Storage

Iren

Iren

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Name
Irina
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There are a lot of storage threads, but I still would like to make a new one and get your opinions.
Comments that I've got from another thread really helped me to establish good filing system.

First question - what is your routine, where and when do you back up your and client photos? Do you store everything (RAW/JPG files) or just edited copies?

Today I have accidentally erased everything from external drive, my only one with all the photos for the past 2 years (luckily I have at least year with of them are stored on old laptop and hopefully the rest can be recovered as well).
I have ordered Toshiba external hard disc to use with my MacBook Time machine and planning to back up everything weekly.
On top of that I am thinking to get additional two 2TB external hard discs and upload/back up my photos at the end of the month/week.
Not sure I want to store absolutely everything, might be just processed photos. Do you ever go back to RAW files to edit again?


I have explored few online storages, but not too sure if I want to go that route. The free ones wont allow to upload large files and the paid ones...what will happen if I want to stop?

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
I have a multi-layer approach with daily, weekly and monthly elements. Everything is script-driven so all I have to do is remember to put the monthly disk into my PC. I keep everything in an originals folder plus a copy in a working folder which gets moved to 'finished' when done.
Every night the main data drive is mirrored to another drive in the PC and to a NAS. The system disk is backed up to the NAS at the same time.
Once a week a server fires up and the NAS is mirrored to it.
Once a month a complete image of the PC is made to the next in a series of six external disks.

I admit this is probably a bit OTT but I spent thirty years in IT, some of it setting up backup solutions for major organisations, and old habits are hard to break. I'm also fortunate enough to be able to afford all the disks, etc. required.
I suggest that your client files should be backed up daily with longer term copies taken weekly.
Others here will suggest, reasonably enough, that you need to keep a copy in another location to protect against fire/flood/theft but it's up to you to assess the risk for your own situation.
 
Irina, you might find your deleted files can be recovered if the drive hasn't been used.

Others will give you better backup information than I can.
 
Snapsh0t said:
I have a multi-layer approach with daily, weekly and monthly elements. Everything is script-driven so all I have to do is remember to put the monthly disk into my PC. I keep everything in an originals folder plus a copy in a working folder which gets moved to 'finished' when done.
Every night the main data drive is mirrored to another drive in the PC and to a NAS. The system disk is backed up to the NAS at the same time.
Once a week a server fires up and the NAS is mirrored to it.
Once a month a complete image of the PC is made to the next in a series of six external disks.

I admit this is probably a bit OTT but I spent thirty years in IT, some of it setting up backup solutions for major organisations, and old habits are hard to break. I'm also fortunate enough to be able to afford all the disks, etc. required.
I suggest that your client files should be backed up daily with longer term copies taken weekly.
Others here will suggest, reasonably enough, that you need to keep a copy in another location to protect against fire/flood/theft but it's up to you to assess the risk for your own situation.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, thats a military operation! I probably wont do the same, but I get the idea. Thanks for sharing your routine
 
Sorry to heard about your data loss, hopefully it can be recovered. Have you heard of the 3-2-1 back up?

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

I've tried to setup my back up system with 3-2-1 in mind, my system isn't perfect but it's a lot better than I used to have, which was very hit and miss. I use carbon copy cloner to automate my backups. Because of limited hard drive space on my mac internal hard drive I upgraded my storage a few months back and moved across my photography files. All of my raw files and the Lightroom catalog are kept on a master 2TB RAID0 external hard drive (it's partitioned 250GB for LR catalog and 1.75 TB for RAWs). This master external drive is backed up to an onsite RAID1 3TB+3TB external hard drive (the two hard drives mean one can fail and still keep the data safe but RAID1 does not protect against an array failure). The second level of back up is to an off site 2TB portable external drive, this backs up when it's brought back and connected. I'm planning to get another portable 2TB external drive so I can always have one copy off site at all times and it would add a third copy of data and 2 onsite copies (I would finally meet the 3-2-1 back up strategy).

Currently carbon copy cloner automatically runs the back ups each time I start up the computer. I can manually run back ups too if I feel I need to, its quick and simple to click backup to run a manual backup at any point. I also use the 'safety net' feature of carbon copy cloner. It makes a copy of all files that have been altered/deleted since the last back up. Safety net protects me from accidentally deleting something and the backups mirroring that mistake, deleting every copy of that accidentally deleted file. The down side is it can take up a lot of hard drive space. I've currently set safety net to keep 8 months of data before it automatically deletes the files. I only have 'safety net' backups saving to the RAID1 3TB+3TB hard drive as theoretically I have 1TB of free space with it being 3TB and the other drives being 2TB.

