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Archive 2012 · new back up plan

  
 
david debalko
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p.2 #1 · new back up plan


Thanks Bruce, that explained NAS for me better than when I went to the NetGear ReadyNAS community page.

I had been using my LaCie 2 Big Quadra in mirrored/Raid 1 mode. The problem is that we got an error message and couldn't do anything with the photos; add more, edit what was on there, or at first even copy. Luckily we were able to copy the files and nothing was damaged. My concern is, what good is having the mirrored drives when I couldn't tell which was bad or access the good side? It may have been more of a file type error, so no drive was bad just corrupted files. I am now making another copy of all files onto a portable drive, then I will go back in and partition drive, which will wipe clean. Then I will have to test it over time to see if I trust it again....

It sounds like the NAS system lets you know which drive is bad and allows access to the other drive, which would solve this problem. We don't really have the need to network between computers too much, we sometimes want to access the files from the house and have to email from our detached office or access through our zenfolio library.

So now I have to decide between the NAS system or continuing using mirrored (RAID 1) drives and use an additional portable drive once a week which we would bring into the house to keep files in a separate location. I will look into it using your advice above. Thanks again.



Jul 27, 2012 at 12:40 PM
Dennis M 1064
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p.2 #2 · new back up plan


So, can these external drives operate with Thunderbolt, or do you have to go with USB or firewire?

If that is a dumb question, sorry. Just ordered my first Mac, and it isn't here yet. Pretty Mac dumb. (but I don't care. . .sounds like a song. . .never mind)



Jul 27, 2012 at 03:02 PM
Bruce n Philly
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p.2 #3 · new back up plan


Thunderbolt is a high speed transfer protocol between your MAC and a peripheral like an external hard drive. However, a NAS connects to your network, not your MAC. Like all devices, PCs, Printers, NASs, that attach to the network, they are attached via Ethernet cable or wireless. Your router is usually the central hub that allows each device to talk to each device.

Now with computers, almost any thing is possible, but Thunderbolt is not a networking technology but a PC-peripheral communications technology. If you have a disk drive device attached to your MAC via Thunderbolt, you can get to it from other PCs via the network to that MAC and then through to the drive.

RAID

In my description of RAID, I was assuming that the NAS was configured in RAID X (which is Netgrear's implementation of RAID 5). This is how I like to see NASs configured. These NAS devices support all kinds of crazy configurations and this flexibility makes them very confusing for non-IT geeks.

RAID 1, also known as mirroring, writes the same data to both drives, hence one drive is a mirror or copy of the other. To your PC, you only see one drive. If both drives are 1 terabytes (TB) in size each, you really only have 1 TB of storage but a duplicate copy on the other drive should one fail. RAID 1 is great if your backup needs are not great and won't outgrow the drive space. The downside of RAID 1 is that when you need more space, you have an issue and must start doing some reconfiguring, or split your backups across mirrored drives and this is pretty difficult and confusing.

RAID X (or RAID 5) is a little different. By the way, NetGear calls their RAID 5 implementation RAID X because they added some cool features so they technically can't call it RAID 5 but for non-geeks, it is the same. RAID X allows you to add disk drives as you need them (among some other neat features).

Let's say you have three 1TB drives installed in the NAS and you configured them for RAID X (5). These three drives appear to your PC as one drive but you don't get 3 TBs of space, you get a percentage less (can't remember the math exactly) because the NAS writes your data along with redundant, special data across all the drives and this takes up space. What this special data does for you, is that should any one of the three drives fail, all of the data is still preserved.... pretty darn cool. The downside is the system now runs slowly and data access and writing becomes slow. If you don't replace the failed drive quickly, and another fails, all data is lost.

The ReadyNAS will now generate and send an email alert to whomever you set up with a message that a drive failed. You quickly buy another, pull the bad one out (red light) and snap the new one in. The system then rebuilds the data and special data across the new and old drives - it repairs itself - then resumes normal, fast performance.

