Backuping strategy

[neuroanatomist]

I have at least two copies of my images as soon as feasible – for the 1D X that's as soon as I press the shutter button, for the M2 that's at the end of the day. From there they remain on a card until the files are processed, with the RAW files stored on my laptop's SSD, and two HDDs (one at home, one at work).

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have at least two copies of my images as soon as feasible – for the 1D X that's as soon as I press the shutter button, for the M2 that's at the end of the day. From there they remain on a card until the files are processed, with the RAW files stored on my laptop's SSD, and two HDDs (one at home, one at work).

Yes, I have a eye-fi card that transmits to my pc. As soon as it detects a new file, it sends it to the NAS. I have another PC in my studio which watches the NAS for file changes or additions and copies them, so its in three places in seconds, and is still on the card for a 4th place.

The software that does all that copying and duplicating is called Goodsync. It will send them to A Amazon S3 server as well, but I have too many files for that to work well. The backup to a second NAS is a true backup and is done nightly.

 

[zim]

I'm really surprised that so few are using cloud storage at some point in their storage wf.

 

[SeanW]

I can't stress enough about some form of off-site backup component that is rotated out on a regular basis and updated. Having had a house fire (from a dishwasher!), where luckily we didn't lose anything of value, but it brought it home how easy it would be to lose all of the "bits and bytes", not just photographic but email, files, music etc. etc.

Personally I have multiple drives for backup, some offsite at relatives houses, plus a cloud backup in OneDrive. But, as there is no real service agreement with Microsoft for OneDrive and if they had an "Oopps" moment with the data, it could be gone in a second, so wouldn't rely on it as the only part of a backup solution.

 

[AlanF]

I have a backing up strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup
"In information technology, a backup, or the process of backing up, refers to the copying and archiving of computer data so it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is to back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup"

I am so sorry, english is not my first language and I hope I didn't offend you

Free English lessons are just part of the service.

I have a TB of DropBox +Ratpack to restore mistakenly deleted files. The files are automatically downloaded to two desktops and two laptops. That's even more overkill than Neuro's. I back up every evening when travelling.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Having had a house fire (from a dishwasher!), where luckily we didn't lose anything of value, but it brought it home how easy it would be to lose all of the "bits and bytes", not just photographic but email, files, music etc. etc.

Good point. I suppose that technically I have five copies of my RAW images – the laptop and home/work HDDs for backing up RAW files, and the home/work HDDs on which I maintain backup clones of the laptops' (mine and my wife's) SSDs.

The reason I have dedicated RAW backup disks in addition to the routine laptop backups is that at some point it's likely my laptop SSD will fill up, and the separate RAW backups will allow me to store just a subset of the files on the laptop (and its clones). In fact, that would have happened already, but I bought some time when I swapped the internal 500 GB HDD for a 960 GB SSD.

 

[pwp]

off site storage is an absolute must!

If your backup is in the same room/building as your computer it will not help you in case of a fire or theft. If the computer burns up, so does the backup beside it. If the thieves take the computer, they take the backup beside it.

I have two complete backups. One at home and one at work. I also have an archival backup at a friend's house.

Here's a gut wrenching piece from Petapixel about a photographer who lost her entire life's work in a burglary.
http://petapixel.com/2015/09/27/photographer-loses-lifes-work-after-burglars-steal-21-hard-drives/
Yes, duplicate offsite storage is a must.

-pw

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I'm really surprised that so few are using cloud storage at some point in their storage wf.

I tried uploading 8 TB at 2 MB/sec. That might take me a year. Finally I gave up. If you have a really fast internet connection for uploads it might work fine. A bout 4 years ago, one of the cloud photo services went bankrupt. Users had 2 weeks to retrieve all their photos, but, of course, with thousands trying to download them all at once, it was a hopeless situation. Finally, the owner of Vimeo helped out and got the company that was closing them down to hold off for a month or two, so most people got their photos.

As a backup, the cloud is ok, but as a primary storage area, it can bite you.

 

[expatinasia]

I have a lot of external HDs with all images (RAW and edited) backed up numerous times. I keep one set of backups in one location and others elsewhere. Plus I have some images backed up online.

I still have some really old back ups on floppy disks and those iomega zip drives. Not sure how to destroy them. From memory, I read you should put floppy disks in a microwave to properly destroy the data, but I don't have a microwave.

Hopefully the current USB 2.0 and 3.0 external HDs will be useable for some time yet.

Just to think that the latest smartphones can handle micro SD cards of up to 2TB in capacity is crazy!!!

