Hands up who does not back up thier photo files...

morbidorbits

morbidorbits

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Name
Jeff
Edit My Images
No
I just read this post:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=194201

..and it got me thinking about my own back up system, which is simply to let Lightroom make them every time I start the application. I have 2 internal drives so I have split the actual photo's and the backups over 2 drives as a further level of security. I am now going to make some backups to DVD in addition to the Lightroom backups. There are much better systems than this, but I am happy that this covers my own risk (as an amateur hobbyist with <7,000 photo's - most of them rubbish :lol:).

There must be people out there who either don't really understand how to effectively make regular backups, or who simply don't have the spare time to plan/learn a system. Are you willing to own up? :thinking: This is a potentially very serious situation that you find yourself in so unless you are completely :cuckoo: you need to take a little time to understand some of the measures you can take to protect all of your hard work.

If you have developed a really effective and easy to implement backup system, why not share this with the rest of the TP community. We all need to protect as best we can those kilo/mega/giga/tera bytes that we all spend so much time discussing here.
.
 
I have a macbook pro with the LR database on it, the photos all go on a small external HD. I keep a large HD at work and I use the Mac Time Machine software to back up the laptop and small HD to it most days (very simple, just plug it in). This gives me a remote backup i case of fire of theft.

I also copy all my photos over to my imac every now and again just fot an extra level.
 
ShawWellPete said:
I have a macbook pro with the LR database on it, the photos all go on a small external HD. I keep a large HD at work and I use the Mac Time Machine software to back up the laptop and small HD to it most days (very simple, just plug it in). This gives me a remote backup i case of fire of theft.

I also copy all my photos over to my imac every now and again just fot an extra level.
Click to expand...

That's useful advice for Mac users (I know virtually nothing about them). The key here is to keep multiple copies of files in more than one place, which I don't currently do - hence the need to backup to DVD's, which I will store at work.
 
Kerioak said:
As far as I am aware Lightroom just backs up the catalogue with edits/picks etc, not the actual pictures
Click to expand...

That is a good point Christine! You are correct. However, there is an option to backup all the photo files on import, which is a very wise thing to do but will take a little more time and twice as much capacity on the hard drive.
 
I 'back up' from my laptop to my PS3 but I guess if I was ever burgled both would be taken.

Isn't uploading to Photobucket/FlickR etc the best way to make sure photos are saved securely?

In addition, I really should get myself an external hard drive and back up to it regularly but also lock it away when not in use.
 
Kerioak said:
I back up to two external hard drives and keep them in different places, only deleting from the computer once the images/data are on both. I now have too many external drives though so am tempted to get some big ones and back up past years to those and keep the 500 Gb for current use.
Click to expand...

I receive a weekly email of offers from Overclockers.co.uk (I recently purchased a Dell 2209WA monitor from them) and this hard drive will be available soon at %40 off for members of their forum:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sh...tm_source=newsletter20100108&utm_medium=email

This is a huge amount of internal storage for the money, but I don't know if it's any good.
 
WozzaTT said:
I 'back up' from my laptop to my PS3 but I guess if I was ever burgled both would be taken.

Isn't uploading to Photobucket/FlickR etc the best way to make sure photos are saved securely?

In addition, I really should get myself an external hard drive and back up to it regularly but also lock it away when not in use.
Click to expand...

This would depend on whether you shoot RAW or JPG. If you shoot in RAW these do not get uploaded to those sites and you should really try to back these up. If you shoot JPG and you are uploading the original files then this would work as a form of back up.

There are definite advantages to shooting RAW but that depends on your own level of expertise (both camera and PC). This subject has been discussed previously in these forums so you could use the 'Search' tool on the top menu of this site to find them. Entering "raw jpg" into the search box should do it.

What equipment are you using for photography?
 
I use Time Machine for my system backup, then I have 2x 1TB drives via USB that I use for Photos and LR backups. I then use a great piece of software called ChronoSync that will mirror these 2 drives so they are identical in case one fails. When I run out of space I'll just change the drives for larger ones as they're dirt cheap at £50 a pop. It's like a cheap version of raid
 
James Pardon said:
I use Time Machine for my system backup, then I have 2x 1TB drives via USB that I use for Photos and LR backups. I then use a great piece of software called ChronoSync that will mirror these 2 drives so they are identical in case one fails. When I run out of space I'll just change the drives for larger ones as they're dirt cheap at £50 a pop. It's like a cheap version of raid
Click to expand...

