Better than DVD's, put a third drive from your raid system in the fire box. That way the raid always has two and periodically, you can swap out the "safe" disc and let the raid rebuild it. That way you have three disks. I hope that was clear.
Being a PC person I sacrifice an Apple at every oppoturnity. So far it's worked pretty well!
HDs sitting on a shelf are got gonna come back to life. It is not a reliable way to strore data. Don't even think about it.
DVDs are better IMO. I've had many HDs not spin up or be readable after sitting on a shelf but I've never had a DVD not work. BUt they are slow to burn and these days don't hold enough.
RAID is a good first line, but it's not backup.
Tape backup systems have been THE standard for decades and is what we should probaby be using, but some removeable hot swap HDs can work. Tapes are cheap but tape drives of large capacity are not.
What is the data worth? If you lose it what will it cost you? Know those numbers and you know what you should spend on a backup solution.
My problem is I am generating 400+ gb of data a year and more than doubling that every year. So in '09 I will have around 1Tb of new data (and more if I get a 5D2 and shoot full res RAW files). You need backups of that as well as business data. Ideally daily.
But can that be done reliably? Ever test your backup? I did and guess what? It didn't work.
I lost my email (corrupted) and the restored file (backed up daily) was NOT readable by outlook after restoration. Not even going back 30 days! Other files were teh same way. Backup software said it was ok, but nothing would read. Useless.
I was using an automated copy for weekly backups to an external HD. The local machine was fine. The other machine on the network, while I never got any errors, never copied a single file. Again, it's not backup if the disk is blank!
So I am re-evaluating things. DVDs don't look so bad afterall!
Better than DVD's, put a third drive from your raid system in the fire box. That way the raid always has two and periodically, you can swap out the "safe" disc and let the raid rebuild it. That way you have three disks. I hope that was clear.
Ever been to a place that burned to the ground? SHOW ME that the data will be readable. First, the safe will be in the basement, under all sorts of debris. It will have been 1000 degrees at least and then soaked in water. This time of year it will then experience days of sub freezing temps. You do realize you can't go get it for a few days, right? And then it might not be safe to go in there. Ever maybe.
Data is fine- but you gotta backup everything else. Work at home and teh house urns down? You need a new computer, software and you'll be working in a hotel room for weeks.
The only safe backup is kept off site - relatives house or bank safe deposit box.
martines34 wrote:
I have a Drobo attached to my computer (www.drobo.com) which has two 1T drives for redundancy. It has room for 2 additional drives.
I think the Drobo is a really cool product, but what happens when your Drobo fails or the company goes out of business. A single drive can't be read by a computer. At least that's what I understand.
Currently everything is stored in two locations. The HDD in my PC, and an external HD.
I am running out of space, so after christmas my setup will be using a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA HD dock. That way, I can simply buy HDs and swap them out and leave them on the shelf (or in a fireproof safe, etc.) until I need them.
I also use an APC battery backup system. If the power goes out, I have about 5 minutes to safely shut down. What's also nice about this is that the computer and whatever else is plugged in runs off of the battery which continually charges, so a surge/shock/whatever doesn't reach it. Nice peace of mind.
martines34 wrote:
I'm not a professional or I would have a different approach.
After a shoot I preview my images and get rid of the obviously bad ones.
I then copy the file to a portable hard drive.
I then copy the images to my program of choice (iPhoto, Aperture, LR, or PS ) _ this places them on my internal HD.
I have a Drobo attached to my computer (www.drobo.com) which has two 1T drives for redundancy. It has room for 2 additional drives.
Works for me.
As long as you never keep an "only copy" of anything on the DROBO, relying on its "redundancy". The storing on the DROBO alone is not a backup solution, unless it is simply used as second/external hard drive... But a simple second/external hard drive is more cost effective, more efficient, faster and less prone to "proprietary failure". a DROBO is a good solution if you're running a web or FTP server though, and need 24/7 uptime, but is overkill and inefficient as a photo storage/backup solution.
"I think the Drobo is a really cool product, but what happens when your Drobo fails or the company goes out of business. A single drive can't be read by a computer. At least that's what I understand. "
I think that you can say that about any manufacturer that there is - "here today, gone tomorrow."
I'm happy with the performance of the Drobo and the response from their Support Department.
You can easily change the drives and exchange drives should you wish to exchange one. Pretty much plug and play.
When one drive fails the Drobo senses it is going to go and copies information from the dying drive to another good drive. I've had it happen and Drobo took care of replacing the WD drive for me.
-I have my current work in progress and last 12 months on my desktop PC's internal hard drives
-These are mirrored nightly to RAID 1 external storage.
-When post-processing is done, the raw files+XMP and finished JPEG are copied to DVDs and additional non-RAID external hard drives.
Beware of RAID - the arrays (firmware, etc) fail far more often than the physical hard drives but the result is the same. I do not use DVDs. I download to external, backup on another external using syncback SE on manual mode. I also use Pictage for wedding online hosting/backup of JPEGs, but do not use any other form of off-site backup. I have two more drives used for archive and archive backup. All backup and archive drives turned off until backup/archive needed.
I posted info from smugmug, and not one comment, and the info given by smugmug cannot be beat. So I will post it once again.
Your priceless photos are stored in multiple datacenters, in multiple states, and at multiple companies.
So, how does your current backup system, beat that?
Oh and not only are my jepgs on smugmug, but I have the raws/jpegs on external HD's and also the image processer person I have also keeps raw/jpeg of my stuff.
From what you guys have posted seems to have more work involved then anything else. A smugmug pro account is 149.00yr (I got in at 99yr, 3 years ago.)
Gary Harfield wrote:
I posted info from smugmug, and not one comment, and the info given by smugmug cannot be beat. So I will post it once again.
Your priceless photos are stored in multiple datacenters, in multiple states, and at multiple companies.
So, how does your current backup system, beat that?
Oh and not only are my jepgs on smugmug, but I have the raws/jpegs on external HD's and also the image processer person I have also keeps raw/jpeg of my stuff.
From what you guys have posted seems to have more work involved then anything else. A smugmug pro account is 149.00yr (I got in at 99yr, 3 years ago.)
You get alot for 149.00, I call it piece of mind. ...Show more →
Gary's my buddy and he sold me on SmugMug Pro account earlier this past year when I did have a hard drive failure.
Do not trust harddrives... keep as many backups as reasonably possible. Your business depends on it.