I've been using carbon copy cloner for a few years. The reason I chose it was because it automates the back up process, anything that doesn't relie on me doing the work means 1/the back ups will always be done 2/it removes the weakest link from the backup process....me! The first back up takes a while to do but backups are now completed quickly as there is less to copy across. If I had to manually run back ups i wouldn't be covered as I would forget to back up. You can set up carbon copy cloner to turn on your computer, run the back ups and turn it off again. I did this until I changed to powered external hard drives as the hard drives need to connected for it to back up. As I use the computer in frequently I only turn on the external drives when the computer is on so timed back ups now don't work for me. Running back ups on every start up is the next best thing for me. Carbon copy cloner even emails me to say if the back up was successful or if it failed. That makes it easy for me to monitor the backup process so I know if there is a problem.

I also upload a hi-res jpeg of all processed images to a hidden folder on my website. If the worse was to happen all I somehow lost all of the data on all hard drives then at least I could still have a hi-res jpeg that stored and downloadable from my website.

I also use time machine for the macs internal drive. That backups the system files but none of my photography is stored on the mac internal drive.

Hope this helps you in some way. Thinking about back up systems may be the boring side of photography but are now so important.
 
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The biggest problems with backup strategies are will you actually do it and have you checked to see if it works! I've known of many situations where the first time a backup has been needed was the first time the user found out it wasn't doing the intended job.

A few things to think about. The more copies you have, the more chance you wont lose them all. If you have a system that is too much of a pain for you to use then you will probably not do it and then no backups! I prefer backups that aren't proprietory or on devices that can't be taken an put in another machine. Being organised will make your life much easier (something i generally fail miserably at) and being fairly hard on what you actually need to keep will make sure you dont have lots of junk to back up.

Sit down, and work out how much space you actually need now and you rough future requirements.Then decide if you had a catastrophic failure would it actually matter if you lost everything or would it just be annoying. I had one situation where a filed hard driver went off for data recovery and the bill was about £3000 (this was quite a few years ago). The client paid as it was recover the data or lose the business closely followed by the house, wife and kids! Another paid £2500 to recover a hard drive as the CAD/CAM software company wanted £5000 to replace his software & dongle.

Once you kow how much and how important your data is you can get a better idea of how to back it up. There's lots of options but not all of them suit all requirements.

HTH

Cheers
Nat
 
What i would do as a hobbyist: -
  • Backup Layer 1. Use the external drive as often as possible to make a Time Machine backup of your MacBook. I would exclude folders that are not important, e.g. i exclude my downloads folder, and also my Lightroom preview folder.
  • Backup layer 2. Buy another two hard drives. Do backup using something like CarbonCopyCloner to copy your photos onto one of these hard drives (call this drive #1). Keep this at your place of work, or a relatives house nearby. Then, say 2 weeks later, make another backup using CarbonCopyCloner to drive #2, and swop that with drive #1, so you always have a drive that is reasonably up to date off site. Make sure your back up software settings are sensible.
  • Backup layer 3. Sign up for an online backup service like crashplan. This will be slow to back up to start with, but i backed up around 50 to 100 gb per day by keeping my machine on 24/7 for the initial seed process.
Layer 1 should cover you for most eventualities. But should your house be burgled / burn down, having a relatively recent backup accessible nearby, plus the online backup for those files not backed up on the offsite should do you fine.
You could just use 1 and 3 initially, and as funds allow get the hard drives for offsite later.

AS to what I store - I store all my photos that I take, barring rejects that are quickly identified and deleted after import. But if you take a lot of client photos, you will need to identify when in the selecting editing process to make your backups, and what to backup. If I was doing paid work:-
  1. When doing an import, make a second copy immediately to a temporary drive. Keep the files on the memory cards until I completed stage 3.
  2. Cull / edit / export to output format. Depending on how you are editing, you may keep just the completed jpeg edits, or store the original raws plus the lightroom catalogue for that shoot.
  3. Archive these to your local storage drive, e.g. a NAS drive, using RAID for redundancy. Then make a backup to your local backup drive, possibly another NAS drive.
  4. Depending on the volume you shoot, you could use a cloud service to backup your local storage folder. If not, you will need to consider how to get a backup offsite asap.
 