Thanks James. That looks like an effective system you have there. I suspect Time Machine and ChronoSync are Mac only though. Does anybody here use/know of equivalent PC software?
 
morbidorbits said:
Thanks James. That looks like an effective system you have there. I suspect Time Machine and ChronoSync are Mac only though. Does anybody here use/know of equivalent PC software?
Click to expand...

Synctoy is a great PC tool. Free from MS too :)
 
morbidorbits said:
This would depend on whether you shoot RAW or JPG. If you shoot in RAW these do not get uploaded to those sites and you should really try to back these up. If you shoot JPG and you are uploading the original files then this would work as a form of back up.

There are definite advantages to shooting RAW but that depends on your own level of expertise (both camera and PC). This subject has been discussed previously in these forums so you could use the 'Search' tool on the top menu of this site to find them. Entering "raw jpg" into the search box should do it.

What equipment are you using for photography?
Click to expand...

Hi Jeff - I've got a 500D. I really should get that external hard drive I guess, it's amazing the size of drive you can get for relatively little money these days. Think I'll go WD or Seagate.
 
I don't know if any of you are self employed i.e. running a business or just speaking from personal perspective but take it from me (or my clients should I say)..

1. backups can (and do) fail :gag:
2. hard drives can also fail - anything with moving parts is suseptable to this :bang:
3. dvd discs are more fragile than you think :eek:

For all my images and design work and personal photos I have a small server (and before you say it, it not just big guys who have servers nowaday) which all the work is stored and work on using a 4 hard disk RAID (3 working 24/7 and one on standby.. just in case).

This backs up to a DAT drive everynight and the tapes are swapped over every morning and stored at home, not the office.. just in case.

I have also just recently added a backup directly to a portable 500G hard disk which again is swapped over every 5 days.. just to be safe.

Some real world advice..

1. Check your backups regularly - don't just expect them to work.
2. Remember - the longer you've been taking photos the more you'll have and the more valuable (either £ or just personal value) they become.
3. Technology fails - it is simply a matter of 'when' not 'if' so don't just rely on one format or device. DAT is great for capacity but at the end of the day is just tape, hard drives are great for portability but have moving parts, and DVD/CD's are cheap and easy but fragile. TIP: If you do back up to discs you should replace them every 12-18 months.

You might be thinking this is a bit extreme but take it from me - if you lose your images or work you are fuc.... knackered! :bang::bonk:

If you are serious about your work then take your backup seriously. Other things you might want to consider are on-line backups (completely remote so much safer) and the rise in capacity of (and sloooow decrease in price) of digital hard drives (with no moving parts) are a much better (if more expensive ) option.

I have seen the look on too many peoples faces when they realise they have either deleted a folder or images by mistake and then can't retrive it from a crap backup, or the 'blood draiging from their face' look when their MAC or PC dies and they haven't backed up for ages. :'(
 
Boney Boy said:
I don't know if any of you are self employed i.e. running a business or just speaking from personal perspective but take it from me (or my clients should I say)..

1. backups can (and do) fail :gag:
2. hard drives can also fail - anything with moving parts is suseptable to this :bang:
3. dvd discs are more fragile than you think :eek:

For all my images and design work and personal photos I have a small server (and before you say it, it not just big guys who have servers nowaday) which all the work is stored and work on using a 4 hard disk RAID (3 working 24/7 and one on standby.. just in case).

This backs up to a DAT drive everynight and the tapes are swapped over every morning and stored at home, not the office.. just in case.

I have also just recently added a backup directly to a portable 500G hard disk which again is swapped over every 5 days.. just to be safe.

Some real world advice..

1. Check your backups regularly - don't just expect them to work.
2. Remember - the longer you've been taking photos the more you'll have and the more valuable (either £ or just personal value) they become.
3. Technology fails - it is simply a matter of 'when' not 'if' so don't just rely on one format or device. DAT is great for capacity but at the end of the day is just tape, hard drives are great for portability but have moving parts, and DVD/CD's are cheap and easy but fragile. TIP: If you do back up to discs you should replace them every 12-18 months.

You might be thinking this is a bit extreme but take it from me - if you lose your images or work you are fuc.... knackered! :bang::bonk:

If you are serious about your work then take your backup seriously. Other things you might want to consider are on-line backups (completely remote so much safer) and the rise in capacity of (and sloooow decrease in price) of digital hard drives (with no moving parts) are a much better (if more expensive ) option.

I have seen the look on too many peoples faces when they realise they have either deleted a folder or images by mistake and then can't retrive it from a crap backup, or the 'blood draiging from their face' look when their MAC or PC dies and they haven't backed up for ages. :'(
Click to expand...

