I am looking at different ways of backing up my photos and was after any advice from people who have better routines than I do.
I am purely an amateur and I have all my photos on a portable hard drive so I can take photos between the laptop (for initial culling and keywording) and the desktop (for fine processing). My computer has USB2 ports (no USB3) and an eSATA port.
So my routine is normally:
Download images from the card, using LR and use it to send the images to the portable 'Working drive' and create a second copy on a second disk (BackUp1). I don't touch BackUp1 - it is there if anything happens to the downloaded images on the Working Drive. I delete old images from BackUp1 every few weeks/months (on the assumption that if I had no reason to visit BackUp1 then I have all the images I need on ther working drive).
I use Cobian to back up the Working Drive to two external HDDs (BackUp2 and BackUp3) and these drives are big enough such that at any one time I have a history of 3 historical backups. One of the BackUp2/3 are stored in the cellar bagged with silica gel.
At the moment, BackUp2 is connected to the computer through the eSATA port and BackUp3 is connected to a USB2 port (lack of USB3).
Sometimes I do back-ups sequentially because of the time they take (16h for USB2 vs 11h for eSATA) and I want to work on the images in the meantime. Why eSATA is quicker than USB2 when the working drive is also connected to USB2 I am not sure....
I am doing full back ups every month or so and incremental back ups weekly in between (when I remember!!)
However, now I am looking at streamlining this a bit.
So as I see it, I have two options:
Option 1 - NAS as a place to back up files
I am ambivalent about having a NAS as a NAS for the following reasons: I don't do gaming, we don't stream videos around the house and everything I have read suggests it is slower to move photos around a network than between disks (any comments on this?) and I like the speed of having images on the hard disc. However, what NAS does have in its favour is inbuilt software for back up routines. Whether I become enamoured by the advantages of NAS over time is to be discovered but it is low on my list of priorities. I am interested only in back up options at this time. For domestic reasons the NAS would be connected to the router via powerline so I am not sure how that would affect its performance (?comments)
Anyway, in terms of transferring data from the working drive to the HDDs in the NAS, I am not sure if it would be quicker to attach the NAS to the desktop using USB2, connect the NAS to the desktop using a network cable, or connect the NAS to the network with powerline (for domestic reasons the NAS cannot be connected to the router).
The advantage of the NAS is that I could then use the NAS internal proven back up software.
Option 2 - HDD dock plus back up software
Buy a twin-hard drive dock connected to the desktop through the eSATA port and use back up software to back up the photos/catalogs. Does anyone have any recommendations for back up software? A lot of comments on the internet suggests they all have their quirks (I like things to 'just work') and Cobian is no longer being developed/supported which concerns me. Maybe I should just try Windows own back up software - does anyone use this?
The advantage of the dock is that it is significantly cheaper than the NAS device.
The downside as far as I can see is that when the dock is plugged into the computer Windows Explorer sees only one drive even if there are multiple drives loaded and you are relying on the dock's internal copying software to create the second backup (which can be done offline so there is a speed advantage). I like the idea of being able to browse both drives to check their integrity.
I am also considering RAID options and given that my images are on the portable hard drive - I believe RAID1 is the easiest. But given my routine above, I am not sure it is even necessary as the most I would lose is the processing I have done. Any comments?
Thank you for any help or suggestions you can give.
I am purely an amateur and I have all my photos on a portable hard drive so I can take photos between the laptop (for initial culling and keywording) and the desktop (for fine processing). My computer has USB2 ports (no USB3) and an eSATA port.
So my routine is normally:
Download images from the card, using LR and use it to send the images to the portable 'Working drive' and create a second copy on a second disk (BackUp1). I don't touch BackUp1 - it is there if anything happens to the downloaded images on the Working Drive. I delete old images from BackUp1 every few weeks/months (on the assumption that if I had no reason to visit BackUp1 then I have all the images I need on ther working drive).
I use Cobian to back up the Working Drive to two external HDDs (BackUp2 and BackUp3) and these drives are big enough such that at any one time I have a history of 3 historical backups. One of the BackUp2/3 are stored in the cellar bagged with silica gel.
At the moment, BackUp2 is connected to the computer through the eSATA port and BackUp3 is connected to a USB2 port (lack of USB3).
Sometimes I do back-ups sequentially because of the time they take (16h for USB2 vs 11h for eSATA) and I want to work on the images in the meantime. Why eSATA is quicker than USB2 when the working drive is also connected to USB2 I am not sure....
I am doing full back ups every month or so and incremental back ups weekly in between (when I remember!!)
However, now I am looking at streamlining this a bit.
So as I see it, I have two options:
Option 1 - NAS as a place to back up files
I am ambivalent about having a NAS as a NAS for the following reasons: I don't do gaming, we don't stream videos around the house and everything I have read suggests it is slower to move photos around a network than between disks (any comments on this?) and I like the speed of having images on the hard disc. However, what NAS does have in its favour is inbuilt software for back up routines. Whether I become enamoured by the advantages of NAS over time is to be discovered but it is low on my list of priorities. I am interested only in back up options at this time. For domestic reasons the NAS would be connected to the router via powerline so I am not sure how that would affect its performance (?comments)
Anyway, in terms of transferring data from the working drive to the HDDs in the NAS, I am not sure if it would be quicker to attach the NAS to the desktop using USB2, connect the NAS to the desktop using a network cable, or connect the NAS to the network with powerline (for domestic reasons the NAS cannot be connected to the router).
The advantage of the NAS is that I could then use the NAS internal proven back up software.
Option 2 - HDD dock plus back up software
Buy a twin-hard drive dock connected to the desktop through the eSATA port and use back up software to back up the photos/catalogs. Does anyone have any recommendations for back up software? A lot of comments on the internet suggests they all have their quirks (I like things to 'just work') and Cobian is no longer being developed/supported which concerns me. Maybe I should just try Windows own back up software - does anyone use this?
The advantage of the dock is that it is significantly cheaper than the NAS device.
The downside as far as I can see is that when the dock is plugged into the computer Windows Explorer sees only one drive even if there are multiple drives loaded and you are relying on the dock's internal copying software to create the second backup (which can be done offline so there is a speed advantage). I like the idea of being able to browse both drives to check their integrity.
I am also considering RAID options and given that my images are on the portable hard drive - I believe RAID1 is the easiest. But given my routine above, I am not sure it is even necessary as the most I would lose is the processing I have done. Any comments?
Thank you for any help or suggestions you can give.