BLZeebub said:
The biggest problems with backup strategies are will you actually do it and have you checked to see if it works! I've known of many situations where the first time a backup has been needed was the first time the user found out it wasn't doing the intended job.

A few things to think about. The more copies you have, the more chance you wont lose them all. If you have a system that is too much of a pain for you to use then you will probably not do it and then no backups! I prefer backups that aren't proprietory or on devices that can't be taken an put in another machine. Being organised will make your life much easier (something i generally fail miserably at) and being fairly hard on what you actually need to keep will make sure you dont have lots of junk to back up.

Sit down, and work out how much space you actually need now and you rough future requirements.Then decide if you had a catastrophic failure would it actually matter if you lost everything or would it just be annoying. I had one situation where a filed hard driver went off for data recovery and the bill was about £3000 (this was quite a few years ago). The client paid as it was recover the data or lose the business closely followed by the house, wife and kids! Another paid £2500 to recover a hard drive as the CAD/CAM software company wanted £5000 to replace his software & dongle.

Once you kow how much and how important your data is you can get a better idea of how to back it up. There's lots of options but not all of them suit all requirements.

HTH

Cheers
Nat
Click to expand...
Rapscallion said:
What i would do as a hobbyist: -
  • Backup Layer 1. Use the external drive as often as possible to make a Time Machine backup of your MacBook. I would exclude folders that are not important, e.g. i exclude my downloads folder, and also my Lightroom preview folder.
  • Backup layer 2. Buy another two hard drives. Do backup using something like CarbonCopyCloner to copy your photos onto one of these hard drives (call this drive #1). Keep this at your place of work, or a relatives house nearby. Then, say 2 weeks later, make another backup using CarbonCopyCloner to drive #2, and swop that with drive #1, so you always have a drive that is reasonably up to date off site. Make sure your back up software settings are sensible.
  • Backup layer 3. Sign up for an online backup service like crashplan. This will be slow to back up to start with, but i backed up around 50 to 100 gb per day by keeping my machine on 24/7 for the initial seed process.
Layer 1 should cover you for most eventualities. But should your house be burgled / burn down, having a relatively recent backup accessible nearby, plus the online backup for those files not backed up on the offsite should do you fine.
You could just use 1 and 3 initially, and as funds allow get the hard drives for offsite later.

AS to what I store - I store all my photos that I take, barring rejects that are quickly identified and deleted after import. But if you take a lot of client photos, you will need to identify when in the selecting editing process to make your backups, and what to backup. If I was doing paid work:-
  1. When doing an import, make a second copy immediately to a temporary drive. Keep the files on the memory cards until I completed stage 3.
  2. Cull / edit / export to output format. Depending on how you are editing, you may keep just the completed jpeg edits, or store the original raws plus the lightroom catalogue for that shoot.
  3. Archive these to your local storage drive, e.g. a NAS drive, using RAID for redundancy. Then make a backup to your local backup drive, possibly another NAS drive.
  4. Depending on the volume you shoot, you could use a cloud service to backup your local storage folder. If not, you will need to consider how to get a backup offsite asap.
Click to expand...

This is really good advice. Thinking about how you backup and getting a system in place that makes it easy to do is very important, especially if you are doing this professionally. Setting up a good long term system now will definitely save you money and heartache in the future.

I'm working towards the hobbyist system @Rapscallion has described above, pretty much got it sorted except the second hard drive in backup layer 2 and my online is only hi-res jpegs on my website (my internet connection is currently far too slow to make online RAW backup possible).
 
rob-nikon said:
Sorry to heard about your data loss, hopefully it can be recovered. Have you heard of the 3-2-1 back up?

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

I've tried to setup my back up system with 3-2-1 in mind, my system isn't perfect but it's a lot better than I used to have, which was very hit and miss. I use carbon copy cloner to automate my backups. Because of limited hard drive space on my mac internal hard drive I upgraded my storage a few months back and moved across my photography files. All of my raw files and the Lightroom catalog are kept on a master 2TB RAID0 external hard drive (it's partitioned 250GB for LR catalog and 1.75 TB for RAWs). This master external drive is backed up to an onsite RAID1 3TB+3TB external hard drive (the two hard drives mean one can fail and still keep the data safe but RAID1 does not protect against an array failure). The second level of back up is to an off site 2TB portable external drive, this backs up when it's brought back and connected. I'm planning to get another portable 2TB external drive so I can always have one copy off site at all times and it would add a third copy of data and 2 onsite copies (I would finally meet the 3-2-1 back up strategy).

