Archiving photos

tcole1983

I have been out of town but I do put what I think are my better pictures on Facebook...so those are backed up at least in their edited jpeg form. I will have to figure out a archiving method though and begin deleting junk pictures. Most likely get another hard drive soon. I think we are near a new computer so I have been holding off trying to buy much....I know I can just transfer hard drives though.

WestEndBoy

I have my images on a 2TB external hard drive that I backup using SyncBackSe daily to another 2 TB external drive. Every month I take it to the safety deposit box at the bank, and replace it with the oldest of the 2 drives sitting in that box.

I also do that with the internal 1 TB hard drive that has other data. Critical files are also save on Mozy. The 250 GB SSD drive (only about 70 GB is used), that houses my programs (no data), is imaged every day to the 1 TB hard drive using Macrium Reflect. I delete images older than about a week, with the exception of an image that I know is good and has my latest programs. Once a year I restore to that image which washes out the garbage the accumulates in Windows and then re-update.

All of this is pretty seamless, I don't really think about it. Short of getting a RAID, this is the best system that I can think of.

John

My solution is simple. (D800 user so lots of "big" raw files)

I have 3 external drives of 2TB each.
- One "main drive"
- One "backup drive"
- One "off site backup drive"

As soon as my pictures are edited they are moved from my local hard disk to the main drive and the backup drive.
(As soon as they are transfered from the memory card and after each editing session I also make a temporary backup to a smaller external drive but that's not really relevant for this discussion)
When I need to access a picture to print it or to export it I always use the "main drive". That way this drive will have more operational hours and should fail first.

After a major photographic event such as a holiday and at least 4 times per year I also make a full backup to the off site backup drive. As the name suggests, this drive is located at another location so that even when something happens to my house I don't lose all my images.

When my drives are full I just buy 3 extra drives.

Storage is cheap.

Rob

Every drive I buy is significantly larger than the previous one. I back up everything onto my new drive and store the old full one. I have several old working drives on the shelves, these are my backups. I guess you could buy extra drives if you needed temporary backups until the main drive was mothballed. Storage is cheap.

tcole1983

I have been deleting some as I go recently. I need a new larger drive. When I get some funds I will buy another. I will think about some other multiple storage backup setup in the near future.

michael007

My solution is simple. (D800 user so lots of "big" raw files)

I have 3 external drives of 2TB each.
- One "main drive"
- One "backup drive"
- One "off site backup drive"

As soon as my pictures are edited they are moved from my local hard disk to the main drive and the backup drive.
(As soon as they are transfered from the memory card and after each editing session I also make a temporary backup to a smaller external drive but that's not really relevant for this discussion)
When I need to access a picture to print it or to export it I always use the "main drive". That way this drive will have more operational hours and should fail first.

After a major photographic event such as a holiday and at least 4 times per year I also make a full backup to the off site backup drive. As the name suggests, this drive is located at another location so that even when something happens to my house I don't lose all my images.

When my drives are full I just buy 3 extra drives.

Storage is cheap.

I agree with your point of view. To avoid picture loss, we need to back up important pictures to different storage devices.

warprints

That was one nice thing about film. Didn't have to keep changing from one format of storage to another. Still can access my film images from 50+ years ago. (Yeah, getting hard to find good enlargers, etc.)

For digital, I use a RAID NAS. I also keep a backup copy on a single hard drive, off site, in a fire safe. That is one advantage of digital over film. If my house burns down, I've probably lost 5 decades of photographs. But I'll still have my digital images, even if the NAS burns up, because I have the backup off site.

Killerbob

Being a computer nerd myself I take my data and backups very seriously. I too have tried loosing data (by way of human error) and since then I have had the following setup:

My primary storage for ALL data - documents, downloads, films, music, pictures - is a NetGear ReadyNAS (6x3TB). This is a solid, fast and very safe system, which has built-in hardware redundancy. I have experienced failed HDDs, and you simply replace the broken one with a new one, and you good to go. Off-site, i.e. at work, I store another NAS. This one I bring with me home every two weeks or so, to basically copy everything to it. I run incremental backup jobs, and it takes a few hours.

