Backup Strategies

B

Blacktop

Senior Member
RocketCowboy said:
After my recent hard drive crash last weekend, this article from dPS caught my attention today.

https://digital-photography-school.com/create-solid-backup-strategy-photos/

While I don't agree with recommendation #3, the article is good food for thought. I was able to recover thanks to RAID5 on the drive array, but I use a mix of #1 and #2 for my backup plan.

How are you backing up your images?


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I have my RAW files only on my desktop's hard drive. The finished Jpegs are backed to another computer's HD, an external HD and finally on to Flickr.
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
I am a firm believer in cloud backup. With any plan you use that is all in house you run the risk of losing everything. Lighting strike could take out all your drives including your RAID system or external backup drives. What happens if someone comes into your home and steals all your computer gear including your drives. You can backup to a external drive and remove it from your house and store it somewhere else but then you have to remember to do it and what happens to the photos of the UFO you shot two days ago but have not been carried off site?

I presently am using Crash Plan. Several people here recommended it to me and I am using it now. It handles all my external drives at no extra cost. It does take a while to get everything backed up originally ust due to the vast quantity of files but it is automated so not something you have to do. My backup stands at 2.8TB right now. It took me about 45 days to get it all there originally. But now it only takes a little time to keep it backed up.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
RocketCowboy said:
After my recent hard drive crash last weekend, this article from dPS caught my attention today.

https://digital-photography-school.com/create-solid-backup-strategy-photos/

While I don't agree with recommendation #3, the article is good food for thought. I was able to recover thanks to RAID5 on the drive array, but I use a mix of #1 and #2 for my backup plan.

How are you backing up your images?
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I'm willing to expend a certain amount of effort to preserve my photos but I'm only willing to go so far. My best advice is to install (or have installed for you) a separate, internal hard drive. This drive is where you keep your photos and other data and for one very important reason: it keeps your irreplaceable photos and data physically separated from the operating system (e.g. Windows).

Typically when people say their hard drive, or computer, "crashed" what they really mean is their OS crashed, whether it be Windows or MacOS. Yes, hard drives can crash physically, but Windows is about one .DLL call away from crashing at any given moment. Keeping your data separate from the operating system is probably the single best step you can take to preserve your data. Yes, you can use a USB connected external hard drive instead but I find them slower and less convenient as a primary backup source. I do definitely suggest them as an additional backup layer.
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D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Horoscope Fish said:
I'm willing to expend a certain amount of effort to preserve my photos but I'm only willing to go so far. My best advice is to install (or have installed for you) a separate, internal hard drive. This drive is where you keep your photos and other data and for one very important reason: it keeps your irreplaceable photos and data physically separated from the operating system (e.g. Windows).

Typically when people say their hard drive, or computer, "crashed" what they really mean is their OS crashed, whether it be Windows or MacOS. Yes, hard drives can crash physically, but Windows is about one .DLL call away from crashing at any given moment. Keeping your data separate from the operating system is probably the single best step you can take to preserve your data. Yes, you can use a USB connected external hard drive instead but I find them slower and less convenient as a primary backup source. I do definitely suggest them as an additional backup layer.
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I agree with most of what you are saying. I have a SSD drive for my OS and most of my programs. I have a separate SSD drive for ADOBE and my Lightroom Catalogs. I have 2 standard drives in the computer. 1 for me and 1 for Gloria. All my photos are on external drives. Again Gloria has one and I have one.

Since the photos are only pulled into the computer to work on them and all the work is done on a SSD drive the external drives do not really slow things down at all.
 
C

carguy

Senior Member
My Lightroom files are on an external drive. I back that up to a second external drive and also to the cloud using Backblaze.
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Horoscope Fish said:
Well yes, SSD vs HDD; no real comparison there.
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After getting this computer set up I would never go back to a standard hard drive for the OS and programs. The computer boots up from off to ready to go in aobut 15 seconds. Lightroom is ready to edit in less than 15 seconds. I just have 24GB of RAM but still have one free slot so I will be adding more soon.

I am addicted to speed.
 
R

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
After getting this computer set up I would never go back to a standard hard drive for the OS and programs. The computer boots up from off to ready to go in aobut 15 seconds. Lightroom is ready to edit in less than 15 seconds. I just have 24GB of RAM but still have one free slot so I will be adding more soon.

I am addicted to speed.
Click to expand...

Now, bump that up to 192GB like I have in a couple computers....

...if only they also had video cards. :)


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Eduard

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
RocketCowboy said:
After my recent hard drive crash last weekend, this article from dPS caught my attention today.

https://digital-photography-school.com/create-solid-backup-strategy-photos/

While I don't agree with recommendation #3, the article is good food for thought. I was able to recover thanks to RAID5 on the drive array, but I use a mix of #1 and #2 for my backup plan.

How are you backing up your images?


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Click to expand...

Charlie, check out this thread from three years ago... the backup method described has stood the test of time. In summary, here is my approach:


  • Physically separate data from the operating system.
  • Implement some sort of automated copy/backup method.
  • Make a second copy of the data locally.
  • Make a tertiary copy of the data offsite.

​
 
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