Currently carbon copy cloner automatically runs the back ups each time I start up the computer. I can manually run back ups too if I feel I need to, its quick and simple to click backup to run a manual backup at any point. I also use the 'safety net' feature of carbon copy cloner. It makes a copy of all files that have been altered/deleted since the last back up. Safety net protects me from accidentally deleting something and the backups mirroring that mistake, deleting every copy of that accidentally deleted file. The down side is it can take up a lot of hard drive space. I've currently set safety net to keep 8 months of data before it automatically deletes the files. I only have 'safety net' backups saving to the RAID1 3TB+3TB hard drive as theoretically I have 1TB of free space with it being 3TB and the other drives being 2TB.

I've been using carbon copy cloner for a few years. The reason I chose it was because it automates the back up process, anything that doesn't relie on me doing the work means 1/the back ups will always be done 2/it removes the weakest link from the backup process....me! The first back up takes a while to do but backups are now completed quickly as there is less to copy across. If I had to manually run back ups i wouldn't be covered as I would forget to back up. You can set up carbon copy cloner to turn on your computer, run the back ups and turn it off again. I did this until I changed to powered external hard drives as the hard drives need to connected for it to back up. As I use the computer in frequently I only turn on the external drives when the computer is on so timed back ups now don't work for me. Running back ups on every start up is the next best thing for me. Carbon copy cloner even emails me to say if the back up was successful or if it failed. That makes it easy for me to monitor the backup process so I know if there is a problem.

I also upload a hi-res jpeg of all processed images to a hidden folder on my website. If the worse was to happen all I somehow lost all of the data on all hard drives then at least I could still have a hi-res jpeg that stored and downloadable from my website.

I also use time machine for the macs internal drive. That backups the system files but none of my photography is stored on the mac internal drive.

Hope this helps you in some way. Thinking about back up systems may be the boring side of photography but are now so important.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your routine, I will definitely get another few external hard drives, just need to figure out what exactly I will store there and if I want all RAW files or just processed etc.
I heard about 3-2-1 backup strategy, but forgot about it somehow.

I like the idea of hidden folder with high resolution images, I was thinking to create "Best of" or something like this folder and have it additionally backed up on iCloud, so worst comes to worst I will have something in the end.
I don't have many clients and just learning and building up my portfolio, but I need to figure out this storage system now, before its too late.

Is the Carbon Copy Cloner a software program that does the backups for you? You'll set up what it has to back up and have to have external drive plugged in for the program to do that? Does it cost much?
 
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BLZeebub said:
The biggest problems with backup strategies are will you actually do it and have you checked to see if it works! I've known of many situations where the first time a backup has been needed was the first time the user found out it wasn't doing the intended job.

A few things to think about. The more copies you have, the more chance you wont lose them all. If you have a system that is too much of a pain for you to use then you will probably not do it and then no backups! I prefer backups that aren't proprietory or on devices that can't be taken an put in another machine. Being organised will make your life much easier (something i generally fail miserably at) and being fairly hard on what you actually need to keep will make sure you dont have lots of junk to back up.

Sit down, and work out how much space you actually need now and you rough future requirements.Then decide if you had a catastrophic failure would it actually matter if you lost everything or would it just be annoying. I had one situation where a filed hard driver went off for data recovery and the bill was about £3000 (this was quite a few years ago). The client paid as it was recover the data or lose the business closely followed by the house, wife and kids! Another paid £2500 to recover a hard drive as the CAD/CAM software company wanted £5000 to replace his software & dongle.

Once you kow how much and how important your data is you can get a better idea of how to back it up. There's lots of options but not all of them suit all requirements.

HTH

Cheers
Nat
Click to expand...

Thanks for giving food for thoughts.
I think the biggest problem having few external hard drives for me is to remember to use them all, store somewhere etc. As I use laptop and don't have dedicated work space at home, it will be a bit of a pain.
 
Rapscallion said:
What i would do as a hobbyist: -
  • Backup Layer 1. Use the external drive as often as possible to make a Time Machine backup of your MacBook. I would exclude folders that are not important, e.g. i exclude my downloads folder, and also my Lightroom preview folder.
  • Backup layer 2. Buy another two hard drives. Do backup using something like CarbonCopyCloner to copy your photos onto one of these hard drives (call this drive #1). Keep this at your place of work, or a relatives house nearby. Then, say 2 weeks later, make another backup using CarbonCopyCloner to drive #2, and swop that with drive #1, so you always have a drive that is reasonably up to date off site. Make sure your back up software settings are sensible.
  • Backup layer 3. Sign up for an online backup service like crashplan. This will be slow to back up to start with, but i backed up around 50 to 100 gb per day by keeping my machine on 24/7 for the initial seed process.
Layer 1 should cover you for most eventualities. But should your house be burgled / burn down, having a relatively recent backup accessible nearby, plus the online backup for those files not backed up on the offsite should do you fine.
You could just use 1 and 3 initially, and as funds allow get the hard drives for offsite later.