Interesting. So what would you recommend for the average hobbyist photographer who wants to back up photos etc?

I'm tempted to get myself an external hard drive, although I appreciate they can and will fail.
 
alastairb said:
I have a 2TB raid5 fileserver I backup to very frequently, and I also backup to a 1TB external hard drive when I go home every few months
Click to expand...

Alastair, that sounds a bit expensive for me personally. In a sentence or two, what are the benefits to us photographers of having a RAID system?
 
WozzaTT said:
Hi Jeff - I've got a 500D. I really should get that external hard drive I guess, it's amazing the size of drive you can get for relatively little money these days. Think I'll go WD or Seagate.
Click to expand...

Hi :wave:

Do you shoot RAW, JPG or RAW and JPG together? If you are serious about getting the most of your 500d and you have access to (or a budget for) some photo editing software (Photoshop, Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Paintshop etc.) I would wholeheartedly suggest you learn about RAW. It will really benefit you with your hobby in the long run.

If you want any specific pointers, start a new thread explaining what kit you have (camera, lenses, PC, Software) and state where your photographic interests lie (wildlife, architecture, motorsports, portrait etc.) and ask for advice on 'workflows' for this type of setup.

Thanks
Jeff
 
Been a programmer for 18 years. What's a backup?

More seriously, anything I really would not want to lose gets copied onto a second drive and backed up to optical media, and possibly committed to my remote svn server (if small, I'm not uploading gigabytes of photos over a home internet connection).

When it comes right down to it there is vanishingly little stuff I would not want to lose, at least in the form of digital data.

It is my intention to set up a RAID5 NAS on my LAN when funds permit. That said, in 18 years I've had exactly one hard drive fail and no CD / DVDs. As a something of an old-school geek who has computers stacked up everywhere and hard drives littering shelves, I'd say that's a fairly good failure rate. Of course the one failure was the one occasion I tried running a RAID0 setup, so was a proper pain in the bum. Never again.
 
I favour the full belt and braces approach with this.

I use a Mac and I have four external drives. A 1TB Firewire contains a full bootable backup done with SuperDuper.

One USB drive has two partitions: one of which has Carbon Copy Cloner backup and the other, a TimeMachine backup.

A second USB drive contains an Aperture Vault of all my images.

Finally, in case of fire or break-in, I have a mobile USB drive which contains another Aperture vault.

I had a drive failure recently on my G5 and decided to replace the whole thing as I was due for an updated machine. It took several days of slowly adding things to my new Mac but eventually I managed to restore it to how I like it.

BTW, I'd also recommend emailing any registration serial numbers to something like a gmail account so that its easy to retrieve them when you reinstall.

I'd never trust DVDs as a method to back up my images.
 
Boney Boy said:
I don't know if any of you are self employed i.e. running a business or just speaking from personal perspective but take it from me (or my clients should I say)..

1. backups can (and do) fail
2. hard drives can also fail - anything with moving parts is suseptable to this :bang:
3. dvd discs are more fragile than you think :eek:

For all my images and design work and personal photos I have a small server (and before you say it, it not just big guys who have servers nowaday) which all the work is stored and work on using a 4 hard disk RAID (3 working 24/7 and one on standby.. just in case).

This backs up to a DAT drive everynight and the tapes are swapped over every morning and stored at home, not the office.. just in case.

I have also just recently added a backup directly to a portable 500G hard disk which again is swapped over every 5 days.. just to be safe.

Some real world advice..

1. Check your backups regularly - don't just expect them to work.
2. Remember - the longer you've been taking photos the more you'll have and the more valuable (either £ or just personal value) they become.
3. Technology fails - it is simply a matter of 'when' not 'if' so don't just rely on one format or device. DAT is great for capacity but at the end of the day is just tape, hard drives are great for portability but have moving parts, and DVD/CD's are cheap and easy but fragile. TIP: If you do back up to discs you should replace them every 12-18 months.

You might be thinking this is a bit extreme but take it from me - if you lose your images or work you are fuc.... knackered! :bang::bonk:

If you are serious about your work then take your backup seriously. Other things you might want to consider are on-line backups (completely remote so much safer) and the rise in capacity of (and sloooow decrease in price) of digital hard drives (with no moving parts) are a much better (if more expensive ) option.

I have seen the look on too many peoples faces when they realise they have either deleted a folder or images by mistake and then can't retrive it from a crap backup, or the 'blood draiging from their face' look when their MAC or PC dies and they haven't backed up for ages. :'(
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to show us your system, I found this very interesting. Due to a very tight budget I will not be implementing anything to that scale in the near future, but it is good advice for people who may be semi-pro/pro to heed.

