Photo storage/backup advise.

killwilly

killwilly

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Alan
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I had a bit of a scare recently with malware on of my laptops, which has now been rectified. However, it did get me thinking, what would happen if I had a serious problem on my computer that I use for photo processing and storage? I am well aware that it is better to store processed photos on a separate storage device, but which one?

I'm not a prolific photographer, but there are some photos that I would hate to lose. What storage devise do you guys use and would advise me to get?

Any advice would be very much appreciated. :)

Alan.
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I have a couple of large usb hard drives and copy my raws and processed images to them on an ad-hoc basis.
 
killwilly said:
Thanks guys for you prompt replies. Not sure what RAID mirrored is, but I shall Google and have a read.

Would something like the link below be suitable?


http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/53486....html?_$ja=tsid:11518|cat:5348645|prd:5348645
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basically raid1 (mirroring) is at least a pair of hard drives which have instantanious replication, great for redundancy for systems that need 24/7 uptime but for file safety not good. think file deletion/corruption gets replicated instantly to the 2nd drive.
 
jockwav said:
Not a very big drive,you can pick up 1TB drives for not much more.:)(y)
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The spec does say that it will hold 71,000 photographs, I think that would be large enough for me.

My next task would be to find how to download photos to an external hard drive. You may have guessed by now that I am not very computer savvy, it must be my age. :)
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If the external drive is a usb plug in then you can just copy & paste your photos accross.:)
 
jockwav said:
If the external drive is a usb plug in then you can just copy & paste your photos accross.:)
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Thanks James. Since reading your post I have done some research and it does look quite simple.

I have decided on the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB Portable Hard Drive, which is plenty large enough for me and can be bought for about ?52.

Once again many thanks to everyone for your help. (y)
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killwilly said:
The spec does say that it will hold 71,000 photographs, I think that would be large enough for me.

My next task would be to find how to download photos to an external hard drive. You may have guessed by now that I am not very computer savvy, it must be my age. :)
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What size are the 71,000 photos? Not sure how many of mine are exactl;y the same size as each other - very few, I would guess! Physical (pixel) dimensions will be the same but file sizes will vary a lot.

To transfer files (photos) from the card to the HDD, I navigate to the folder on the card, select all (Ctrl + A) then simply paste them into the folder on the HDD that I want them to be in. While they're all in the clipboard, I do the paste thing into external HDDs for backup as well.

Once I've got everything transferred to the computer and a couple of backups, I'll burn a DVD as another backup. DVDs and CDs aren't permanent, so I check a selection from time to time to ensure they can still be read. I know Arkady2's lost a load of pics when an optical disc crapped out on him but touch wood, all mine are still OK after 10 years or so (expecting to see problems soon though.) Once I've got everything backed up to my satisfaction, I format the cards in the camera.
 
killwilly said:
Thanks James. Since reading your post I have done some research and it does look quite simple.

I have decided on the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB Portable Hard Drive, which is plenty large enough for me and can be bought for about £52.

Once again many thanks to everyone for your help. (y)
Click to expand...
Before you buy check out the seagate or western 1TB drive prices as you might regret not getting a bigger drive.:)(y)
I got a seagate 1TB for i think £69
 
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I have a Western Digital Passport USB Hard Drive.
It comes with software that can be set to copy all Documents, Pictures, Music etc. automatically.
So if I load a new photo onto the computer hard drive it gets duplicated onto the USB Drive straight away.
You can even set it to keep past copies so if you edit a photo and save it onto the computer hard drive the USB Drive also saves the edited photo but it retains the old photo as well. The default is set so that 5 versions are saved & then as a new edit is saved the oldest one is deleted.
There is probably other software out there that does the same.
If you only have 1 backup and your main storage, or the backup storage, goes wrong you have no backup until you save everything again.
I save to my desktop with a permanantly connected USB Drive, as mentioned above, I also copy all photos & documents to my laptop and I back up to a 2nd USB HD weekly. I keep the 2nd USB HD in a fireproof / waterproof safe.
 