AS to what I store - I store all my photos that I take, barring rejects that are quickly identified and deleted after import. But if you take a lot of client photos, you will need to identify when in the selecting editing process to make your backups, and what to backup. If I was doing paid work:-
  1. When doing an import, make a second copy immediately to a temporary drive. Keep the files on the memory cards until I completed stage 3.
  2. Cull / edit / export to output format. Depending on how you are editing, you may keep just the completed jpeg edits, or store the original raws plus the lightroom catalogue for that shoot.
  3. Archive these to your local storage drive, e.g. a NAS drive, using RAID for redundancy. Then make a backup to your local backup drive, possibly another NAS drive.
  4. Depending on the volume you shoot, you could use a cloud service to backup your local storage folder. If not, you will need to consider how to get a backup offsite asap.
Click to expand...

Wow! Thanks for the ready action plan. I was thinking something similar along the lines, but now its all clear.
I'll have one external drive for my Time Machine soon (when Amazon delivers it in few days) and then more hard drives for back up.
For Backup layer 3 I was thinking to sign up for iCloud or similar service (or find free), to store there some of the "best" images, in case I loose everything.
 
Iren said:
Is the Carbon Copy Cloner a software program that does the backups for you? You'll set up what it has to back up and have to have external drive plugged in for the program to do that? Does it cost much?
Click to expand...

https://bombich.com/features

Its currently £33.45 but I've found it to be worth it for the ease of automated backups that you can plan backups as you want them to be scheduled. I find external hard drives (both powered and portable) work well for me but I have the desk space available to do this.

Iren said:
Thanks for giving food for thoughts.
I think the biggest problem having few external hard drives for me is to remember to use them all, store somewhere etc. As I use laptop and don't have dedicated work space at home, it will be a bit of a pain.
Click to expand...

Are external portable hard drives the right option for you if you need to remember to connect each of them? The best backup system work by you having very little or no actions to complete. Are there wireless hard drive options that wouldn't need connecting by you? A friend of mine has a NAS back up, it means its wireless and the backup runs itself.

I don't use one and there are probably cheaper options out there that can do similar but the apple airport time capsule may be worth looking (Im sure someone can recommend a cheaper one).

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/ME177B/A/airport-time-capsule-2tb?fnode=5f
 
Last edited:
Iren said:
Wow! Thanks for the ready action plan. I was thinking something similar along the lines, but now its all clear.
I'll have one external drive for my Time Machine soon (when Amazon delivers it in few days) and then more hard drives for back up.
For Backup layer 3 I was thinking to sign up for iCloud or similar service (or find free), to store there some of the "best" images, in case I loose everything.
Click to expand...

Re layer 3, you need to read up on the difference between cloud storage / syncing services (e.g. icloud, dropbox, onedrive etc) and cloud backup services such as crashplan. But in summary, if you accidentally delete a file on your local machine, it will be deleted from the cloud storage services, but will be kept on cloud backup services. Crashpla also does versioning, so if you edit a file accidentally, crashhplan will keep older versions for you to revert back to.

Regarding carboncopycloner, this is for doing the backups in layer 2. It is not as simple to use as Time Machine, and truth be told the simpler the backup software the better unless you have some knowledge in the subject. IIWY I would get time machine and a cloud backup service set up first, then look at using something like carboncopycloner to do offsite backups.

What Rob says regarding having to remember to attach the hard drive (either portable or desktop) to get the backup done is a valid point. It may be worth getting a NAS that you connect to your router and run backups to that. This will happen automatically if you set up the backup software correctly, one less issue to have to manage. The timecapsuel is expensive for the backup storage capacity it gives, but it is (almost) plug it in, set up and forget piece of hardware.

Also take note of what Nat said - you need to test your backup restore. Can you get files out of Time Machine / crashplan backups to your satisfaction. Once you have your system setup , test it!
 
Simpler the better in my mind.

Raw files copied to a couple of external drives after each job, along with the updated Lightroom catalogue, and any PSDs that came about when processing.

