Nikon Rumors Forum

where there’s smoke there’s forum fire

1. 

   Willis
   

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   We've talked about this before, but as I recently had a near disaster, I thought I'd revisit this topic.

   I've got a 24 inch iMac that I love. Unfortunately, its held back by a 500gb hard drive that isn't quite enough for my programs, expanding movie collection (I've started ripping my DVD's) and my photography.

   Once I got down to my last 30gb, it became clear that something was going to have to go. I bought a Western Digital My Book Studio edition because it had firewire 800 support. I copied all my movies over and it worked perfectly... for about 3 months. Then overnight it quit on me. All my movies were gone!

   I picked up a $30 usb hard drive casing, and plugged it in... thank goodness, it was the casing that failed on my MyBook... not the drive itself. Lesson learned though: No more storing all of my data in one place.

   Here's the rub though: I've got to be able to store this stuff off my computer's main drive AND be able to duplicate it. This is further complicated by the fact that I'm increasingly using my lap-top for a lot of work, and the copying of files back and fourth is getting messy. So I've opted to use a Drobo connected to my airport extreme as a sort of low end NAS. Drobo makes sure you have redundancy of all your data in at least 2 disks. This mostly solves my problem, but just like any single device, the Drobo itself can still fail.

   So my question to you is this: What's the best way to back up my drobo (Hardware & Software).

   I'm thinking for now I'll use my external hard drive casing to clone it every so often (Say twice a month). That way I can take it to the office and always have a off-site backup. I just don't know what the best way to go about it would be. 500gigs is a lot to copy all at once, I'd prefer to just copy the updates. Will time machine work with external disks?

   Posted 3 years ago #
2. 

   PBrigido
   

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   Here is what I have for data backup.

   Currently I have 11 computers in my house. What happens is that across all of my computers which are on the network, I have shared folders on each computers. What happens at night is this: Computer A has a select group of folders/files that I want backed up. Those folders/files are then transfered to computer B. The same process happens when computer B has folders/files to be backed up...which then go to computer C...and so on down the line until the last syncs back to computer A.

   What's more...is that all of the computers then sync to my Western Digital 8TB ShareSpace NAS. There are 4x 2TB drives in RAID-1 configuration...so if any one of the drives dies, I have 3 to go back on. To take it one step further, I have online storage through Carbonite.com that gets synced while I am at work. This above all other safe falls, is by far the most important. Having an offsite backup source is invaluable. Getting one lightning strike on or near your house can kill everything inside...I've had it happen to me before. So when I get home from work, all of my files, across all mediums, are synced and safe.

   The only reason I take these extreme measures is because it is my profession. I've see data loss virtually every week...and it is well worth the investment to protect what you have. Some experts say that in 50 years, we will have better photographic records from the pre-digital camera era because those photos exist in hard copy...not in some digital form that can be easily lost.

   For your needs, I would suggest Carbonite for a form of offsite backup. It is only 55 bucks a year, and you can select when your stuff is uploaded...and only update the files that have been changed or added.

   Needless to say, I hate losing data. I can't wait until my next DSLR camera so I can get dual memory card slots.

   Posted 3 years ago #
3. 

   Willis
   

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   @ PBrigido:

   Holy Crap 11 computers? I thought I was bad because I have 3!

   With respect to carbonite: It seems like uploading 500gigs of data would be a no-go from an ISP perspective. Am I wrong on this? How long would that take? I get impatient uploading photos to Flickr LOL.

   Posted 3 years ago #
4. 

   PBrigido
   

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   Yeah, it is a long and drawn out process. I guess it depends on your upload bandwidth. Some ISPs limit how much you can upload in a given amount of time. I have Time Warner and fortunately they haven't placed any restrictions on uploads yet. But you are right, the initial uploading of 500GB would be a lengthy process...hopefully done at night. The nice thing about Carbonite is that it essentially halts when your internet is in use.

   Posted 3 years ago #
5. 

   PacificEagle
   

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   Willis, I tend to agree, losing your programs and data sucks, and makes your heart drop down to your toes when you think you've messed it up, or your computer has crashed.
   While I'm not a big fan of backing up my programs and files offsite, for some its a preference.
   I personally use 3 stacked 1-TB each Lacie back up drives. Two are set up to back up my all of my data in sequence. This way I have restore points to 2 complete backups. I have the computer set up to back up to each drive at night, and in alternate succession, this you can decided for yourself. The third backup I have programmed to just download all my work, pictures, files, documents etc for ease of access if needed. I like the multiple drives because if one fails, then I have the 2 previous copies of my complete computer information saved and my pictures and files on the other to fall back on.
   Thats just my personal choice, but it works great, and is relitively inexpensive to set up.
   Keith

   Posted 3 years ago #
6. 

   Willis
   

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   Good thing I don't live in Baumont where Time Warner caps your bandwidth at 40 gigs \ month. It would take me more than a year to back-up my data!

   Posted 3 years ago #
7. 

   PBrigido
   

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   Ouch! Gotta love Time Warner. Seems like each year we as customers pay more but get less in return.

   Posted 3 years ago #
8. 

