Image storage and archival

Edwinrgarland

Edwinrgarland

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Ed
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I'm new to dslr photography, but I'm starting to store a lot of images even after deleting the not so good shots. I'm also deleting the raw files once i've edited them and exported to jpeg format but I'm averaging around 4 - 10 gb of photos per month. Whats the best way of archiving them?

I've got a 2 tb NAS drive but if i'm averaging 4 - 10 gb per month at the moment it wont be long till its full. Especially if I was to start archiving raw files as well.

I know I could archive to dvd / external hd as well but what does everyone else do to archive this amount of data?
 
I'm also deleting the raw files once i've edited them and exported to jpeg format
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That's a very ill-advised thing to do. It's like throwing away your negatives in the old days. As you gain in skill you'll almost certainly find that you can improve on some of those pictures by starting from the raw images again.

I appreciate that this makes your problem greater, but it's one which all DSLR photographers face. I use a pair of NAS drives, and I'm much more selective about what images I keep. I also don't shoot as many, but try to make each shot count, but we're all different in the way we approach this.
 
Even at around 10 gig/month it is going to take a long time to fill a 2Tb drive.

As hard drive storage is very cheap now I would buy a few external drives.

Dave
 
depends on your budget really..

personally ive got a 5 bay synology NAS currently filled with 2Tb drives in RAID5. however the model i have has an eSATA port allowing an additonal 5 bay expansion (the newer version has 2 eSATA allowing 2 additional expansions).

ive also got a 2 bay RAID0 unit with 2Tb drives as a backup for that connected to one of the synologys 4 USB ports and a nightly backup runs to that.

i also archive to Blu-Ray (none of the degridation issues of DVD) and take off site.

as said i wouldnt delete your RAW files. use something like Lightroom that you only need the RAW files and it "edits" those non-destructively.

ruffdog64 said:
Whats a nas drive?
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network attached storage.
 
Thanks for all your comments.

I've decided that in future I'll keep the raw files for all my keepers.

At present I keep all the files on my PC and sync them to the NAS on a weekly basis. With HD prices I might get a 2TB USB drive just for archival purposes and every month or so do a backup to the usb drive as well.

I suppose I could also archive to DVD as well but maybe that's a bit overkill
 
Personally I'd recommend keeping all of your raw files. A shot you think is useless now you might wish you'd kept in 10 years time when you discover a use for it.

Unless they are truly only fit for the bin, as in hideously under/overexposed beyond any kind of respectable recovery or you chopped someones head off etc.

I've got a 1gb usb drive that i put all my raw and processed jpeg/tiffs on. I've had my camera sine March this year and there's got to be a good couple of thousand files on there now and i've never even looked at how full it is yet. Don't forget that one gigabyte is a lot of storage.

And then there's also the option to upload your jpegs to somewhere like flickr or photobucket. Not for photo sharing but to use it as cheap online storage. A flickr pro account costs something like $18 a year.
 
What is the best way to sync / backup the pics to a nas drive?
 
neil_g said:
depends on your budget really..

personally ive got a 5 bay synology NAS currently filled with 2Tb drives in RAID5. however the model i have has an eSATA port allowing an additonal 5 bay expansion (the newer version has 2 eSATA allowing 2 additional expansions).

ive also got a 2 bay RAID0 unit with 2Tb drives as a backup for that connected to one of the synologys 4 USB ports and a nightly backup runs to that.

i also archive to Blu-Ray (none of the degridation issues of DVD) and take off site.

as said i wouldnt delete your RAW files. use something like Lightroom that you only need the RAW files and it "edits" those non-destructively.



network attached storage.
Click to expand...

Thanks
 
cam1986 said:
What is the best way to sync / backup the pics to a nas drive?
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I use a Microsoft utility called Synctoy I've set it up so that it syncs two folders, one on my PC and the other on the NAS drive.

It's very easy to use and you can set it up as a scheduled task so it does it automatically.
 
roseway said:
That's a very ill-advised thing to do. It's like throwing away your negatives in the old days. As you gain in skill you'll almost certainly find that you can improve on some of those pictures by starting from the raw images again.