The biggest reason I like RAID X (5) is that people (i.e., me) usually add more internal drives to their PCs because as we all know, photography takes up tons and tons of space. Also, because a NAS is on your network, anyone on your network can now use the NAS to backup their stuff. Your backup system must grow to accept this growing data load. RAID 1 will usually tap out requiring you to do some work. With a RAID X, you just add more disk drives to the NAS box. That is why I recommend getting a big box with many drive slots and starting out with just say two big disk drives.

Backing up the backup.

Do you need to backup the NAS? Maybe, maybe not. If your NAS is really a backup, then all of the data on it by definition is on your PCs. If the whole NAS gives up the ghost (say its circuit board fries), that is OK as your data is still on your PCs. If you "backup" your data from your PCs to the NAS and then delete data from your PC to free up PC space, then the NAS is really not a backup but a primary storage device - therefore, it needs to be backed up.

I can go on and on, but I hope this helps clear up what should not be complex --- backups.

NASs have tons of features on them and I only just scratched the surface. As I noted in my other post, they can backup themselves, unattended, to an offsite storage company like Carbonite (I never did this). They can also be an FTP server so that you can transfer photos to and from the NAS from anywhere in world you have net access while traveling. (sure beats GoToMyPC).

I hope this provides some value. I am going to copy what I wrote here and create a new blog entry on my blog on backups (some day).

Bruce
www.TravelThroughPictures.com



Jul 27, 2012 at 05:58 PM
Dennis M 1064
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p.2 #4 · new back up plan


Ok Bruce, I think you just managed to get through to me. No easy task.

So, I will be wanting to set up a NAS in RAIDx, but, would be using it primarily as storage. I would still do an off-site storage. Between fire, tornados, lightening, and the cheap and poor way this house was built, I wouldn't want to build years of work and bet that it is completely safe here.

I also like the idea that they can be an FTP server. I have a brother that is an IT geek in Georgia. I think I now know (much better anyways) what I will want him to put together for me. I have time to learn more before then, and it looks like I need to cruise on over to your Blog.

Thanks Bruce!

Dennis




Jul 28, 2012 at 06:32 AM
davekone
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p.2 #5 · new back up plan


These NASs can be configured with just two big drives, or three, or four or six depending on the model. What is nice about this is you can grow your capacity as needed. Start with two drives, as it fills over time, add another, add another. Cool.

I am not with Bruce on this one.

A NAS is more complexity than most people need. Again you do NOT want your backup device always connected in case of electricity nightmares, and they occur more often than you realize. If your NAS goes down (not a hard drive) all your data is inaccessible. If you use single drives you can just grab your backup drive and plug it in where the primary failed and you are up and running.

A NAS is a great solution for large companies in some instances but for home photography or even a photography business a large hard drive will keep you going for quite some time. Perhaps if the original poster could tell us how much space he uses per week or month?

When you fill up a hard drive, you pull the backup drive and the drive it backed up out of your system. You keep one drive to access as needed and the other goes offsite just in case.

You then replace the 2 drives with whatever capacity you need for any new photos going forward. Trying to keep your entire library available since day one is not really needed for most people but is possible given the size of drives now a days. Again the original poster would have to give more info.

For example my photo drive right now is 2tb, it has 90,213 photos including edits taking up 813 gigs of space. This is a combination of 1d3 10mp, 1d4 16mp and 5d2 21mp files. Unless you are a real snap happy high volume shop of some sort a NAS is overkill and putting all your eggs in one basket that can go at any time.

Hard drives in your system will be faster than a NAS over ethernet but not a NAS hooked up to an external SATA port.



Jul 28, 2012 at 07:00 PM
david debalko
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p.2 #6 · new back up plan


In answer to Davekone on how much storage we need, we are filling up about 500GB in a year. The mirrored drive we have been using is 2TB split, so 1 TB capacity. The one we are now using has about 300GB on it after 9 months. We are really using it as a working storage, not backup, because we don't put the photos onto the computer's hard drive. I am planning now to copy it weekly onto another drive, and bring that into the house (office is detached.) We have filled a few hard drives over the last few years, and occasionally have to go back into one of them to look for an older file. We were also burning dvds to backup as well, but would prefer not to keep doing that. I think the extra hard drive once a week will replace that.


