Back Up Your Photos!

[tjavery]

It's more of a friendly request But seriously, have you backed up your photos? Just imagine losing it all... all those great photos from your Big Bend adventures gone.

Recently, I've heard of two instances where folks have lost photos and not been able to recover them.

This first is from someone on a photo forum that I frequent. He had his photo collection stored only on a single hard drive. During the installation of a backup hard drive (a dual-HD RAID box), he inadvertently formatted the wrong hard drive - the one containing all his work. It was a goof-up that happened because of his confusion during setting up the RAID drive.

Despite sending the wrongly formatted drive into a professional recovery service, none of the photo files could be recovered. He lost years of files including photos of his grandkid's first years.

Another loss happened to a friend of mine. He is really into woodworking and had been photographing his work prior to selling it. He kept all his images on a thumb drive (flash memory) and not anywhere else.

Flash memory (like the type that's used in your CF and SD cards) is easily corrupted if you read, write, and delete files a lot. His thumb drive went kaput and he lost it all. He was not able to recover it, even using recovery software.

The moral of the story? Two things: make backups and diversify your storage!!!

No system is perfect and no storage media is perfect, IMO. But you should use at least 2 hard drives for storage (3 or more is better). I would suggest also keeping your photos on DVD data disks.

CDs and DVDs are often prone to corruption/data loss. Here's a good article about disks:
http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media

If you're interested in the Taiyo Yuden DVD +R disks, here's a good place where I order from:
http://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/taiyo-yuden-silver-thermal-8x-dvd-plus-r-media-100?brand=TAIYO+YUDEN&filter=Package%3DCake+Box|Quantity%3D100+Pack&max=15&offset=0

For the ultimate redundancy, keep additional copies offsite. E.g. if your primary hard drive, backup drive, and collection of disks is at home, then consider keeping another backup hard drive or set of disks at work or a friend's house (or a safety deposit box).

It's a pain in the rear to keep up with all the backing-up required, and admittedly, I'm behind on my own "system". But the threat of losing photos is just too scary!

[MilesOfTexas]

I completely agree with TJ!!!!

I'm a bit anal when it comes to backing up my data, but I guess that comes with being a network engineer by profession, haha.

I use a RAID1 system in my workstation (two 1TB drives mirrored), then have my 'photos' folder automatically backed up to a NAS (Network Attached Storage) on my local home network, and that same folder also backs up to another NAS that I own that is off-site (in case of theft or fire).

There are some online backup services, such as Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com/ that work really well, but I have over 300GB of photos, so that kind of service is painstakingly slow for me.

If theft and fire aren't a worry, a painless, inexpensive NAS can help you out.  An example of one is made by Buffalo Technology, and can be had for around $100 for 1TB of storage.  Some can be connected via USB if you don't have a home network, and they include backup software.

Please note that I am not representing any of the above companies.  They are just examples of what is available.

[dkerr24]

Not only should you back up important data, it is also important that a copy is stored off-site.  A tornado/fire/other act of nature can take out your house and you stand to lose all your backups if none are stored off-site.

[RichardM]

My mother probably doesn't know it, but I have a backup of tons of pictures stored on her computer. I usually try to back up my PC to an external hard drive, then when I head to Austin, I take it with me and copy stuff to her PC. My mother-in-law has a slightly less up to date backup on her PC that she doesn't know about.

I used to put backup copies on my PC at work, but they've since disallowed the use of personal flash drives, etc. We can't even use a USB cable to recharge a phone.

[Casa Grande]

There are some online backup services, such as Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com/ that work really well, but I have over 300GB of photos, so that kind of service is painstakingly slow for me.
 

 I have been using Carbonite for over a year now and I am just delighted with it.  I also have gigs and gigs of photos to store ( one of my panoramas alone takes about 100mb of my storage and I have hundreds of them). The first time you start uploading, it will take weeks working 24/7.  But after that initial upload, you don't even notice it as it continues to build upon itself and update itself.  A simply ingenius service.  I have actually used it to backup everything on my PC.  The data is always up to date and available through online and there's a great iPhone app from them that allows you to access your backup on your phone!  This alone is worth it. I have actually been able to attach a file through email from my iPhone by using my backed up data on my desktop. Wonderful!  I can't say nice enough things about this service and it's 50 bucks a year for unlimited storage. 

(I don't have any financial gain from this service)    
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[badknees]

A. I use 2 mirrored 1TB HD's in RAID 1 for hardware redundancy,

B. WH Server for data.

C. External HD 1TB for data. (Which is disconnected when not in use)

D. Data on a Verio hosted web site ( which is also backed up by Verio)


My multi-layered approach seems to work well. I still have archived e-mails from 2001 ( which I need to delete)
 

[Al]

A. I use 2 mirrored 1TB HD's in RAID 1 for hardware redundancy,

B. WH Server for data.

C. External HD 1TB for data. (Which is disconnected when not in use)

D. Data on a Verio hosted web site ( which is also backed up by Verio)


My multi-layered approach seems to work well. I still have archived e-mails from 2001 ( which I need to delete)
 

That should work . . . needless to say . . . external hard drives with a daily backup here.  Multiple computers with "snapshots in time" copied from one computer to another.  Not near as good but so far good enough.  Rule of thumb - hard drives fail but not all at once. 

The good news is the hard drives installed in my computers keep getting bigger and bigger and well able to absorb all the stuff from the older smaller drives.