I store everything, including AVIs, JPGs, and RAWs from my D800 and D810, as well as music, films etc., and rarely delete anything. Yes it costs a bit in hard disks, but come on... most of us have thousands of dollars invested in photographic equipment, and it is simply part of the package. When I run out of space on my 18TB NAS, I am sure I'll be able to afford another NAS, or bigger HDDs. I recently finished upgrading from 6x1TB to 6x3TB, but as pointed out, it goes quickly when shooting D8xx.

scoobysmak

Here is my plan but have yet to implement it. I have 2 NAS storage devices, one has 2 X 2TB drives and the other has 4 X 2TB drives. I can also burn to Blue-ray. I do more than store images but this does require a majority of my hard drive space.

When I return home my plan is to sort though all the images I will keep and toss the rejects, this would solve 85% of my storage problem right off the bat. I like to store my photos under folders for me to search, I will first start with the year then have categories (maybe clients, then personal or what ever works for you). This will allow any program to open up the file with no problems in case later I change software. Once a year I can burn one or two blue-rays depending on how much data I deem "worthy" to keep or feel the need to keep for any client. I will burn 2 copies of everything I burn that year, one to keep at home and one to store off site.

I like the optical media storage, I have had multiple hard drives fail in a NAS device. I lost around 1TB of data on a RAID 1 (lost both drives at the same time, very rare but it happened). I have had lighting determine the outcome of a portable hard drive as well. Plus for me its easier just to add a few optical disk to a "spindle" than haul hard drives back and forth. It takes away some of the risk as well during transport.

Everyone will have their own preference of how to store any images they deem important enough to back up. The big thing is to not keep everything in one location and not to make it too complicated so you actually follow through with the plan.

Killerbob

I have worked in, or around IT, for most of my professional career, and I can guarantee you that chances are higher that you loose data on an optical disk as supposed to a properly setup NAS (i.e. Raid5, 10, or X-Raid). Unfortunately the optical disks you burn yourself are so quality dependent, I wouldn't waste my time on them.

In professional IT today we would never rely on anything optical, and if the quantities are big enough, we would always look to tape, or HDD systems - NAS or SAN. In tiered storage systems the backup solutions are usually integrated, and off-site backup is usually to NAS/SAN.

This sounds expensive, but you can easily get 8 terabytes of primary storage systems (NAS) for about USD6-700, and then add a similar sized backup storage systems for USD200. That'll put you at USD1000 for a safe, speedy, and future proof solution.

Stop believing optical discs are the way to go, you will cry yourself to sleep when you realise that you precious pictures are unreadable in a few years...

clskelton

I just read that Amazon is giving Prime customers ($99/yr) unlimited photo storage, and it includes NEF files as well. So far the desktop client has a lot to be desired (it doesn't auto-upload and you can only download one file at a time) but hopefully this is improved upon. Also, looks like they only want it being used for personal

Because of the auto-upload and download limitations, this sounds like a great place for an archive, which was the point of this thread. I tend to prefer Cloud backups in order to protect against disk failure, fire, and theft. I'm still going to use Copy/Box/Dropbox as my main workflow folders, but when they fill up, now I can free up space by tossing old images up to Amazon. If they ever get auto-upload features like Dropbox, then it'll be my backup method of choice.

Reference:
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/4190001023/amazon-launches-prime-photos-with-unlimited-storage-for-prime-members

File limits:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201634590

haroldp

@clskelton

check amazon's eula on this, many cloud providers (google and facebook being the most prominent) have asserted that they have unlimited intellectual property rights to your work, including the right to sell it for commercial use, without compensation to you, as their 'consideration' or providing storage.

This also applies to the content of gmail's

I do not know if amazon does the same, but I strongly suggest reading the fine print.

