Back up to DVD? If my library were smaller, I'd say that DVDs would be a good way to make a copy for off site storage, then destroy them and burn new ones every once in a while. But my backups would have to span several dvds, and that's just not practical for me.
Backing Up Your Photos
(86 posts) (40 voices)-
Posted 3 years ago #
-
@warprints
Don't forget about Blu-Ray backups 25gigs a disc.. But expensive atm.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I agree with you technologic :) Anything can crap out on you no matter the brand or the price. Just relating my experience with Drobos. A fellow photographer would always rave about his. Until he lost two 1TB drives in one instance! He called tech support and they sent him a new unit but within a few months the second unit started to give him errors. After that he couldn't rely on it for storage. I think the problem is with that unique software configuration you praise.
So just making the point that NOTHING is failsafe when it comes to your digital files!
*Niko reaches under his bed and pulls out a shoebox filled with old Kodachrome slides. "Ah the good old days!" he says as he wipes a tear from his eye. An error message suddenly appearing on the computer screen behind him.*
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yeah, seriously, there's no beating old film negatives for long term storage, barring fire or flood, there's no possible way your photos could ever get corrupted like a digital file could.
Don't worry, I pine for the old days too. It's a shame I wasn't born early enough to fully enjoy film.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@NikoDoby
As you pointed out the HP Mediasmart Home server is also an Excellent option. It uses a technology called Drive Extender which is a different but similar technology to the Drobo. The advantage of this product over the drobo is that its not just a backup drive but a full on home server. You can access your files remotely and more.
You can also build your own for cheap if you have some computer parts lying around as the OS is only $100
BTW this is an excellent read on why raid is NOT for standard comsumers.
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2008/08/11/why-raid-is-not-a-consumer-technology.aspxSomeone here is using Windows Home Server with a Drobo for an interesting backup method
http://blogs.msdn.com/steverowe/archive/2008/03/03/drobo-windows-home-server-goodness.aspxPosted 3 years ago # -
Tecnologic: welcome to the forum. A good place for you now that you're shooting more often (even if it is with my camera lately lol).
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yeah, my brother pointed out the HP to me. He's got a 2TB setup. Well I think it's actually 4 1TB drives working as a single 2TB unit or something like that.
Thanks for the links Technologic
Posted 3 years ago # -
@NikoDoby
Np. BTW you would save a good amount of money just by buying the http://tinyurl.com/HPMediaServerAMAZON
which is the same as the more expensive ones except for the hard drive space. Then by the Hard Drives seperate. You pay a premium for the hard drives if you buy the more expensive configurations.
You can get drives cheap off of Newegg http://tinyurl.com/WD1TBDrive-79Posted 3 years ago # -
Yup, that's exactly what my brother did. It's also the first thing I did to my last computer. Replaced the 150gb drive with a 1 TB drive. I also got my 1gb graphics card separately too. Gotta have more power and memory! And I gotta have my dual screens! :^)
Again, thanks for the info. OH and I think what Gentoo's actually trying to tell you is that you should get your own camera. Just make sure it's a Nikon!
Posted 3 years ago # -
"OH and I think what Gentoo's actually trying to tell you is that you should get your own camera. Just make sure it's a Nikon!"
He knows to buy Nikon only. He has his own camera, it's a D40. He needs a D90 lol
Posted 3 years ago # -
Indeed the HP disk storage looks good. As for other solutions, I would never risk my precious data on a Windows enabled machine, Unix is far more reliable. As for upgrading out-of-the box machines, do it guys Yourself, it's easy and saves a lot of bucks!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Everyone talking about disk problems should check out a product called Spinrite at grc.com. Steve Gibson is a very serious computer and security geek. Steve has been doing a very popular weekly computer security podcast called Security Now every week for the past 4 years. He has also been evolving his Spinrite product for many years and it is THE most capable hard drive maintenance and recovery product I have ever seen. All mechanical products fail sooner or later. Steve's product used for regular maintenance extends useful life substantially. Used in recovery mode, I have seen it recover many seemingly dead drives; in fact I am sure there must be something it cannot recover (short of complete physical destruction) but I have yet to encounter it. Reliance on a recovery product as a backup strategy is not a prudent thing to do, but when things go wrong and you don't have a viable backup, it is a life saver.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Good to know FPNova. Thanks for your "input" :)
Posted 3 years ago # -
@FPnova
I have used that software for data recovery and it is quite good at that. The claims that using Software to "refresh" hardware is pretty out there. It is not possible to add more hours to say the motor or actuator via software.
But yeah the product is good for recovery and if it doesnt work at first, well there is always the freezer trick. LOL
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Technologic
You're right, software won't fix a burned out motor. But very low level software with lots of knowledge of the hardware can detect when reads in a specific sector are giving errors indicating that sector is loosing it, move the data to a different sector and take the errant sector out of service.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@FPnova
Thats simailar to a extended chkdsk that scans the sectors and marks the bad ones. Except Spinrite is just faster.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yes, it's necroing the thread, but I thought that this would be a good time to remind everyone to back up their photos (and entire systems while they're at it, although you may want to do your photo files separately for efficiency's sake). Below is the reason, I did this last week. Fortunately, I'm only missing a few days worth of work, and I'm a purely amateur photographer, so I didn't lose someone's wedding when this happened.