Could you give us a rough estimate of the cost to duplicate your current system?

Much appreciated :clap:
 
onomatopoeia said:
It is my intention to set up a RAID5 NAS on my LAN when funds permit. That said, in 18 years I've had exactly one hard drive fail and no CD / DVDs. As a something of an old-school geek who has computers stacked up everywhere and hard drives littering shelves, I'd say that's a fairly good failure rate. Of course the one failure was the one occasion I tried running a RAID0 setup, so was a proper pain in the bum. Never again.
Click to expand...

I have never had a hard drive fail on me in 20 years, although I have a single PC at a time, not racks of them. Do you religiously stick to a single make of drives? I can honestly say I have had a good mix (Seagate, Western Digital and Maxtor) with 100% success.

Of course the main reason of starting this thread is that it is always vulnerable and it will be our luck that the drive with the most important data on will die one day, leaving us a wee bit peeved :'(
 
morbidorbits said:
Hi :wave:

Do you shoot RAW, JPG or RAW and JPG together? If you are serious about getting the most of your 500d and you have access to (or a budget for) some photo editing software (Photoshop, Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Paintshop etc.) I would wholeheartedly suggest you learn about RAW. It will really benefit you with your hobby in the long run.

If you want any specific pointers, start a new thread explaining what kit you have (camera, lenses, PC, Software) and state where your photographic interests lie (wildlife, architecture, motorsports, portrait etc.) and ask for advice on 'workflows' for this type of setup.

Thanks
Jeff
Click to expand...

Cheers Jeff :thumbs: I've only had the camera a couple of weeks and not had time to have much of a play yet but I certainly intend shooting in RAW to see what it's all about.

At the moment I'm just using the Canon software that came with the camera but have also downloaded Picasa which is superb considering it's free. Once I've found my feet a bit I intend getting Elements 8 and I definitley want to have a bit of a dabble with HDR!

Thanks again for your help.
 
zoom said:
I favour the full belt and braces approach with this.

I use a Mac and I have four external drives. A 1TB Firewire contains a full bootable backup done with SuperDuper.

One USB drive has two partitions: one of which has Carbon Copy Cloner backup and the other, a TimeMachine backup.

A second USB drive contains an Aperture Vault of all my images.

Finally, in case of fire or break-in, I have a mobile USB drive which contains another Aperture vault.

I had a drive failure recently on my G5 and decided to replace the whole thing as I was due for an updated machine. It took several days of slowly adding things to my new Mac but eventually I managed to restore it to how I like it.

BTW, I'd also recommend emailing any registration serial numbers to something like a gmail account so that its easy to retrieve them when you reinstall.

I'd never trust DVDs as a method to back up my images.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I second with your suggestion above regarding the software registration keys. I email mine to a secure email address, although I think I need to update them cos I haven't done it for a while.
 
WozzaTT said:
Cheers Jeff :thumbs: I've only had the camera a couple of weeks and not had time to have much of a play yet but I certainly intend shooting in RAW to see what it's all about.

At the moment I'm just using the Canon software that came with the camera but have also downloaded Picasa which is superb considering it's free. Once I've found my feet a bit I intend getting Elements 8 and I definitley want to have a bit of a dabble with HDR!

Thanks again for your help.
Click to expand...

I have heard good things about Picasa and my daughter uses it for her mobile photo's. I have just checked and it does support RAW:

http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=15625

Good luck!
 
Backups are a tricky one, depending on who you talk to you're going to get suggestions from a cd/dvd, usb stick, portable hard disk, drobo nas box, raid box, online cloud storage and all sorts.

There's backup so that you have a copy of your data incase 1 storage dies and you can recover what you lost, but then what if you get robbed/building burns down etc. Online backups are great, but in the UK our internet speeds can't really cope with uploading GB's of data, especially if you're a amateur tog with your standard home ADSL connection.

RAID boxes are great, super fast and tons of space but expensive, can't take them offsite and you need to know enough about RAID when a drive dies and needs to be rebuilt.