Suvv said:
I have a Western Digital Passport USB Hard Drive.
It comes with software that can be set to copy all Documents, Pictures, Music etc. automatically.
So if I load a new photo onto the computer hard drive it gets duplicated onto the USB Drive straight away.
You can even set it to keep past copies so if you edit a photo and save it onto the computer hard drive the USB Drive also saves the edited photo but it retains the old photo as well. The default is set so that 5 versions are saved & then as a new edit is saved the oldest one is deleted.
There is probably other software out there that does the same.
If you only have 1 backup and your main storage, or the backup storage, goes wrong you have no backup until you save everything again.
I save to my desktop with a permanantly connected USB Drive, as mentioned above, I also copy all photos & documents to my laptop and I back up to a 2nd USB HD weekly. I keep the 2nd USB HD in a fireproof / waterproof safe.
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Thanks Kev, that's one I hadn't even considered, now I'm even more confused. :thinking:

Alan.
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neil_g said:
basically raid1 (mirroring) is at least a pair of hard drives which have instantanious replication, great for redundancy for systems that need 24/7 uptime but for file safety not good. think file deletion/corruption gets replicated instantly to the 2nd drive.
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Sorry! can't agree with you on this one, Raid1 is ideal for backup solutions as it keeps 2 copies (one on each drive). If one disk goes bad it can be replaced and the other disk replicated.
Remember, once your pics have been backed up (Archived) there is no need to touch them again other than to re read back to a working drive. the reason you quote, file deletion/corruption should never occure ( i did say should :))
There should be no reason to delete files from the backup, and file corruption should be handled by the raid controller, i.e the system would let you know if there was any corruption)
I keep RAW files from camera direct to seperate HDD in my PC, then copy RAw files from this HDD to RAID1 backup. (RAID1 backup ONLY switched on when needed.)

One thing we can agree on I am sure, is , ANY backup system is better than none, and NO backup solution is perfect.
How much you pay for your solution is determined by how much you value your images, or indeed, how valuable your images are...(y)
 
Howi said:
Sorry! can't agree with you on this one, Raid1 is ideal for backup solutions as it keeps 2 copies (one on each drive). If one disk goes bad it can be replaced and the other disk replicated.
Remember, once your pics have been backed up (Archived) there is no need to touch them again other than to re read back to a working drive. the reason you quote, file deletion/corruption should never occure ( i did say should :))
There should be no reason to delete files from the backup, and file corruption should be handled by the raid controller, i.e the system would let you know if there was any corruption)
I keep RAW files from camera direct to seperate HDD in my PC, then copy RAw files from this HDD to RAID1 backup. (RAID1 backup ONLY switched on when needed.)

One thing we can agree on I am sure, is , ANY backup system is better than none, and NO backup solution is perfect.
How much you pay for your solution is determined by how much you value your images, or indeed, how valuable your images are...(y)
Click to expand...

i think you missed my point, using the mirror as a backup is not a good plan (i.e. the only copy of your files is on that RAID drive)
 
Softshoe said:
Alan

If you do buy an external USB Hard Disk which doesn't have any form of backup software included you could download a copy of Microsoft's Synctoy. It's free and will synchronise the contents of one or more folders to another, including on another disk.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en
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Thanks Andy. I bought the Seagate Goflex 500 in the link below. Oddly enough yesterday when I bought it, I only paid ?47.50 :clap:, will have a look at the Microsoft software when it arrives.

http://www.dixons.co.uk/gbuk/seagat...-8d9b-22e0185f57a7&istItemId=qwwwlmr&istBid=t
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My main work machine has 2 disks in Raid 1. This is not a backup but means that the chance of losing data due to a HD failure is reduced.

Backup is done nightly to one of 3 external 1TB USB disks which get rotated and one always offsite. This is done using robocopy that is free with Windows and only backs up files that have actually changed.

I'm also considering getting a blu-ray drive to allow archiving of older data.
 
No raid for me any more. I had a NAS unit fail and the raid meant that only a controller matching the failed one could read the drives. So 2 healthy drives and no way to read them. Glad it was just a backup.

That said I do miss the convenience of an always on unit on the network but I could never trust a raid based unit as my only backup again.
 
