Backing up files

Nostromo

Nostromo

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Dominic
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I only use my PC for photo editing, surfing the internet, YouTube etc. At present all of my photos are on an external HDD. I have a small SSD for OS and programs, which I am planning to I replace with a 500gb. No photos are stored on internal HDDs (I have 2 500gb drives). I also have a 1tb hdd out of my old PC that has Win 10 OS, all of my photos, files and programs, up to the point of me buying a new (used) PC. I also have a backup of this drive (minus the OS) on another external HDD.
So my thinking was, I'd like to format the old 1tb HDD, take out the 2 500gb drives and use the old 1tb drive as a backup (pretty much for photos only, seen as that's all that's really on my PC. I like to keep my photos and lr catalogue on the external HDD, because sometimes I use my laptop for editing or camera club demonstrations. So this just makes it easier.
So my question is, what software to use to backup with?
I know this all looks like a bit of a mess and I'm backing up an external, to an internal drive, which is a bit backwards.
 
I have three 1TB hard drives in my PC and I use Casper 10 software to create two coned copies of C drive which gives me three bootable hard drives. I also back up to external hard drives as well plus everything is also on my laptop and even that is copied to external hard drives....:D
 
Are you taking backups or just mirroring the drives? If it's the latter then the built-in Robocopy is all you need. I use Acronis to take backups of my system drive every night and Robocopy to mirror my data drive to a second drive inside the PC and to the NAS.
 
One big question - what risks do you want to cover by backing up? @Snapsh0t is correct in what he says, but that has everything local. So, for instance, if you had a major power issue (something we aren't that used to in the UK historically, but I can see being more of a risk in coming years) while they were all plugged in, then you might lose everything. In years gone by, burning to DVD was cheapest, these days having an offsite repository makes most sense - as a long term google fanboi I use them and back up all photos and LR catalogue backup offsite in jpg (I shoot RAW+jpg, partially for this reason). There are any number of providers who will sell you that.

The big deal is, no matter what you plan use, it is useless if you don't do it, and if it isn't an automated process, the chances are high that you won't. So, either a scheduler or a backup service or both is really needed.
 
I use Acronis to automatically take a weekly backup of my system-2*SSD and 1*HDD onto a separate HDD , it even emails to say it has done it.
 
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Thanks for the replies, I shall look into them.
I can't really backup to cloud based storage (although I would if I could), as my broadband upload speed is oh so slow 0.9mbps on a good day. And even though I could just leave it uploading all day (and night for probably a week or two), it would mean that nobody else could use the internet, well not for the initial upload of my photos.
 
All my lightroom imports are automatically backed up to Amazon drive (you get unlimited storage for images with prime membership).
I copy all my RAWs from SD cards to two harddrives. So I only really have redundancy for rest is my RAW files than actual backups. But since all my keepers are backed up that's good enough for me.
 
Nostromo said:
Thanks for the replies, I shall look into them.
I can't really backup to cloud based storage (although I would if I could), as my broadband upload speed is oh so slow 0.9mbps on a good day. And even though I could just leave it uploading all day (and night for probably a week or two), it would mean that nobody else could use the internet, well not for the initial upload of my photos.
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You could, possibly, but it would need a little planning.

That is, you start off by backing up all new stuff, and you incrementally add folders going back until they are all uploaded. YMMV as to whether it is worth it, all I know is that I often evaluate my photos differently after time has passed. What I though was worth keeping turns out to be a bit meh, and I see things in earlier rejects I didn't at first. So I hoard everything :eek:
 
For backing up files I use FreeFileSync. You can set up which folders to back up and where the backups are going, there is also an option to automate the backups.
 
FreeFileSynch is an option, my current favourite is DirSynchPro which has a similar featureset, greater control and a better UI for people that want to get down and dirty (FFS has a better UI for point and click IMO). Surprisingly -as FFS is written in C and DSP in Java - I find DSP more stable*, but anyone who shares my excess of files and folders (>100k images alone) may find either of them are pushed beyond their stability horizon.

*this is possibly due to having image editing quantities of RAM
 
cloud backup all day long, just suck up the initial upload and never look back
 
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