer, they do offer the option to lease a backup appliance. If you lease, they will automatically replace your unit with an updated version at the time of contract renewal. Additionally, they automatically update all software on the unit as improvements are made. Beyond all the hardware and software, the strength of the company is that it is a Managed Service. They have a fulltime staff that constantly monitors backup jobs and is quick to respond to any issues they see but you may not even know about.
I don't know if this has been covered here but when purchasing the drives for your drobo, choose different drives by different manufacturers. I was speeching to a data recovery company and they said they get more then one drive going out on raid arrays quite often due to the fact that people buy from the same manufacture and sometimes lot #.... If a certain manufacture has a bad bearing or something then they go bad about the same time...
They said for reassurance just get different drives of the same size and speed... and for sure never the same lot #
Just my 2 cents..... I thought it made since....... If a lemon was produced on day one.... there could be other lemons on the same day...
Steve
Steven Cox wrote:
I don't know if this has been covered here but when purchasing the drives for your drobo, choose different drives by different manufacturers. I was speeching to a data recovery company and they said they get more then one drive going out on raid arrays quite often due to the fact that people buy from the same manufacture and sometimes lot #.... If a certain manufacture has a bad bearing or something then they go bad about the same time...
They said for reassurance just get different drives of the same size and speed... and for sure never the same lot #
Just my 2 cents..... I thought it made since....... If a lemon was produced on day one.... there could be other lemons on the same day...
Steve ...Show more →
I don't think it should matter that much, since the data on a raid unit should be backed up.
I am just relaying what was told to me by a company that does data recovery.... They said it happens more then you think and this was the solution they gave....
My point was not that a batch of hard disks (or anything else) may be bad or fail at the same time, but rather - you (in the general sense) should have backups, and using raid does NOT count. There are many other things that could result in data loss with a raid system - user error, software faults, hardware faults, electrical problems, theft/fire, and probably others as well. Reducing the probability of multiple disks failling at the same time is not going to do much with respect to overall risk.
Hi there Note I'm talking here BACKUP and not ling term archival --that's another topic. -Blu Ray @ 50GB per DVD *might* be a solution there --haven't really investigated that option yet.
Any decent motherboard these days will allow you to connect 7 (yes SEVEN) SATA drives (or even more) - none of which cost more than around 100 USD for as much as 500GB per disk.
RAID is available also on the motherboard if you need it.
Personally I do a 2 stage backup
1) from real working production dives back up to one of the available SATA drives.
2) Copy the SATA data to 2 different portable USB drives which are stored offline.
Cheap, easy, fast, no particular special configuration needed.
You can leave the SATA drives on the file server if you want to use networking.
These little portable USB drives such as WD passport can be up to 350 GB, and don't need a separate power supply. Incredibly portable as well if you want to connect to a physically different machine (not on your network).
That will give you 3.5 TB of removable portable storage really cheaply -- even the most avid shooter will take time to fill these up completely.
So if say you have 10 of these they won't occupy much space (in fact about the same as 10 DVD's in jewel cases , but less than 1/2 the width of the dvd's
Make sure as always with backups you have at any one time AT LEAST 2 separate copies, and preferably store one off site. (Note - this works fine for small offices / studios / individual users. Large corporations obviously will use different stategies -- so the solution outlined above should be read in that context).
I also don't like the idea of online backup for 2 reasons -- one you don't have 100% total control of your own data and two the chances are that when you actually need to recover your data you might not have a working internet connection.
Corporate greed is also beginning to rear its ugly head --some ISP's which used to give you essentially "Unlimited download quota" per month are beginning to apply ever more restrictive "Fair Usage policies" - due to the increasing amount of video streaming people are using such as watching movies direct online rather than via DVD's etc.
Using online backup services - especially for largish data volumes might become hideously expensive in future.