Remember 'TANSTAAFL' (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).

.... H

clskelton

@haroldp

Thanks for the heads up as I try to avoid EULAs like that. I'll certainly check it out. Technically you have to pay for Amazon's unlimited photo storage so that separates them from free Google/Facebook/Flickr photo services who need to make their money another way.

WestEndFoto

I have been spending alot of time deleting marginal photos from my 2 terabyte drive so I can fit more, so I just spent a thousand dollars on three 6 terabyte hard drives. One will be the working drive and two will be the backups, one always in a safety deposit box.

Now I will transfer my old working drive to the new one. That will take a while.

Snowleopard

I don't delete anything unless it is really bad, I still have 400,000 files from my D70 sitting around on my NAS. I went with a QNAP TS-EC1080 Pro. It is configured with 10 x 5TB hard drives in raid 6. I can also get expansion units for it.

I have found that as software gets better I re-visit the old files from the D70 and get some nice results.

WestEndFoto

I don't delete anything unless it is really bad, I still have 400,000 files from my D70 sitting around on my NAS. I went with a QNAP TS-EC1080 Pro. It is configured with 10 x 5TB hard drives in raid 6. I can also get expansion units for it.

I have found that as software gets better I re-visit the old files from the D70 and get some nice results.

What do you do for off site backup?

haroldp

I have 2 mirrors of my daily incremental backup, one of which is mounted, and the other is at one of my children's homes. I swap them when visiting, which is every few days. It is a fourth tier backup so that if my home and safe / fire resistant NAS storage location is totally destroyed, it may be a few days old.

When I worked a 9-5, I kept a copy in my office, swapped every day.

All of my data storage drives are encrypted.

... H

Snowleopard

I don't delete anything unless it is really bad, I still have 400,000 files from my D70 sitting around on my NAS. I went with a QNAP TS-EC1080 Pro. It is configured with 10 x 5TB hard drives in raid 6. I can also get expansion units for it.

I have found that as software gets better I re-visit the old files from the D70 and get some nice results.

What do you do for off site backup?

The really important projects get put on 50gb or 128gb archival grade blu-ray discs large and placed in a fire proof gun safe at my cousin's house.

I am not into my files being on some companies cloud somewhere and the shelf life and durability of blu ray disks is fine for me.

This gives me the primary backup on hard drives and then the secondary backup on high grade optical media, if one fails, I have the other. Optical discs are not affected by magnets and hackers would need to break into the safe in their home.

NSXTypeR

I've heard of RAID drives, but I don't have the know how to set up that stuff. At the moment I use two portable hard drives to back everything up to Time Machine, one 1 tb and the other 2 tb. It's really not too bad, as I don't shoot nearly as much as I used to. I also back things up to Google Photos, which is great because it's so painless, but it's a little scary because I don't know what they have backed up and what they haven't.

proudgeek

I use a Drobo system, with two 3TB redundant inserts. When my library gets large enough (it's currently about 1 TB) I'll add another enclosure and have someone smarter than I build a RAID system.

haroldp

Raid systems are easy when they work but I would not recommend them to anyone who does not have a basic understanding, as the recovery operations are really easy to screw up if something fails. Break sequence and you might re-initialize the array and lose everything.

I am a professional Database Administrator and it all seems easy to me, but I had a friend panic completely when one drive failed in a raid 5 system and he did not find the recovery sequence as intuitive as I do. It is a good thing he has excellent Scotch.

For mac users I highly recommend using time machine for near real time (hourly) backup, and a redundant full image backup at home, and a copy offsite as well.

A 'generational' backup like time machine is also the best protection from crypto viruses (ransomware).

I do not know windows utilities well enough to offer advice.

Carbonite is a useful tertiary backup but recovery at web speeds will prepare you to wait for the D400 ( have over 2 TB of photo's). Carbonite is also implicitly generational and works with windows.

... H