Posted 2 years ago # -
All right, kaos. You know we need the story now. I'm sorry for you, whatever happened.
Posted 2 years ago # -
have anyone ever tried a thing(a technique i think) called RAID? this is now optional even for some home PCs. with 2 HDs of same capacity you can either double the reading speed or half the chance of failure(and also the disk space)(RAID0 and RAID1 mode). and with more drives, like 3,4 or 6 you can set them up to RAID10 RAID5 RAIDWHATEVER...to get more consistency of your data while speeding up reading/writing.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Stand-alone CD/DVD burner: $349
My best recommendation is a stand-alone DVD burner (it doesn't require a computer). I bought one for $349, and it's great. It has slots for all solid-state media: SD, CF, etc. It even has a little LCD screen. It burns CDs or DVDs of either flavor, and best of all, it automatically spans data over multiple DVDs (the unit ejects the DVD when full, and prompts you to insert another blank DVD). Anyway, I've had it for almost two years and it hasn't broken yet!
Now, whenever I get home from shooting, I just insert my SD card, and a blank DVD into my stand-alone burner, and I have an optical archive in a few minutes, with ZERO computer hassles. Then, I ingest a second copy into Aperture, which stores my files over external Firewire drives.
The product I own was a bit hard to find--I'll post the specific info when I get home. It's made in Taiwan, but sold by a U.S.-based company, under their brand.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Nivakon said:
have anyone ever tried a thing(a technique i think) called RAID? this is now optional even for some home PCs. with 2 HDs of same capacity you can either double the reading speed or half the chance of failure(and also the disk space)(RAID0 and RAID1 mode). and with more drives, like 3,4 or 6 you can set them up to RAID10 RAID5 RAIDWHATEVER...to get more consistency of your data while speeding up reading/writing.There are several types of RAID arrays (0-5, I think). Some are designed for redundancy (i.e., "mirroring," where the same data is recorded on multiple drives, or multiple partitions, simultaneously), and some are for speed (i.e., "striping," which is often used for video editing applications). Building a RAID array merely requires some RAID software, and some standard drives (Firewire, USB, etc.). Use identical drives for mirroring (archival) applications.
Major movie studios are still storing digital assets on plain 'ole magnetic hard drives, and then, I think, about once a year, they copy all the data to brand new drives. Pretty lame, huh? The task of developing a secure, "permanent," archiving methodology is still a major concern for Hollywood studios.
Posted 2 years ago # -
studio460 said:
Stand-alone CD/DVD burner: $350My best recommendation is a stand-alone DVD burner (it doesn't require a computer). I bought one for about $350, and it's great. It has slots for all solid-state media: SD, CF, etc. It even has an LCD screen (menus only--no image editing). It burns CDs or DVDs of either flavor, and best of all, it automatically spans data over multiple DVDs (the unit ejects the DVD when full, and prompts you to insert another blank DVD). Anyway, I've had it for almost two years and it hasn't broken yet!
Now, whenever I get home from shooting, I just insert my SD card, and a blank DVD into my stand-alone burner, and I have an optical archive in a few minutes, with ZERO computer hassles. Then, I ingest a second copy into Aperture, which stores my files over external Firewire drives.
The product I own was a bit hard to find--I'll post the specific info when I get home. It's made in China, but sold by a U.S.-based company, under their brand.
Sounds great, info please studio460!
Posted 2 years ago # -
SkintBrit said:
Sounds great, info please studio460!Okay, this product has the lamest name, but the darned thing works great! The model I have, and the one I would recommend, is below. I just went to their site and saw that they now make a Blu-Ray burner!
EZ DigiMagic Model DM550-P20 $349 USDThe company name is kinda goofy too: "EZ PnP." Search either "EZ DigiMagic" or "EZ PnP" and you should arrive at the company's website. They sell direct, and now apparently, also through Amazon. I purchased directly through them with no problems whatsoever. I've never had a customer support issue or technical problem, so I can't vouch for their after-sales support. But, as far as I'm concerned, for photographers, this product is the best thing since sliced bread!
Posted 2 years ago # -
I was loading the car to go skiing for a couple of days and set the backpack (with camera, lenses, laptop, iPod, and various other pieces of miscellany) behind the car. I then finished loading the car, got in, and threw it into reverse to get out of the driveway, backing over the backpack in the process. Fortunately, the bag twisted as I drove over it, so it only made the letter U out of my laptop. The camera, lenses, and miscellaneous electronics were completely spared, aside from a cosmetic crack in the hood on my 18-105.
In reference to the comment for Raid arraying listed above. This solution is usually designed for people who constantly have both hard drives (or whatever the multiplicity is) connected. Local storage like this isn't a terribly good backup solution either if you're running a business, because anything that falls into the Act of God clause would cause the work to be destroyed either way. Think of backups like a 200mm f/2 lens. Yes, you can spend an extraordinary amount of money and be nearly 100% assured that everything will always be fine, but do you really need that kind of assurance. For me, an external hard drive and periodic backups are fine, although user dependent. For some people, network attached systems with automatic backups are acceptable. Still others catalog on physical media like CDs. There was an article on here a few months about a professional workflow with some crazy redundancy, but I can't find it at the moment.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Thanks studio460, I'll see if they are available in the UK.
Posted 2 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