Jul 28, 2012 at 08:11 PM
Bruce n Philly
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p.2 #7 · new back up plan


Yes, a NAS is a complex and more expensive solution.... totally agree. Once set up, however they offer many advantages, services, and conveniences particularly in a multi-PC environment. Only you can make these decisions based on your needs and desire for convenience and cool services.

If your have one PC, and one disk drive, I recommend Acronis and just clone your drive. I single disk drive connected to your PC via a USB cable is also fine. They work.

Disk mirroring is a fine, fine way of protecting a primary storage drive. As I noted, this method needs work when you fill the drive. Nothing technically wrong with mirroring and it is nice to have a carbon copy of the drive ready to go (does anyone under say 30 know where the term "carbon copy" comes from?).

I never mentioned the lighting/electrical issues and they are real. For that, I have APC battery sytems on key components including a dedicated one for my main PC workstation. For example, my router, network hubs, cable modem, and NAS are all on one, dedicated APC battery backup. The NAS is connected to the APC unit via USB cable and I have the NAS set to power itself down when the battery hits 50%. These battery systems also offer electrical filtration and a good level of lighting protection. Notice I wrote good and not complete. Nothing beats disconnecting for lightning protection.

I had a big storm blow through a few weeks ago, power went off/on/off/on/flickering.... It blew out the controller to my furnace motor and a cheap stereo. Power issues are real. I am now looking into whole-home protection at my breaker panel (looks like Eaton makes a good system). I have Trip Light filtration and voltage regulation on all my major home theater and expensive electronics around my home. I am very paranoid about power problems.

Lastly, the biggest reason I recommend NASs has more to do with what I witnessed in the folks I have helped out with backup and file server systems. They all want to do it cheaply and "just make it work". They always outgrow the storage way quicker than they think as new applications and uses come along. You would think they would then address the full drive....but usually, since they hadn't had a failure, they just stop backing up. Dumb, but that is what many people do.

If it isn't super easy to do such "one click" they stop doing it. If the backup drive is stored in their desk and must be hooked up to the PC to run, they won't do it or do it often enough. Most environments are multi-PC and everyone needs backup so a central, network-based system is the best/cheapest approach. And once you show them how to share files using a NAS, they always like it and start to use it - especially now with PCs having HDMI connections, they love hooking up any laptop up to the big screen and showing photos to friends and family all served from the NAS.

Yes, you don't need a NAS and backups can be accomplished in many ways. I found that not only is price an issue, but it is worth paying more for convenience due to the negligent side of human nature. YMMV.



Jul 29, 2012 at 08:42 AM
davekone
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p.2 #8 · new back up plan


I had a big storm blow through a few weeks ago, power went off/on/off/on/flickering.... It blew out the controller to my furnace motor and a cheap stereo. Power issues are real. I am now looking into whole-home protection at my breaker panel (looks like Eaton makes a good system). I have Trip Light filtration and voltage regulation on all my major home theater and expensive electronics around my home. I am very paranoid about power problems.

On that topic all my PCs are on Battery Backups (protected) but the surge came in over my FIOS/Internet and hit one computer via the ethernet. Any device plugged into your network that does not have protection at the coax is in trouble. I knew this, and found out the hard way as well, I mean what are the chances right? haha at myself on this one. Any device this is connected to your network, say a TV that has internet that is not protected makes your equipment vulnerable. Whole house protection is a great way to go! I am installing a device where the cable comes into my house to protect everything. Still Lightning has a way of bypassing the best man made stuff for protection.

If you can keep your backup device off of the network and unplugged while not in use I think you are in great shape. I also think rotating backup devices just in case you are hit while backing up is very wise!

I love Acronis and Win 7 has a built in disk imager as well.



Jul 29, 2012 at 02:52 PM
davekone
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p.2 #9 · new back up plan


500 gb a year is not much at all. lol, did I really just say that?