 

[nc0b]

When I was in South America for two weeks I also used the Western Digital My Passport Wireless for backup. There was only so much room in four backpacks and one suite case. I did not take a laptop and I swapped out the SD cards every two days. (6D & 60D) A friend just returned from 2.5 weeks in Ireland, and also went with the WD Passport solution. No I am not aware of a CF equivalent to the SD WD product.

 

[tpatana]

There isn't really a more pro back up option in the list unfortunately.

I have 2 16tb raid arrays one on site one off site.

I also have 16tbs in my mac pro which backs up automatically on site, then every month i swap the on site with the off site and allows it to back up and keep another safe.

I also use a 2TB external USB drive which I carry everywhere with my most recent files and a 5TB external which I keep in a fire proof safe with all my family stuff, incase of environmental disaster in my area where my whole back up strategy is based.

When I travel, I shoot raw to CF and jpeg to SD, back up my files to two HDDs and keep them in separate bags and also have a back up on the lappy, then I export the 5 Star images to a 128gb thumb drive and keep it on me incase bags are stolen.

Man, you are way more dedicated than me.

 

[expatinasia]

I also use a 2TB external USB drive which I carry everywhere

...


then I export the 5 Star images to a 128gb thumb drive and keep it on me incase bags are stolen.

I have often thought about carrying a backup with me at all times, but am petrified of losing it. What are you using as encryption to make sure that data stays as safe as possible in case you lose either of the above two drives?

Thanks.

 

[tomscott]

There isn't really a more pro back up option in the list unfortunately.

I have 2 16tb raid arrays one on site one off site.

I also have 16tbs in my mac pro which backs up automatically on site, then every month i swap the on site with the off site and allows it to back up and keep another safe.

I also use a 2TB external USB drive which I carry everywhere with my most recent files and a 5TB external which I keep in a fire proof safe with all my family stuff, incase of environmental disaster in my area where my whole back up strategy is based.

When I travel, I shoot raw to CF and jpeg to SD, back up my files to two HDDs and keep them in separate bags and also have a back up on the lappy, then I export the 5 Star images to a 128gb thumb drive and keep it on me incase bags are stolen.

Man, you are way more dedicated than me.

I learned the hard way early and won't make the same mistake again. Its so important, once its gone… its gone.

 

[tomscott]

When I was in South America for two weeks I also used the Western Digital My Passport Wireless for backup. There was only so much room in four backpacks and one suite case. I did not take a laptop and I swapped out the SD cards every two days. (6D & 60D) A friend just returned from 2.5 weeks in Ireland, and also went with the WD Passport solution. No I am not aware of a CF equivalent to the SD WD product.

Its a good strategy back ups across multiple bags, if they are all in one place but you have multiples its like just having one because if something happened to that one bag thats it… have to try and be clever about where you put storage when traveling, same with having an extra cash card in a separate bag.

I found over the 6 months I was traveling it was impossible just to shoot dual cards I shot 25,000+ images and thats around 2TB. Would have had a lot of cards.

I travelled South America for 2 months and one of my friends I was traveling with had her backpack stolen in a bus station in Bolivia, it was organised the bus conductor came and got us all round him to check our tickets and someone came and swiped it. The police wouldn't let her view the CCTV because it was organised and nothing could be done. Passport, iPad, camera, everything gone. She was 1 week into a 2 month trip.

Got to be careful. I had mine glued to me the whole 6 months with a rear opening bag.

 

[zim]

I'm really surprised that so few are using cloud storage at some point in their storage wf.

I tried uploading 8 TB at 2 MB/sec. That might take me a year. Finally I gave up. If you have a really fast internet connection for uploads it might work fine. A bout 4 years ago, one of the cloud photo services went bankrupt. Users had 2 weeks to retrieve all their photos, but, of course, with thousands trying to download them all at once, it was a hopeless situation. Finally, the owner of Vimeo helped out and got the company that was closing them down to hold off for a month or two, so most people got their photos.

As a backup, the cloud is ok, but as a primary storage area, it can bite you.

I'd go further and say that as a primary storage area it would be garbage!
I use it as a tertiary area. As an amateur with not actually a long digital history I guess it's been much easier for me to get going with it so I'm just in 'changes only' mode which runs happily in the background.

Incidentally the backup I use has a service which allows you to get files transferred by disk initially to get over that massive data hump at the start, didn't need to us it myself, cost may be an issue but would certainly save time.