RAID is intended to provide operational resilience so that if a disk fails, you can carry on working while a new disk is installed and the array rebuilt. It was never intended as a form of backup. RAID systems should always be separately backed up - they aren't entirely foolproof. As Neil says, the best strategy is to backup to two separate external devices, and keep one of them offsite.
 
Beware if you are only backing up the files that have changed, you will need the initial full backup to be able to rebuild all the files.
 
All good advice :)
I would also occasionally back up your best photos to DVD
I was daft enough to plug a laptop power supply into a drive which killed it , luckily I had the files on DVD
Pete
 
LCPete said:
All good advice :)
I would also occasionally back up your best photos to DVD
I was daft enough to plug a laptop power supply into a drive which killed it , luckily I had the files on DVD
Pete
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id say blu-ray to be honest. yeah its more expensive but it doesnt suffer from environmental issues like DVD (leading to DVD rot and/or delamination).
 
neil_g said:
i think you missed my point, using the mirror as a backup is not a good plan (i.e. the only copy of your files is on that RAID drive)
Click to expand...

The same applies to any single backup solution surely?

1/ don't use raid in any form on your main computer
2/ I have a single HDD partitioned into drive C: + D: - drive C: is system only
3/ I have a second HDD E: where all my Raw files are transfered from camera, this is where I work on my files and create JPEGS etc
4/ I have a F: RAID1 USB/Firewire backup drive that is only switched on when I want to copy the latest RAW Files transfered from camera to E: drive.
5/ I have a usb drive where I keep a Ghosted copy of C: drive and F: drive(RAID1)

the point here is that my RAID1 backup is more reliable than any single drive backup solution. While a single backup solution is better than none, two levels of backup (minimum) is to be prefered.

If ALL this lot fails I'm well and truly B******d
 
well you dont fall into my point then as you have your data stored on RAID1 PLUS another drive.. :shrug:

but youre still missing my point. RAID1 counts as a single drive. not 2. if your only copy of your data is on a RAID1 drive youre still open to file deletion, corruption and some types of hardware failure (i.e. RAID controller failure destroying data on all attached drives).
 
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tramp92 said:
Beware if you are only backing up the files that have changed, you will need the initial full backup to be able to rebuild all the files.
Click to expand...

It's not an incremental backup, there is a backup of all files and only those files that have changed are re-written.
 
neil_g said:
well you dont fall into my point then as you have your data stored on RAID1 PLUS another drive.. :shrug:

but youre still missing my point. RAID1 counts as a single drive. not 2. if your only copy of your data is on a RAID1 drive youre still open to file deletion, corruption and some types of hardware failure (i.e. RAID controller failure destroying data on all attached drives).
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No I'm not missing the point, let me put it this way:-
RAID1 MAY only count as a single drive, BUT it is inherently more secure than a SINGLE HDD drive as the data is replicated on two drives, and therefore a better solution than a single drive.

worst case first
no backup
single drive backup
Single RAID backup (not RAID0)
Raid1 cheapest of RAID solutions but LESS likely to fail TOTALY than a single drive
RAID1 IS a valid backup solution.

best case is ANY form of multiple backup

IF my RAID1 fails totally(not as likely as a single drive), I still have ALL my RAW files on the E: drive (+ Ghosted image on yet another drive)

I'm now binning out of this thread before it gets out of hand....:wave:
 
Howi said:
RAID1 MAY only count as a single drive, BUT it is inherently more secure than a SINGLE HDD drive as the data is replicated on two drives, and therefore a better solution than a single drive.
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no difference. whats the point of a backup if it doesnt protect against the factors i mentioned previously?

you may have guessed as a systems tech its a pet hate of mine RAID mirroring being referred to as a backup in a single point of storage environment. its designed for redundancy, nothing more. thats why we still back up every RAID1 set on our SAN to tape.

id also suggest putting "raid1 is not a backup" into google and have a good read.
 
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neil_g said:
no difference. whats the point of a backup if it doesnt protect against the factors i mentioned previously?

you may have guessed as a systems tech its a pet hate of mine RAID mirroring being referred to as a backup in a single point of storage environment. its designed for redundancy, nothing more. thats why we still back up every RAID1 set on our SAN to tape.

id also suggest putting "raid1 is not a backup" into google and have a good read.
Click to expand...