Al

[tjavery]

It's good to hear everyone's method of storage. It all seems to be hard-drive based on multiple drives and even in different physical locations.

Anyone fool with CDs, DVDs, or Blue-ray? Just curious.... I still think having backups on optical disks is a good thing, provided it's done right and with good quality disks.

[MilesOfTexas]

It's good to hear everyone's method of storage. It all seems to be hard-drive based on multiple drives and even in different physical locations.

Anyone fool with CDs, DVDs, or Blue-ray? Just curious.... I still think having backups on optical disks is a good thing, provided it's done right and with good quality disks.

I used to use DVDs, but found it to be more expensive in the long term, and the 'cost of ownership' is really high when considering the time it takes because it requires manual intervention (identifying what has been updated/added/deleted to back up, and then manually starting the backup and verification).  Plus, with 300GB of data, that would require 75 'standard' DVDs.  Blu-ray would require less media (12 'standard' disks for 300GB), but the costs are still out of favor.

I would actually prefer a tape backup system, so I could perform 'incrementals' on a daily basis and 'full' backups once a week or two, then put the tapes in a safety deposit box.  Problem there is that tape backup drives are very expensive (over $1000 for just the drive), but I will probably get one by the end of the year.  This is one I am looking at because it supports 800GB tapes and has a SAS interface: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16840113005

[homerboy2u]

Wow!!!......I am using pen and paper to back everything up. I am still behind copying my Mina 4 Palmas pics....sheeesh!

 Seriously, I have a 120GB External HD, i am in the market of getting a 1TB HD but my question is: Wht is mirrored HD?, unless this means a copy of a copy. That would be common sense.

[MilesOfTexas]

Wow!!!......I am using pen and paper to back everything up. I am still behind copying my Mina 4 Palmas pics....sheeesh!

 Seriously, I have a 120GB External HD, i am in the market of getting a 1TB HD but my question is: Wht is mirrored HD?, unless this means a copy of a copy. That would be common sense.

There are various RAID configurations, and RAID means Redundany Array of Independent Disks. RAID1 means that you have two identical hard drives (you can have more than two drives, but there must be an equal match), and everything that is written to one drive is duplicated to the second drive. These are set up as a RAID array using a RAID controller, and has to be set up when the operating system is installed. You only see one drive as 'available' per se, but if one drive fails, the second one takes over instantly without the need to reboot. You can then just replace the failed drive and the RAID array will rebuild the new drive to mirror the one you are running off of.

It isn't perfect, but it helps. For example, if the RAID controller were to fail, you wouldn't lose the data, but to get the array back online it sometimes requires starting from scratch with an OS reinstall. However, even in that scenario, the actual data on the drive is perfectly safe and you can just install the drive as a normal drive, boot to it, and backup your data to some other kind of media temporarily.

There is a lot more that can be said regarding RAID, but a simple two drive RAID1 is a very nice thing to have for drive failure insurance, and very cheap.

I bought my RAID controller card (SATA) for only $25 and it runs like a champ.  Some motherboards offer onboard RAID, which has to be turned on in the BIOS.

If you need more information other than this general information, feel free to private message me.

[Doc Savage]

I'm a backup-aholic. I have my pics and computer data backed up to CD/DVD every 3-4 months (so I have multiple copies of some data) additionally all pics and some data is backed up to an external 1TB HD that is stored. I also keep a 100GB hd with recent data and pics with my laptop, in addition to the laptop and my wife pretty much keeps all here stuff on her laptop after it's moved to the external HD. Having stuff in multiple places is a necessity.

Here at work we had a server with a RAID5 disk array have 1 disk go bad and it took the whole system with it (I know it's not supposed to be possiable, but that's what happened, we are checking the RAID controller to see if it contributed to the issues). This was our Configuration Management server for code development on the last project I worked. Luckily I had made extra DVD's when we delivered the code and had the latest. The person who setup the server had made an offsite backup of the code database and was able to get us a copy of the full database from that. Lesson is that multiple copies are needed of anything of importance.

Robert

[homerboy2u]

Yes, thank you MOT.

[Casa Grande]

I like to use off site in case my house blows up or burns down.  I used to use DVDs but contrary to popular belief, they don't last forever and blu-Ray is cost prohibitive. My BR burner was 300 and the discs are between 8 and 15 bucks apiece!  Plus DVD burning is so time consuming.  RAID systems are great but they are costly and still doesn't protect your data from fire and bombs.  Never put all your data in one basket!


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[presidio]

There are some online backup services, such as Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com/ that work really well, but I have over 300GB of photos, so that kind of service is painstakingly slow for me.
 

 I have been using Carbonite for over a year now and I am just delighted with it. I also have gigs and gigs of photos to store ( one of my panoramas alone takes about 100mb of my storage and I have hundreds of them). The first time you start uploading, it will take weeks working 24/7. But after that initial upload, you don't even notice it as it continues to build upon itself and update itself.  and it's 50 bucks a year for unlimited storage.

Yep. I use Carbonite and currently have 210 gb backed up. As noted, the initial run is rather excruciating but, once done it runs quickly for everything new. The service can be had for less than $50 a year if you search hard.

There's only two kinds of computer users.....those that have lost data (and either were prepared or learned a hard lesson) and those who are going to lose data. I learned the hard lesson in 1990 in DOS days when there wasn't much to lose but it left a lasting impression.