Regards

 

[Fantec]

I was just curious what is the right backup strategy for photos?
What approach do you prefer and why do you think it's the best?

Usually, you backup data according to the kind of losses you want to avoid. So your first step should be to list the issues you need to address and then find a way to solve them.

My camera (1DX) has two slots so I use them as mirrors. When I/we travel, I usually have a portable disk on which I copy the cameras content. This disk is kept in our regular luggage. That way, I mostly cover camera thefts and memory card integrity.

At home, photos are stored on a different computer on a RAID1 array. All users (wife, kids, family with accounts) have a read access to the volume but I am the only one to have write access to the "new" content (someone accidentally delete a directory so I change the share policy to a more paranoid mode). Once I have fully processed all photos of a specific year, write access is removed (I have to admit I do not really trust myself either)

Our personnal data is backed-up on tapes (LTO). This is old fashion but I am not very young too and I am used to use such media. The main advantage is you may have plenty of different physical supports (tapes) and easily store them off site. I am backing-up at least one a month (this tape will be kept forever) but, when I have new contents or when I have processed many raws, I will backup up once a week (and will keep this tape at least for one year). This is to be able to retrieve a file as it was at a specific time (within a week time frame for recent files or a month time frame for older ones).

Once I have imported photos, I will not process them before backing-up the data (unless I do not really care about the photos). When I really care about the photos, I will wait for the backup before erasing the memory cards and I will wait for several monthly backups before removing raws.

I usually keep a few tapes in a safe in our basement, in my parents and parents-in-law location and at my office. I also keep a copy of all our photos on the portable disk we bring on holidays (France may be nuked during my holidays, I still have my photos...)

 

[PropeNonComposMentis]

Just a quick note.

Raid and/or NAS (i.e. more than one physical HDD), on-site or not, is fine, but give a thought to 'power outs', Brown-outs and Spikes specifically, they can trash a perfectly good HDD or SSD.

So protection + UPS, is also worth a thought...
Juz say'in...

N.B. I dont store Digital.

 

[tpatana]

There isn't really a more pro back up option in the list unfortunately.

I have 2 16tb raid arrays one on site one off site.

I also have 16tbs in my mac pro which backs up automatically on site, then every month i swap the on site with the off site and allows it to back up and keep another safe.

I also use a 2TB external USB drive which I carry everywhere with my most recent files and a 5TB external which I keep in a fire proof safe with all my family stuff, incase of environmental disaster in my area where my whole back up strategy is based.

When I travel, I shoot raw to CF and jpeg to SD, back up my files to two HDDs and keep them in separate bags and also have a back up on the lappy, then I export the 5 Star images to a 128gb thumb drive and keep it on me incase bags are stolen.

Man, you are way more dedicated than me.

I learned the hard way early and won't make the same mistake again. Its so important, once its gone… its gone.

I'm quite careful about back-ups and such, but you take it to another level.

Then again, I've never lost anything yet *knock**knock*

 

[East Wind Photography]

I was just curious what is the right backup strategy for photos?
What approach do you prefer and why do you think it's the best?
Do you use some nice tool for syncing and/or backuping your photos?

I personally have two hard drives, where I store all my photos and cloud storage where I store all my exported collections from events (trips, holidays, ...) and also my photos which I upload on 500px. This can sound little bit overprotective, but I already had some hard time restoring data from failed hard drive (the only one where my photos were uploaded then)

Feel free to vote and to comment!

I do something similar to what you are doing except I use external USB drives to save everything twice. One stays local, one is offsite. The post images also get stored on a paid Cloud Service. I'm in the IT field and have had enough issues with raid hardware to realize the only way to be sure is to have physically separate disks and not to have all of your eggs in one basket. RAID arrays are only as reliable as the company that provides the parts. After that you are done.

Of all of the interface formats, USB seems to have the most backwards compatibility of all. If you use raw disks, you may find that SATA3 interfaces won't exist in 10 years and won't be use able in new computers. Or even those raid disks may no longer be available to replace bad drives when they fail.

Believe me I have a ton of stories where raid over the years was not good enough. I've settled on just plain old USB drives and use robocopy to duplicate them to another drive. I've also had those fail sitting on the shelf but so far have not had two fail at the same time. If you really want to make sure, you could always keep 3 USB drives. It's still cheaper than one good raid array.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[East Wind Photography]

I'll also add that I never ever keep the backup drives connected to a PC or powered on unless I'm using the backup data. That protects against power outages, corruption, infection, other things.

Backups are stored offline where they should be.