Quotes, invoices, and receipts go on the same externals, and also on Google Drive just because I use Google Sheets in managing that side of things (so using Drive lets me link records to documents). That'll probably change when I move to Xero for accounting in a few months.

Everything organised by date. A couple of years go on each hard drive (and on the other harddrive that mirrors the primary one).

Have one drive of each backup pair (or trio, or however many you want) as a primary drive. i.e. that's the one you point your Lightroom catalogue at. Then if you want to load up photos from 2015 you just plug that drive in and everything is linked up.

Keep at least one of each set of drives offsite - this is the bit I'm lazy with because you have to bring it back, or take a computer to it, to keep it up to date.

I also have delivered JPEGs online, but that's just a byproduct of how I send them to clients. I have no qualms about deleting them if I need to free up space.
 
rob-nikon said:
https://bombich.com/features

Its currently £33.45 but I've found it to be worth it for the ease of automated backups that you can plan backups as you want them to be scheduled. I find external hard drives (both powered and portable) work well for me but I have the desk space available to do this.



Are external portable hard drives the right option for you if you need to remember to connect each of them? The best backup system work by you having very little or no actions to complete. Are there wireless hard drive options that wouldn't need connecting by you? A friend of mine has a NAS back up, it means its wireless and the backup runs itself.

I don't use one and there are probably cheaper options out there that can do similar but the apple airport time capsule may be worth looking (Im sure someone can recommend a cheaper one).

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/ME177B/A/airport-time-capsule-2tb?fnode=5f
Click to expand...

I like the idea of wireless external hard drive, apple is bit pricy, but once I start getting more paid work, it will be on my list :)
 
Steven001 said:
Excellent advice everyone, there's some very useful advice in this thread. Is there a windos alternative to Time Machine and Carbon copy cloner?
Click to expand...

Hi Steve, I'm pretty certain there is no direct (or even close) windows clone of time machine. For a general backup software when i was on Windows, i used to use SyncToy, but this was around 10 years ago, so things may have moved on since then! Perhaps Acronis may be a reasonable alternative?
 
I use a combination of Acronis True Image and Robocopy plus a load of good, old-fashioned batch files.
 
Just a note on the wireless ext drive - as a general rule, wireless is slower than wired and less reliable. More convenient (when it works), utter PITA when it doesn't!

A NAS is definitely worth considering as part of the strategy but bear in mind K.I.S.S.

B->
 
My system is quite straightforward really:
Copy raw files from SD cards to desktop, edit files, copy over to home server. I don't delete the raws from the memory cards until i have finished editing and i keep a copy of the finished photos on both my main pc and home server. Home server uses a sort of raid 1 setup using windows storage spaces so if one disk fails the other still has a copy of everything on it. Playing the numbers game i would only lose all my important stuff if my house burnt down or all three hard disks across the two computers failed at the same time (possible but highly unlikely). The next step for me at some stage will be to get a cloud account to give me the off site factor but for now i am "reasonably" comfortable knowing something fairly catastrophic would need to happen for me to lose everything.
 
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keeweeman said:
My system is quite straightforward really:
Copy raw files from SD cards to desktop, edit files, copy over to home server. I don't delete the raws from the memory cards until i have finished editing and i keep a copy of the finished photos on both my main pc and home server. Home server uses a sort of raid 1 setup using windows storage spaces so if one disk fails the other still has a copy of everything on it. Playing the numbers game i would only lose all my important stuff if my house burnt down or all three hard disks across the two computers failed at the same time (possible but highly unlikely). The next step for me at some stage will be to get a cloud account to give me the off site factor but for now i am "reasonably" comfortable knowing something fairly catastrophic would need to happen for me to lose everything.
Click to expand...

Just a cautionary note - if you use automated tools to backup from the main drive the home server, you can still loose everything. Any corruption / deletions / ransom ware on the local drive will replicate. Also if your home sever is connected as a drive to your main PC, said ransomware can still find and destroy.

I've replicated files that have been corrupted but didn't find our for months until after the corruption occurred and needed to rely on an old off line backup to get back the files.
 
i just use Hubic the cloud service.
all this buying drives nonsense is stupid, yes you need a small rleiable servuce to work on and store on but let the experts take care of the backups.
 
Furtim said:
Just a cautionary note - if you use automated tools to backup from the main drive the home server, you can still loose everything. Any corruption / deletions / ransom ware on the local drive will replicate. Also if your home sever is connected as a drive to your main PC, said ransomware can still find and destroy.