So a 2tb drive would probably last approx 3 years, allowing room for some growth.I used to burn DVDs as well, and I still do for really really important stuff that if lost could never be recovered and has extreme value to me personally. A DVD is a little more indestructible than a hard drive, but given the capacity hard drive archive storage sure is convenient.

As you archive old hard drives when they fill, once in a while consolidate them to a larger new unit as they become cheaper. Just make 2 copies and keep one off site.

A lot of what Bruce and I have said is very practical advice. I think all of this is like an alarm system, you spend enough until you feel comfortable with what you have. No setup is perfectly safe.

No matter how you slice it two physical rotating backup devices and duplicate archives with one stored offsite will protect you pretty damn well. Things can and might happen between offsite storage updates, but you can update your offsite archive as much as you want. One practice might be to online backup (offsite) whatever has not been archived by you and taken offsite. After you archive and take a device offsite you could clear your online backup for new incoming files/photos.

I also think that if you overdo it you will spend more time protecting your photos from what MIGHT happen as supposed to being focused on the job at hand, taking photos. That is not an excuse to do nothing about protecting your work.



Jul 29, 2012 at 03:00 PM
PShizzy
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p.2 #10 · new back up plan


On a Mac, if I had to keep it simple?

Main drive: NAS, Drobo, etc. This will house all your media projects. For me, that's photos, videos, projects files (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects).

Local Backup: Second NAS, Drobo, or really large drive, using Time Machine. This keeps hourly revisions to file changes, will delete the oldest backup.

Offsite Backup: Third NAS, Drobo, using Time Machine. Just rotate a pair of drives. I'd do it every week or so, but depending on how offsite you want your backup, you could rotate the systems every day to every week or longer. Up to you how serious this all is. Also, Mountain Lion can now do encrypted Time Machine backups.

Cloud Backup: Backblaze. Why this and not say Carbonite? Carbonite throttles your uploads after a set amount. I have 5TB of media. I feel I'll be well past that set amount. Why not Crashplan? Because until recently Crashplan had no business oriented backup. They said unlimited but never mention business files, meaning you could violate their TOS and they could boot you at any time. But their unlimited pro plan? 7.50 a month. That's a deal. Except it's not. Over the course of 2 years, thats $180. Backblaze is $95 over two years. I just renewed, and this is while starting my first account two years ago at 2TB, now doubled in size.

I will say though that Crashplan, while pricier, offers many more features. If you need file access from multiple devices, at all times, then Crashplan is more robust by far. Backblaze is pure and simple backup.

FREE(?) Cloud Backup: Bitcasa. Right now they're the only "legit" game in town that offers infinite storage (their words). You can create backup folders (main computer is only one that can write to it, all other computers read only), sync folders (all computers with that folder can read/write), or infinite folders (really just a way to get an external drive to the service and then you don't need that external drive attached anymore to access the files).

I wouldn't necessarily trust them to store my files forever, but it is FREE for now, with unlimited storage, from people with a background in the business. They expect to move out of beta with a price of $10 a month.

I used the service recently to keep a nightly backup of my X-Games photos and videos. I set my Photos folder on my Macbook Air to be backed up, so as I ingested files into Lightroom they would end up there. Bitcasa uploaded files as they came in if it was online. Anything that didn't get uploaded while I was at the event would finish up at the hotel each night. When I got home, I simply connected to the backup folder from my main archive computer (Mac Mini), and "copied" the files from the Bitcasa folder to it. I also connected to the backup folder from my workstation laptop and was able to look at the files without plugging in my Macbook Air.

Interesting trial by fire, but Bitcasa is far from perfect. I will keep toying with it while it's free, then decide if it's worth using on a regular basis.

On another note, Dropbox is also an excellent service, and paid accounts get 100gb for $100 a year. For $39 a year you can get their "packrat" unlimited revision storage, which sounds awesome. I have a grandfathered free 50GB account, and love the service, but if I had to pay, it would be really pricey given its storage. But their feature set is amazing, and proven. If I needed a reliable service for small storage sets (up to 100gb) across multiple computers and online? Dropbox.

Just my thoughts.



Jul 29, 2012 at 04:28 PM
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