Fed up isn't the word, Portable HHD

davidh6781

davidh6781

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David
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Hello all, Im a little frustrated this evening, what is the best way to store and archive images, I currently use a western digital 500gb drive to store the images on, this both paying clients and general hobby stuff, so stuff I need to keep.

getting a little tired of it now as I had a NAS drive which failed after three weeks of use, lost my images, and now this portable drive kicking up errors.

any help would be appreciated

woooosaaaaarrrr
 
:bang:
I feel your pain!
All drives will fail if you run them long enough, but three weeks is a joke! Unfortunately the mnfr will only replace the drive under warranty & your images are your problem.......... (Been there:'()
If you are really working an external HDD it will kick out some heat, if it's in a cheap, unvented plastic case you may BBQ your drive?
I would try to get a vented or aluminium case to disperse the heat if possible, it sounds to me more likely that heat is killing your drives rather than bad luck, but I stand to be corrected
 
really you want to get some WD reds and make a raid5 array, or pay for storage on a server then the backups are their problem.
 
RAID... 5 or otherwise, is not back up. It's redundancy. There's a difference. I have a RAID6 server for images, but I still back it up to another server. You can still accidentally delete files from a RAID array. You can still have an accidental power loss while the array is writing parity information (serious issue if you have no battery back up on the RAID controller... which is the case with most cheap NAS or software RAID solutions). There's still a whole host of problems that can make you lose data.

RAID is not back up.

If your NAS failed after 3 weeks, why didn't you get it replaced, or a refund?
 
Thanks all, I was thinking cloud storage but need to check prices, the drive that failed within three weeks was refunded but as mentioned it was the loss of data that got me.

I didn't skimp on the external it's a WD 1tb drive and the software says the temp is fine, again I still have access to this so I am getting off what can, and this is getting refunded and hopefully a replacement.

Think server storage is the way just didn't want the extra outlay as yet.
 
artyman said:
The general rule is always at least two backups, with one at a seperate location, to cover fire and theft risks if data is valuable.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%. If you can back up to the cloud as well, even better.
 
Multiple backups are the way forward. If you are working with commercial images, keep RAWs on the card until they are backed up first. Then back up again to another drive. After editing backup again.

I found Seagate drives very reliable so far, just bought a cheap Toshiba 1TB USB3 from PCworld, hopefully that will keep the tradition.
 
cheap NAS/external alaways end in tears......

We use a qnap NAS with radi 5 ect, great bit of kit, but it was £1200 !
 
Studi0488 said:
cheap NAS/external alaways end in tears......

We use a qnap NAS with radi 5 ect, great bit of kit, but it was £1200 !
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I was using an icybox/raidsonic box to back up my synology for a few years with no issue. Cheap as chips and never let me down :thumbs:

That said any raid can fail, even the expensive enterprise ones :)
 
neil_g said:
Not necessarily. I was using an icybox/raidsonic box to back up my synology for a few years with no issue. Cheap as chips and never let me down :thumbs:

That said any raid can fail, even the expensive enterprise ones :)
Click to expand...


Indeed. I use a Thecus N3200 NAS as my second server. Cheap as chips... and been flawless for years.
 
I've previously relied on having only one drive to back up my images, but as I've just upgraded the drive in my PS3, I've got myself an external housing and set the old PS3 drive up as a second back up for my photo's.
 
What I have is a HP Microserver which has mirrored drives. Then I have an external HDD which lives in the boot of my car which has my external backups. I've encrypted this disk using TrueCrypt. I also have a routine which copies all my new photos to an Apple Time Capsule at the other side of the house and for about 3 weeks now I've been uploading all 400GB of my photos to Crashplan.

As you can imagine.....i play it safe.
 
Having lost important data previously I now back-up to two other NAS drives AND make data dvd's as well. It's only ever a matter of time before a drive fails.
 
Brian, Optical disks can degrade over time too so should be checked from time to time and fresh copies made if any problems are found.

Many external HDDs are described as portable but all that really means is that they can be carried and may not be as rugged as they could be. There are some that are less fragile but more expensive - especially for commercial use, they are a better idea than their cheaper cousins. Large capacity USB sticks may be an answer - SS should be more rugged than anything with moving parts! Again, redundancy's the key - and with SS storage, it's very easy to reuse.
 
As unlikley as it sounds pcworld of all places has an excellent deal at the moment for external usb3 (and 2) 1tb self powered Toshiba 2.5 drive for....£49.99.
Same price as the 500gb and 30 cheaper than the 750gb?!?

Catch is you have to order online to collect in store but it works, got 2 myself.

Doesn't negate the advice above re backups but may give enough storeage to have more than one location ;)
 
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