I've replicated files that have been corrupted but didn't find our for months until after the corruption occurred and needed to rely on an old off line backup to get back the files.
Click to expand...

Regarding corruption / deletions replicated on the backup, this shouldn't happen if you have your backup software set up to do versioning and to not remove deletions. I know carbon copycloner can be set to have a 'safetynet' and the synology backup software allows you to rotate backups, so keeps hourly versions for a day, daily versions for a month, and weekly versions as space permits- these can be tailored.

The advice regarding ransomware is very valid for automated backup to local drive or NAS, though i believe that automated online backup services give good protection against the likes of crypto locker (currently....it is likely that ransomware will evolve to tap into the API of backup / synching services and remove versions where this allowed in the API). They also have the advantage over a manual off site backup of being up to date.

Mr Bump said:
i just use Hubic the cloud service.
all this buying drives nonsense is stupid, yes you need a small rleiable servuce to work on and store on but let the experts take care of the backups.
Click to expand...

Does Hubic do file versioning? If it doesn't, this is not good advice (IMHO) - without versioning Hubic is a syncing not backup service. If you delete a file locally, or it corrupts, or you get infected by ransomware, Hubic won't help you will it?
 
Rapscallion said:
What i would do as a hobbyist: -
  • Backup Layer 1. Use the external drive as often as possible to make a Time Machine backup of your MacBook. I would exclude folders that are not important, e.g. i exclude my downloads folder, and also my Lightroom preview folder.
  • Backup layer 2. Buy another two hard drives. Do backup using something like CarbonCopyCloner to copy your photos onto one of these hard drives (call this drive #1). Keep this at your place of work, or a relatives house nearby. Then, say 2 weeks later, make another backup using CarbonCopyCloner to drive #2, and swop that with drive #1, so you always have a drive that is reasonably up to date off site. Make sure your back up software settings are sensible.
  • Backup layer 3. Sign up for an online backup service like crashplan. This will be slow to back up to start with, but i backed up around 50 to 100 gb per day by keeping my machine on 24/7 for the initial seed process.
Click to expand...

I have something like this.

1) External drive with backups made manually when I've loaded new RAW or edited files.
2) Additional External drive
3) Backblaze cloud backup (£40 per year personal plan)

My process is simple:
1) import all RAW files to local drive in computer (leave them on the SD card till I need the space on it)
2) manually copy files to external drive
3) edit/export then copy finished files to external drive
4) upload client files to Dropbox (I tend to keep these here for a while too)
5) Backblaze runs constantly backing up my data drive so all new files are backed up off site.

Don't forget to backup your Lightroom catalogue.
I keep all my RAW files and because I keep my LR catalogue, I can go back and edit the RAW files from whatever state I left the edits. I only ever delete RAW files on rare occasions. I do sometimes find myself thinking, "I'm sure I have a shot of X or like this", I can usually track it down and then load it back into LR.


If you don't have a safe place to take an external hard drive away from your home, you could buy a fireproof box like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cathedral-...&qid=1490451146&sr=8-1&keywords=fireproof+box
And put your external drive in it after each use. That way, if your house burnt down, then it'd all be safe.

I think Backblaze is good value at $50 (=£40) per year, you get unlimited storage and there's no limit on type of files.
Take a look at the comparison of cloud backup services on their site: https://www.backblaze.com/best-online-backup-service.html
 
ABTog said:
I have something like this.

1) External drive with backups made manually when I've loaded new RAW or edited files.
2) Additional External drive
3) Backblaze cloud backup (£40 per year personal plan)

My process is simple:
1) import all RAW files to local drive in computer (leave them on the SD card till I need the space on it)
2) manually copy files to external drive
3) edit/export then copy finished files to external drive
4) upload client files to Dropbox (I tend to keep these here for a while too)
5) Backblaze runs constantly backing up my data drive so all new files are backed up off site.

Don't forget to backup your Lightroom catalogue.
I keep all my RAW files and because I keep my LR catalogue, I can go back and edit the RAW files from whatever state I left the edits. I only ever delete RAW files on rare occasions. I do sometimes find myself thinking, "I'm sure I have a shot of X or like this", I can usually track it down and then load it back into LR.


If you don't have a safe place to take an external hard drive away from your home, you could buy a fireproof box like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cathedral-...&qid=1490451146&sr=8-1&keywords=fireproof+box
And put your external drive in it after each use. That way, if your house burnt down, then it'd all be safe.