   NikoDoby
   

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   See previous backup thread here:

   http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=410#post-5260

   Posted 3 years ago #
9. 

   Willis
   

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   Pacific Eagle:

   Welcome to the forum. First time we've run into each other. My main problem is that I want to move all of my data off my computer entirely. My iMac's hard drive is large enough for all of my programs, but can't hold all of my media, and replacing it with a larger one is a pretty involved process. By putting it on the network, I can get to it from any computer. What I'm not sure of is the best way to go about backing up a NAS.

   Posted 3 years ago #
10. 

    warprints
    

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    As noted in the prior thread, at home I back up my backup with a hot swap hard drive docking station. Plug in a hard drive, do a backup, and keep the drive in a fire safe at work.

    Posted 3 years ago #
11. 

    jonnyapple
    

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    warprints said:
    As noted in the prior thread, at home I back up my backup with a hot swap hard drive docking station. Plug in a hard drive, do a backup, and keep the drive in a fire safe at work.

    This is my solution, too, minus the fire safe and adding an optical backup of everything I don't want to lose.

    Posted 3 years ago #
12. 

    warprints
    

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    PBrigido said:
    Some experts say that in 50 years, we will have better photographic records from the pre-digital camera era because those photos exist in hard copy...not in some digital form that can be easily lost.

    Or from storing images in some archaic manner ... I have boxes of punch cards, and plenty of 10" (yes, you read that right) floppy disks with data galore on them, but unless one of you guys can crank up your old card reader or still have a functional 10" drive, I'm sh*&# out of luck on recovering the data. I have negatives and positives from way before punch cards that are still easy to get images off of or to simply view. I think a whole lot of images will be gone forever 50 years from now.

    Posted 3 years ago #
13. 

    Willis
    

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    I guess the problem is that film and prints only last about 200 years. And unlike digital, which fails instantaneously, film starts degrading as soon as you shoot it. My girlfriend and I have been duping a bunch of her grandfather's slides... The oldest color slides are all red (apparently, red fades slower than the other colors).

    At least with digital, when I look at my photos in 50 years, they will look exactly the same as they look today (except they will be holograms... HA!).

    Posted 3 years ago #
14. 

    kellenfreeman
    

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    I mean, I have to assume these extreme precautions are taken because of your professions, no? I mean, I'm just a student and I run a backup now and again, but nothing in which I have triple redundancy with stacked multi-terabyte disks...

    Posted 3 years ago #
15. 

    PBrigido
    

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    Well my profession is in the IT world...and I have learned a lot from it. I just apply what I know to my hobbies, such as photography. I will say that my backup system is way over the edge and is more suited for a corporate environment.

    Posted 3 years ago #
16. 

    Willis
    

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    Kellen - For me at least, its the down time between when your computer crashes, and when you can be productive again that is the biggest deal.

    At home, most of my hard drive space goes toward photos and movies. I've got a good 50 movies on my computer, and the list keeps growing. At $10 a pop, if I lost all of them, your talking about a substantial loss. No big deal because I actually own all these movies, so I can re-rip them. But that takes around an hour per moive. so now your talking about 50 hours of my time... which costs even more than the movies.

    For photos... my girl gets anywhere from $200 - $600 a shoot. More if its a wedding or something. If she loses that data before she delivers it to her client.. its not just the fee she loses... its any bookings that friends of that client might turn up.

    I've also got a handfull of my own photos that have sentamental value... those are priceless. So yeah... redundancy is a good thing if you can afford it. If you can't, well your young so just go make new photos :)

    Posted 3 years ago #
17. 

    nau
    

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    go to church and pray ... goes something like that "...long life for all my HDD, save and protect my clusters..." etc

    but good idea is to swap your HDD every 3 years and leave old one as a backup (call it 3 year permanent backup of your data)

    Posted 3 years ago #
18. 

    nau
    

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    btw funny story:
    working in IT come across a lot of ppl with very strange understanding of computers...

    - one guy had backup of ALL his data (for the last 5-7 years)
    - his job highly depended on that data
    - thats why he had back up of that backup
    - and he also had back up of all the backups and another backup of his data
    u think that's it?
    - no he had one more backup of all the listed backups that he did every year or so...
    so basically we are talking about 15GB or Randomly generated backup data... you would think that this person can not possibly fail with all this ... backups ..... WRONG!!! all his backups were on a same CoMputer.. and wait.... thats not it... they all were on a same HDD!!!!!!!!!!! in different folders ... 7 years old HDD failed badly he lost everything (had to send it to $$$ data recovery.... I think they managed to get some of it back but thats a different story)

    Posted 3 years ago #
19. 

    warprints
    

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    kellenfreeman said:
    I mean, I have to assume these extreme precautions are taken because of your professions, no? I mean, I'm just a student and I run a backup now and again, but nothing in which I have triple redundancy with stacked multi-terabyte disks...

    Well, those of us who have or operate 15+ computers are, statistically, 15+ times more likely to experience hard drive failures than people who have only one computer. All it takes is one catastrophic failure to convince a person of the importance of good backups.

    Posted 3 years ago #

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