I reckon your best bet is to go a similar route I've done with a couple of USB boxes that get synchronised. It's cheap, (£100 for 1TB x 2 hard disks, and £10-£30 for software if not free). Easily upgradeable (just replace with larger drives, dont even need to be the same models just enough disk size on each to replicate), plenty of space, there's only so many GB's a usb stick can take and even the largest ones cost more than a usb hard disk, nice and fast and if you wish you could take a hard disk away with you every day. My 2pence :)

Had a quick google for some software and saw this, not tried it but looks quite good http://www.techsoftpl.com/backup/index.php
 
morbidorbits said:
Thanks for taking the time to show us your system, I found this very interesting. Due to a very tight budget I will not be implementing anything to that scale in the near future, but it is good advice for people who may be semi-pro/pro to heed.

Could you give us a rough estimate of the cost to duplicate your current system?

Much appreciated :clap:
Click to expand...

500GB external drives approx £80 ea (2 drives)
DAT Drive approx £380
DAT Tapes approx £25 each (6 tapes, 1 each work day and a master that gets used once a month and is stored at a friends house)
The server however is appox £5k - but I use this for all my work, and as an exchange server for my emails etc.. not just photos. You can get cheaper servers, and MS has brought out Home Server now.

I'm please you found the post interesting - my intention is not to 'show off' but to illustrate how seriously I take backing up my work and to prove that the 'belt and braces' approach is really the best route to take, however you do it.

And I completely agree with Zoom :thumbs: - never use DVD or CD as your primary back up method.
 
One thing I forget to mention that is important with regards to backup is your digital housekeeping..

I do this once a year, normally around xmas what with the break and all that, and spend the day (or two) going through the photo archive and dumping stuff that simply won't be used again, or taking a more critical look at certain images and just dumping stuff that I just won't need or use again.

Backing up images and files you don't/won't need is just a waste of time, increases your backup and therefore your search & restore time, and can also be a waste of money, as ou are paying for more storage ou just don't need.

Just done my 'clear out' - and i feel clensed ;)

Something to consider if you are about to impliment a true backup routine.
 
I'm struggling to work out if you upload RAW files to Picasa, that you can then download the RAW files when you want them. It looks like it only accepts them as uploads and convert them to jpeg :shrug:

I'd definitely be interested in online back up facility for RAW files, that way I'd be covered in case of fire or theft, which frankly is more likely than 2 or 3, HD's (at home) all failing at once!
Haven't a clue it would take for the original back up though, a day per 100GB?
 
Its funny you should mention this.

I do my housekeeping tasks over the winter too.

I've just purged over 5000 images. Deleting that number of RAW files frees up a vast amount of disc space. If you're really happy to dump them and you're using Aperture, don't forget to trash the Deleted file on your external drive too otherwise they'll remain there.

Boney Boy said:
One thing I forget to mention that is important with regards to backup is your digital housekeeping..

I do this once a year, normally around xmas what with the break and all that, and spend the day (or two) going through the photo archive and dumping stuff that simply won't be used again, or taking a more critical look at certain images and just dumping stuff that I just won't need or use again.

Backing up images and files you don't/won't need is just a waste of time, increases your backup and therefore your search & restore time, and can also be a waste of money, as ou are paying for more storage ou just don't need.

Just done my 'clear out' - and i feel clensed ;)

Something to consider if you are about to impliment a true backup routine.
Click to expand...
 
zoom said:
Its funny you should mention this.

I do my housekeeping tasks over the winter too.

I've just purged over 5000 images. Deleting that number of RAW files frees up a vast amount of disc space. If you're really happy to dump them and you're using Aperture, don't forget to trash the Deleted file on your external drive too otherwise they'll remain there.
Click to expand...

Great minds and all that.. :clap:
 
There used to be two things certain in life: death and taxes.

These days there are three: Death, taxes and your hard-drive will fail at some stage as its pretty much the only moving part in the entire machine.
 
zoom said:
There used to be two things certain in life: death and taxes.

These days there are three: Death, taxes and your hard-drive will fail at some stage as its pretty much the only moving part in the entire machine.
Click to expand...

The CPU fan will fail before the hard drive in my experience.

Of course if you have a fanless CPU cooler then this is not true!
 
morbidorbits said:
I have never had a hard drive fail on me in 20 years, although I have a single PC at a time, not racks of them. Do you religiously stick to a single make of drives? I can honestly say I have had a good mix (Seagate, Western Digital and Maxtor) with 100% success.
Click to expand...

Nope, I use whatever is cheapest for the capacity I need at the time. The one failure was one of a pair of IBM drives.
 
i back up to a 1tb external hard drive then save to dvd about every month have everything twice and only delete from my pc i once lost 4000 pics due to improper back up won,t do that again :'(
 
I had a shock when i saw this thread had two pages considering the thread question

Hands up who does not back up thier photo files...

Then find its full of people who do back them up :)
 
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