✔ New Year Resolution: Improve Backups

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
I know that backups and file retention have been discussed in various threads, but I thought I'd start a new one. I'm a certified continuity and recovery person and realized that I had become a little lax in my personal practices. I made a New Year's resolution to clean up my act. I hope this discussion may help others to not lose their own data.

The key to retention is redundancy. All media will fail. If you can accept that premise and act on it, you have a great start. Using this as a starting point, what is a prudent approach to ensuring you don't loose your stuff? Multiple copies in multiple locations is the key.

Here is my method:

  • Physically separate data from the operating system. (This is prudent whether you use Windows, OS X, Linux or any other operating system.)
  • Implement some sort of automated copy/backup method. (In my case I use OS X's Time Machine with a USB drive.)
  • Make a second copy of the data. (In my case I periodically copy files to my RAID 1 enabled NAS.)
  • Get a tertiary copy of the data offsite. (I recently implemented Backblaze to automate this process.)
What ever backup method(s) you use, you must test it!!! You may not go to the extremes that I do (I recently pulled a drive out of my NAS and rebuilt the mirror), but making sure you know how to recover is an often overlooked step in a good approach.

Below is a Mac representation of implementing physically separate OS and data drives as well as Time Machine.

So what process do you use?

Screen Shot 2014-02-03 at 9.28.26 AM.png
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
Mine needs a lot of improvement. I have 1 Tb drives in my Mac Pro, one is primary and the second is my time machine backup. I also have an external 1 Tb that I run manual backups and store in a safe. Starting to fill these up so I need to rethink my backup and glad you started this thread.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
I rotate four 2tb external drives on a monthly basis. Three are stored in a safe. I also have two other 2tb drives located off-site.
 

carguy

Senior Member
Improving mine as we speak. Signed up for Backblaze storage last week, still backing up my laptop and external drive after 4 days.

Plan is to buy two more external drives, keeping one attached to the laptop to store my images/LR catalogs and the second to back up to weekly.
 
I have an NAS drive that is automatically backed up as a new file is saved on the original drive and recently started using Carbonite so I now have a offsite automatic backup. I test both backup at least once a week. Also with Carbonite I can access all my files from any location including my phone.

Recently when my Mom died my sister wanted to use an old photo at the Visitation on the night before the funeral. I did not have a scanner with me to scan the original but I had scanned it several years ago and had it in my computer. I went to a local photography shop in the town where we were and accessed Carbonite and downloaded the photo so that it could be printed there. You never know when an offsite backup might come in handy.
 

PapaST

Senior Member
I'm working on mine right now. I think BackBlaze or Crashplan will be the last step for me as far as offsite. I have a 2012 Hyper V server with various virtual servers farming out a few TB of data to several workstations. I'm going to build a RAID5 (four 3TB drives) using FreeNAS and use that for local backups. Right now I'm just robocopying data between machines. But I think BackBlaze or Crashplan will work great depending on which one can backup my particular network.

There's an unconventional offsite method that Crashplan has that's FREE. Basically you just need two people with external drives. Crashplan allows you to use their software to backup your data to your buddy and your buddy's data to you. I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure your data is encrypted so your buddy can't poke around in it. Because you're not using Crashplan servers to store, the service is free. How about that? Offsite storage for free.
 

skater

New member
Amazon Glacier.

It's $0.01/GB per month...with 180 GB, my bill is $1.80 per month. You can't beat it. I tried a lot of other online solutions before this and they were all far more expensive and had limits I was constantly hitting. I currently have about 183 GB worth of pictures. I save my NEFs and edited JPGs.

There are some quirks:
1. Amazon doesn't offer a direct interface. You can either upload to S3 then have it move the files to Glacier, or you can use something like the Java SimpleAmazonGlacierUploader (or something like that). I've used the latter with good success.

2. It's not an instant retrieval - you request the file, then four hours later it becomes available. Same for directory listings. If I'm in a situation where I need to retrieve, that four hours isn't going to bother me one tiny bit.

3. It's meant for cold storage, not immediate backups, so there is a penalty for deleting files before they've been there 90 days. (The penalty is a penny per gig, so it's not huge money. I early-deleted a file last month and it cost me 20 cents. Or I could've waited until the 90 days was up and it would've been free to delete and I would've saved a dime.)

4. There are fees for downloading files, but not uploading. Again, these are reasonable, perhaps a penny a gig if memory serves. Again, if you need it, you're going to be happy to pay it.

It works a little strangely - you create a "bucket", then in the bucket goes files. But you don't really want to upload individual pictures. I ZIP them up (no compression, it's not worth the time it takes to get 1% compression) and upload the ZIP files. My photos are organized in a home-brew system that's based on film, so pictures are in "boxes" and "rolls". Each box contains up to 99 "rolls" of pictures, and each roll can have up to 999 pictures in it. With digital pictures, I usually start a new roll every few months, then zip up the "finished" roll and upload it to Glacier.

There's one "roll" of pictures that I'm reserving for pictures of a friends' daughter, who just turned one. My decision on that one was to upload it every so often and just delete the prior version. I have another script that warns me when I've added pictures to a roll that was already uploaded. I use a database to keep track of all this, but it could be done with a spreadsheet. Both require some diligence.

I'm very happy with the Glacier setup. One of these days I'm going to figure out how to set up S3 to move things to Glacier automatically, then I can use the S3 tools to upload and download files.

I use that for "catastrophic" backup - the house burns down or something like that. Aside from that I also have:
--My laptop keeps a copy of the pictures on my home server.
--I have an external drive I keep in our camper that also contains a copy, and a script reminds me every 30 days or so to bring it in and update it.
 

everprentice

Senior Member
I need to be more active in backups. Our house burnt down in 2010 and the only things my brother and I saved were a pair of laptops, a pair of DSLRs, lenses and a couple of external HDDs. I lost two HDDs that contained digitized photographs and photos from my first few years of digital photography. :( I then spent the next couple of years feeling bad for all those lost photos.

