How do you save your pics?

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jolsterj

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After reading archangels story of the deleted pics [now found phew!] I had a thought.

How do you guys save your pics?

After an important shoot I have a system.

1. PUT ALL PICS ON LAPTOP

2. PUT ALL PICS ON A DISC.

3. PUT ALL PICS ON ANOTHER DISC.

4. CHECK IT ALL.

5. PUT CARD AWAY WITH PICS STILL ON UNTIL MISSION IS COMPLETE.


Interested to know other peoples ideas.
 
I dump my cards into my desktop then back up to two 500Gb drives.

edit: and I should have said for important jobs I use two cards in the camera - so instant backup there too. :)
 
First of all I use two CF cards in the camera, set to backup, so I always have two copies from the moment the shutter is pressed.

I upload them using Lightroom with one copy to my main HDD and a backup to my second internal HDD.

Time Machine then takes care of a third backup to an external HDD.

Once a week I backup everything to two more external HDD's one of which goes to a remote location.

Paranoid? Me??
 
I have to say I'm not very good at backup....Load everything onto Laptop HD, delete off SD card, and then when I have enough folders with their RAW files still in them, I import the JPEG and RAW files over to the External HDD, and then delete RAW from my machine[well, I do have a huge lack of space on my Laptop HD, otherwise!]
 
Card to Desktop
Desktop to Laptop
Delete card
Desktop to DVD when there are enough and I have time.
 
I simply put my CF card into my computer, move the Raw files to my desktop, copy them onto a multsession DVD after renaming them, then delete the folders on the desktop.

I always verify the data on the DVD as well.

I have been doing this for 5 years now and have never had problems.

In fact I've had more problems with Windows and HDs than with optical media.

And I always use DataWrite because I've found them excellent.

And I also use Phillips re-writable DVDs for temporary storage.
 
My simple home system is as follows.

I have a Main 0.5T external drive which holds all photos and files. New this year.
I also have a Redundant 0.5T external drive . New this year.

I have multiple CFs so keep images on these after transference to Main External Drive. I delete data from the CFs once the images are synchronised between the main and Redundant Drives.

I synchronise the Redundant drive with my main drive after taking valuable (to me!) photos or every week when there have been changes.

I move the Redundant Drive to another, 'off-site', secure and secret location (the mother-in-laws!) whenever we are away for any length of time.

I use a little utility, which I would highly recommend called 'Good Sync' which completes my synchronisation for me.

I have seen some people using various RAID strategies but I think keeping it simple works for me.

My strategy is to increase the capacity next year based on the capacity growth of the last two years.

Hope you find this useful.

Regards

Graydon
 
1. Save to a seperate partition (to the os) on my laptop.

2. Run My Backup to a 500gb Lacie NAS, one click and wireless.

3. On review of photos I chose the keepers and save to a usb drive attatched to the Lacie.

4. Change the cf card in the camera and delete whatever is on the new one, I rotate 3.
 
I dump them all to my main drive on either the laptop or desktop pc and then copy them to my storage drive
 
I have a Mirror Pair of 1Tb Hard Drives

1. Copy CF to Date Folder
2. Copy to working Folder
3. Save Complete Images to Keep folder by Date

If one drive fails, the 2nd has the same data, I can hot swap in a new one an data is copied back to the new blank drive automatically :)
 
always have backed up on my harddrive and laptop - ready to be burned to DVD when possible :)
 
For those who are backing up files to DVD, DVDs have a limited life span, I've had CDs become useless after as little as 4 years. There is an interesting read HERE.

I prefer to back up to multiple hard drives.
 
Just burned a load to DVD.

Not 'work' pics

pics of the summer hols with my 8 year old son........far too important to lose.
 
CSB said:
For those who are backing up files to DVD, DVDs have a limited life span, I've had CDs become useless after as little as 4 years. There is an interesting read HERE.

I prefer to back up to multiple hard drives.
Click to expand...


I have read many reports on this some agree with your article and some disagree.

My oldest disc is 10 years old and I am off to check it!!!!
 
CSB said:
For those who are backing up files to DVD, DVDs have a limited life span, I've had CDs become useless after as little as 4 years. There is an interesting read HERE.

I prefer to back up to multiple hard drives.
Click to expand...

Well all I can say is that I always use DataWrite and have no problems.

I have DVDs going back at least 9 years with DVD film backups on them written on DataWrite 4x DVDs and they are still perfectly good.

I always keep my DVD backups in DVD folders (the kind you can usually buy for a pound or two) an always write them at half the rated speed of the disk.

The only problems I've ever had have been with cheap copies.

As for Cds, well I've never had problems with any branded ones.

As for backing up to HDs It may be a good idea but they also fail.

If you're doing that then it's certainly a good idea to partition your HDs so even if Windows crashes you can then re-install it without losing data (except on the C drive).

I always do that to my hard drives so data is safe except in the case of a catastropic head crash.
 
petersmart said:
Well all I can say is that I always use DataWrite and have no problems.
Click to expand...

That is good to hear, but every CD or DVD doesn't have a timer in that tells it to fail after a certain amount of time, but they can and do degrade. Many companies that backup data to CD or DVD will normally check, reburn and verify data after 5 years. I certainly wouldn't like to rely on a single DVD to backup important data.