I think Backblaze is good value at $50 (=£40) per year, you get unlimited storage and there's no limit on type of files.
Take a look at the comparison of cloud backup services on their site: https://www.backblaze.com/best-online-backup-service.html
Click to expand...


Backblaze is pretty good. the one thing that made Crashplan my choice was its policy of unlimited duration on retention of deleted and changed files. It may be some time before you realise a file is deleted or corrupt, and Backblaze only keeps deleted files for 4 weeks.
 
Rapscallion said:
Regarding corruption / deletions replicated on the backup, this shouldn't happen if you have your backup software set up to do versioning and to not remove deletions. I know carbon copycloner can be set to have a 'safetynet' and the synology backup software allows you to rotate backups, so keeps hourly versions for a day, daily versions for a month, and weekly versions as space permits- these can be tailored.

The advice regarding ransomware is very valid for automated backup to local drive or NAS, though i believe that automated online backup services give good protection against the likes of crypto locker (currently....it is likely that ransomware will evolve to tap into the API of backup / synching services and remove versions where this allowed in the API). They also have the advantage over a manual off site backup of being up to date.



Does Hubic do file versioning? If it doesn't, this is not good advice (IMHO) - without versioning Hubic is a syncing not backup service. If you delete a file locally, or it corrupts, or you get infected by ransomware, Hubic won't help you will it?
Click to expand...

look them up
 
Rapscallion said:
From what I can see they don't. But as a user I thought you may be able to help with some first hand experience...
Click to expand...
hubic has file synch which is good for synching between computers as different sites, it also has configured backups which you can have umpteen versions going back.
 
Mr Bump said:
all this buying drives nonsense is stupid, yes you need a small rleiable servuce to work on and store on but let the experts take care of the backups.
Click to expand...
all this paying £x/month/gb for cloud storage is stupid. just buy a couple of USB3 drives as a one off cost and swap them between your drawer at work.

especially for large amounts of data. lack of upload speeds in this country is a killer.

see what i did there with a brush and some tar. one solution does not fit all.
 
ABTog said:
I have something like this.

1) External drive with backups made manually when I've loaded new RAW or edited files.
2) Additional External drive
3) Backblaze cloud backup (£40 per year personal plan)

My process is simple:
1) import all RAW files to local drive in computer (leave them on the SD card till I need the space on it)
2) manually copy files to external drive
3) edit/export then copy finished files to external drive
4) upload client files to Dropbox (I tend to keep these here for a while too)
5) Backblaze runs constantly backing up my data drive so all new files are backed up off site.

Don't forget to backup your Lightroom catalogue.
I keep all my RAW files and because I keep my LR catalogue, I can go back and edit the RAW files from whatever state I left the edits. I only ever delete RAW files on rare occasions. I do sometimes find myself thinking, "I'm sure I have a shot of X or like this", I can usually track it down and then load it back into LR.


If you don't have a safe place to take an external hard drive away from your home, you could buy a fireproof box like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cathedral-...&qid=1490451146&sr=8-1&keywords=fireproof+box
And put your external drive in it after each use. That way, if your house burnt down, then it'd all be safe.

I think Backblaze is good value at $50 (=£40) per year, you get unlimited storage and there's no limit on type of files.
Take a look at the comparison of cloud backup services on their site: https://www.backblaze.com/best-online-backup-service.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing! Looks like you have a good system in place. I leave photos on SD card for quite a while as well.

In regards to cloud back up. What if at some point you decide to stop using them and either move to another provider or just have external hard drives?
I still need to figure out all this Lightroom catalogues and how they are connected to the files on my computer, but thats a good point
 
Thanks everyone for sharing your routines.
The files on my external hard drive have been restored, so thats a relief.
So far I've managed to get additional external hard drive that I will use for my mackbook Time Machine. I'll probably will get another external hard drive and will have 2 in total, where I will save and back up my photos (RAW, processed and LR catalogue). In addition, I'll either get memory stick or some free cloud service where I'll store some of what I think are my "best" photos, just in case.
I am still thinking about cloud service as it seems to be very convenient.
 
I would never depend on an external service for my back-ups. Who knows what the future brings? I have been using Chronosync for some years now, in conjunction with three external LaCie drives.
https://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html
The question for you, (probably already covered by someone above) is how much value do you place on keeping your archive "fireproof" and "future proof"! Maybe glass plates were a good idea, (unless you drop them)!:)
 
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