Thanks for sharing your methods. I have a crude method. I have two external HDDs, both for backups. I used to put one in the car but since it is winter, I have both with me.
 

littleoldman

Senior Member
My Drobo
Capacity
: 17.59 TB (17,591,842,070,528 Bytes)

Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Available :
15.51 TB (15,512,994,578,432 Bytes)
 

Dave_W

The Dude
FYI - I signed up for the Backblaze special 1 yr offer @$25 a year or $2.50 a month ($30 a year) but yet I found this morning my CC is being charged the normal monthly $5 a month. I've written Backblaze and assume it's a simple mistake and will be fixed asap but I caution everyone using the monthly service charge to check their account and make certain the right amount is being removed.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
Thanks Dave. I checked since I had signed up for two years prepaid. I was charged correctly.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
Spent a little time last night giving my backup methods a six month check-up. So far, the combination of on-site backup with Time Machine and off-site backup with Backblaze has worked very well.

One revision to my workflow is that while I continue to use the Macbook Air while traveling to import in Lightroom (while making a second copy on a portable drive), I am consistently merging to a single primary catalog on the Mac Mini. I am now taking advantage of Lightroom's Smart Previews to keep select "mini" catalogs on the Air.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
The folks doing nothing about backup will surely seriously regret it someday. :) Things happen.

Isolation of OS and data is sort of an esthetic argument, we have to back it all up anyway. Lots of folks are more comfortable with only one disk partition. The important factor is that we should have a current restoreable backup copy.

There are complex ways, and simple ways. Costly ways and simpler ways.

Backup could be on a disk in your desk drawer, or it could be in some mysterious online cloud we hope remains there, or a disk copy could be in the bank safe deposit box in case the house burns down. The important thing is to have a good backup copy. We probably have computer problems more often than the house burns down. :) I have never seen any reason to trust and investigate any cloud, but it seems cloud storage is only about data, not about OS. I doubt there is any way to restore an OS partition from cloud.


The least that can be done is this (and it should be extremely adequate in almost all cases):

Buy one external hard drive. Backup data sizes are large, so it should be a USB 3.0. drive for speed, and probably should be 2TB for size. A Western Digital 2TB USB 3.0 drive is only about $100. Smaller and slower may work, but you want USB 3.0 and 2TB.

Buy good disk image backup software, for example, Acronis True Image, about $30. (for Windows, but there is a new Mac version now, and of course other brands too)

This is all that is needed, other than you should actually back it all up now and then. Often, like maybe every week or two or four, but this is up to you, and depends on how fast the data changes, and how important the data is. If some data occurs that you cannot lose, then back it up! Backup takes only a couple of clicks, and is only a few minutes (depending on size), and it runs in background unnoticed while you do your other things. The easiest of little deals to do.

So now, when your internal hard drive crashes suddenly (it happens), or when you get some mysterious virus, or when your video driver goes crazy and nothing works - for any unknown reason the system just does not run right...
you simply restore the backup onto your disk, and a few minutes later, it is back exactly like it was the day you backed it up (which hopefully wasn't too long ago). All you have lost is the new data since your last backup (which is your own choice when doing backups). If the internal disk crashes, you do have to bolt in a new one, but otherwise, you simply restore your data. It takes only a few minutes, and you are up and running normally again.

if you have multiple disk partitions, consider backing them all up (if you don't want to lose them).

Retain at least the last two or three backup versions. If you have a problem, you may have recorded the problem on your last backup (unaware yet), so have a choice of a couple of older ones, just in case.

You do need to know your procedures are correct and know restore will work. True Image offers a Validation step which verifies your copy is good. IMO, True Image just always works. It has saved my system several times. Some means of backup is absolutely essential, data AND OS.
 
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aroy

Senior Member
I use external HDD for back up. As time goes, I have accumulated a fair number of disks - 160GB to 750GB. I have transferred all my archival data (one that I may need but not used for the last year or so) on to two sets of disks. I check them every six months. For current data I use external USB drives - two USB2 and one USB3. The best part is that the USB2 disks have at least twice the throughput on USB3 port compared to the USB2 port. In future, I will invest in 2TB USB3 drives and relegate the older drives for archival storage.

I also have over 500 DVD and 200 CD full of legacy satellite data, which I plan to transfer to 2/3 TB external disks. As that is an extremely tedious process I am avoiding it now, but will have to bite the bullet some time.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
I also have over 500 DVD and 200 CD full of legacy satellite data, which I plan to transfer to 2/3 TB external disks. As that is an extremely tedious process I am avoiding it now, but will have to bite the bullet some time.

You might want to look at the links in this very old thread regarding DVD lifespan.
 

aroy

Senior Member
You might want to look at the links in this very old thread regarding DVD lifespan.

Yes even I knew that the life of DVD is quite short. One thing I found is that pressed CDs have a much longer life compared to those written in computer, but that is practically impossible for one off case.

Ultimately older 10" reel tapes with about 40-200MB capacity last the longest, but in today's world they are too small in capacity and too large to store for all except government agencies. I will use the external HDD, renewing/upgrading them every three to five years.
 

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
going thru this now, i had only 2 gb free on my laptop (500gb) so backing it up to a 1tb external now, when i read this at the start of the year i swore i would keep on top of this but never did, so now when i transfer my monthly picture folder on my laptop to my main folder i WILL back up.

One thing i am going to do a better job of is deleting pictures i do not want or think i can alter, if i shoot 4 pics of and hawk and edit one up, the other 3 are going.
 
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