Also partitioning a hard drive isn't gong to get you anywhere really, if the drive fails then you will lose data on all partitions which is why I backup to more than one drive. Also I don't keep these hard drives connected to my computer, they are only connected when I make a backup then removed and isolated.

I'm not having a dig, just trying to make people aware of the limitations of using a single backup method.
 
pics on pc from camera card
immediate copy to offpc hard drive...archive drive

now on pc
review and delete all the trash...:(..well worth it
save in a folder with appropriate name
eventual copy of this to archive drive and delete the original

after pp and mucking about save what you have produced for comps and such over to archive in a pp folder inside the orginal folder...

review occassionally for further deletions on pc...after a while those ace shots look mangy when compared with other folks..no use reinventing a flat wheel

cheers
 
Flashman said:
First of all I use two CF cards in the camera, set to backup, so I always have two copies from the moment the shutter is pressed.
Click to expand...

is this a nikon thing? Or on certain canon models too?
 
Flashman said:
First of all I use two CF cards in the camera, set to backup, so I always have two copies from the moment the shutter is pressed.

I upload them using Lightroom with one copy to my main HDD and a backup to my second internal HDD.

Time Machine then takes care of a third backup to an external HDD.

Once a week I backup everything to two more external HDD's one of which goes to a remote location.

Paranoid? Me??
Click to expand...

you need a vault old chap...
 
1 Copy to PC HDD
2 Copy to 2 external HDDs
3 Copy to CD or DVD (R not RW)
4 Check all copies
5 Format card(s) in camera
6 From time to time, check old optical disk copies to make sure they still work - so far, no problems but as and when they start to fail (as they probably will), I'll make new copies.
7 Serious weeding and deleting on one of the external HDD copies followed by taking another optical copy of the shots that make the final cut.
8 Printing of those that deserve it.
 
Card to desktop computer
Card to laptop
Computer to External HDD

Should give me 3 seperate locations in case of something really bad happening
 
Uneducated_Rick said:
I've been thinking about it more and more.

I only really use my laptop from when I was at Uni so used that and the external HD.
Click to expand...

well i was advised after a crash and hard drive renewal to get a 'caddy'
so i bought one and a hard drive 80Gb which i thought was ok
when i got my laptop i also made one up at 80Gb which runs off the usb
i still have 2 hard drives from my junked pc of 80 and 40...which are useless being too small
now i see i will have to junk all the hard drives in the caddies and upgrade to say 250
not having a pc anymore i will do the icybox caddy..for the laptop at as big as it will handle..ide and destroy the other hard drives
you cant do anything else re: data recovery software
so reformatting i dont think will do the job??

i got my daughter a special bargain laptop external drive for around £45..a 320 western digital off of amazon....
wish i had of gotten 2

the vault thing is something i thought about...uploading could be a issue if you dont have fast internet speeds...since one would want to put up the originals at max Kb...erm Mb for the big guys

good to know we all are trying to keep ahead of the bugs:)
 
CSB said:
Also partitioning a hard drive isn't gong to get you anywhere really, if the drive fails then you will lose data on all partitions which is why I backup to more than one drive. Also I don't keep these hard drives connected to my computer, they are only connected when I make a backup then removed and isolated.
Click to expand...

Well as I said If the HD fails catastrophically you will lose data but my main concern is Windows.

If that crashes and you haven't partitioned your HDs then you risk losing all the data.
 
From card to main desktop HD. I then make a copy of the RAW files onto my netbook and to a DVD. I then don't touch the copies on the netbook or DVD.

I then load the ones off my main desktop into LR. Then flag up the ones to edit and black flag all the others. I then delete the black flag ones and delete off my HD (keeps the clutter down). Edit the good ones. Then back the edited TIFFs and low res images to DVD. Job done.


Andy S
 
jamesoliverstone said:
haha, I live and breath technology unfortunately, I reckon I hate it more than anyone else, ever, anywhere, in the history of mankind and the universe
Click to expand...

The main reason for me ditching digital and going back to film was the amount of 'sitting at a computer' time it involves. I do enough of that at work.


Steve.
 
Venomator said:


:lol: ...how can you say that... :shrug: ...they may well be valued beyond any amount of monetary worth for future generations... :suspect:


If only they survived... :D





:p
Click to expand...


I think they will outlast any of my digital files.

All this talk of multiple backups in various locations, etc. is fine during the lifetime of the photographer. After that, who is going to bother?

We are in danger of losing the traditional family photo album as no one is going to give digital files in any form the same attention as a photo album - mainly because the album is so easy to take care of. Just put it on a shelf or in a cupboard and look at it occasionally.


Steve.
 
Goes something like:
SD Card > Aperture
Aperture > Vault on NAS
Aperture > Vault on External HDD

I also have TimeMachine enabled which also backs everything up to the NAS driver.

Each week, the NAS disk is cloned onto a third external HDD which is kep at the office.

I'd really like to be able to sort out some online storage, but with ADSL upload speeds being what they are I think my hard disk would probably fail well before the upload finished :(
 
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