Why do people on this forum insist on twisting round everything I say.
I DO NOT and never have said that RAID1 should be a single point of storage.
You have the files you wish to back up, on a drive on your PC, you put a COPY onto the backup device, this can be anything from a single HDD to anything you can afford.

What I DID say was that RAID1 is better than a single backup drive.

I REPEAT every storage solution should have AT LEAST another form of backup.

Get off your high horse and read the posts, your not the worlds only system tech:rules:
 
Howi said:
Why do people on this forum insist on twisting round everything I say.
I DO NOT and never have said that RAID1 should be a single point of storage.
You have the files you wish to back up, on a drive on your PC, you put a COPY onto the backup device, this can be anything from a single HDD to anything you can afford.

What I DID say was that RAID1 is better than a single backup drive.
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No. You said -

Howi said:
Raid1 is ideal for backup solutions
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Then you started back-pedalling.
 
Definitely keep it simple.

The photos are on an internal hard drive.

Do a straightforward backup to two other drives.

One of these could be another internal hard drive (but a physically separate drive, not a partition) or an external drive. An internal hard drive is slightly easier to use, but if your PC get stolen then you definitely have lost it. An external drive is a little more hassle to use, but there is slightly less chance it may be stolen.

The second should be an external drive that you keep somewhere off site.
 
hollis_f said:
No. You said -



Then you started back-pedalling.
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No! I did'nt

RAID1 is ideal for a backup (we now have TWO copies of the data, one the original on the PC drive and one (two!) on the backup
RAID1 is better than a single drive backup (reliability of RAID1 over a single drive)
RAID1 as the ONLY storage is NOT good and I never said it was

RAID arrays are used in most if not all situations where data integrity is important (in the commercial world), BUT is ALWAYS backed up to another medium as you would expect.(bearing in mind the RAID array at this point is the ONLY copy of the data). This is not the same as we are talking about.

to neil_g
quote - you said RAID1 was better than a single drive, i said it was the same. how is that twisting anything.

You also said as a system tech you see the use of RAID1 arrays quite frequently - WHY would RAID1 exist at all if they were the same as a single drive?
If thats your knowledge as a system tech, I'm glad you don't work for me.
 
No point trying to confuse no tech people with drive set-ups they dont understand IMO. I store all my images on a seperate internal drive and then backup all to an external one, simples. Buying a blu-Ray drive for the sole reason of back ups is a bit extreme, unless you already have a Bluray drivr.

What people should be advised to do is drive maintenance to avoid drive failures. There will always be a chance of failures but for a basic consumer (not a pro) having an array of 3 or 4 drives isn't practical or IMO required.
 
BandyQuill said:
*chuckles*

what you want is a raid 1+0 array :p

anyway, to make copying them between multiple drives easier i use Sync Toy, free from microsoft and pretty good :)
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Funny you should say that, because........;)
 
Donki said:
No point trying to confuse no tech people with drive set-ups they dont understand IMO. I store all my images on a seperate internal drive and then backup all to an external one, simples. Buying a blu-Ray drive for the sole reason of back ups is a bit extreme, unless you already have a Bluray drivr.

What people should be advised to do is drive maintenance to avoid drive failures. There will always be a chance of failures but for a basic consumer (not a pro) having an array of 3 or 4 drives isn't practical or IMO required.
Click to expand...

Your right of course, we seem to have moved away from the original post somewhat.
all boils down to this, 1 copy only - no good
1 copy + 1 backup copy - better
1 copy + 1 backup copy + another backup copy better still

you could go on ad infinitum but cost outweighs any real benefit.
 
Howi said:
You also said as a system tech you see the use of RAID1 arrays quite frequently - WHY would RAID1 exist at all if they were the same as a single drive?
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REDUNDANCY. i.e. - because its nicer that if/when a drive with a server OS fails it doesnt take the server down.

If thats your knowledge as a system tech, I'm glad you don't work for me.
Click to expand...

and im glad youre not in charge of our data.

:dummy:

:razz:

(thats the polite version)
 
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