I appreciate that this makes your problem greater, but it's one which all DSLR photographers face. I use a pair of NAS drives, and I'm much more selective about what images I keep. I also don't shoot as many, but try to make each shot count, but we're all different in the way we approach this.
Click to expand...

Disagree. If you have a bunch of decent but not amazing shots, and you've achieved the look you're going for, then you may as well delete the raw files rather than taking up huge amounts of storage!

Additionally, i don't the analogy really works - rolls of film weren't using up expensive hard drives!
 
i keep mine on my server running windows server 2003 (might move to samba), i use SCSI hard drives, at the moment i have 103GB of storage,

a 500GB SATA HDD is £30 now, not a lot of dough
 
Tringa said:
Even at around 10 gig/month it is going to take a long time to fill a 2Tb drive.

As hard drive storage is very cheap now I would buy a few external drives.

Dave
Click to expand...

exactly what I thought!

At 10gb a month you're looking at 120gb a year and it'll take 10 years to fill the drive in which time 1tb will probably cost £10 in 5-10 years time.
 
danny777 said:
Disagree. If you have a bunch of decent but not amazing shots, and you've achieved the look you're going for, then you may as well delete the raw files rather than taking up huge amounts of storage!

Additionally, i don't the analogy really works - rolls of film weren't using up expensive hard drives!
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True, but you had to buy the rolls of film in the first place. Which at say £5 a roll is very expensive storage in comparison to the cost of a hard drive.

I was in my local Comet on Friday and they were selling 1TB usb hdd's for £40, so compared to what you'll most likely spend building up the rest of your kit over the years £40 is nothing. It's about 8 rolls of film in fact, or 288 photos on 36 exposure film. That 1TB hdd will store probably thousands of raw files plus the jpegs you convert from them.

Also, The look you're going for today may be totally different than the look you might want or need in 5 years time, and you'll get much better looking results editing the raw file than a jpeg.
 
i have been using hdds, with dvd archive, are there long term issues with dvds?
 
neil_g said:
there can be, they are very vunerable to environmental issues and can rot.
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It depends on the DVD and how you keep them.

I use DataWrite DVDs and have found them very good.

However you MUST keep them in folders so that they are protected against light and damp.

I have DVDs of my first shots ever taken on my 350D (about 6-7 years ago) and they are still in excellent condition.

And DVDs and CDs which go back even further than that still also in excellent condition.

But I have tried cheap types of DVDs and they're total rubbish with some failing in as little as 3 months.

I aslo burn at 1/4 the maximum speed and always verify the data.

.
 
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.Very interesting subject and for us photographers, very important.

1. If you shot in RAW then keep them, not much point in shooting your big file photos and then burning them.

2. I always delete Jpegs that I do not use or want to keep.

3. I do not trust any outside archive source and keep my own library.

4. Once processed all my images are stored on an independent drive by folder name and date and I never mix folders.

5. I always back up my library, every month onto RW DVD as an insurance.

6. If I am going any work on my system I always disengage the HD before starting.

7. To get the best from your storage, be organised write down your reference protocol and stick to IT.

8. Advise on digital work, one well constructed photo, is better then 1000 shoot and hopes:).
 
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i used a NAS drive but found that it is a bit slow to access to have reverted to an eternal drive. Have to keep a bakup drive though. The NAS is more convenient in that respect with RAID
 
winterlight said:
i used a NAS drive but found that it is a bit slow to access to have reverted to an eternal drive. Have to keep a bakup drive though. The NAS is more convenient in that respect with RAID
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The speed all depends on which NAS drive you buy.
I back up everything work related on mine with 7GB zip files writing to the drive in minutes.
 
winterlight said:
i used a NAS drive but found that it is a bit slow to access to have reverted to an eternal drive. Have to keep a bakup drive though. The NAS is more convenient in that respect with RAID
Click to expand...

buy a decent NAS and that shouldnt be the case. my old netgear boxes were painfully slow but the synology i have now over a 1Gbps LAN is fantastic, it holds all of the RAW files for LR and shows no noticable slowdown.
 
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/4906663/art/western-digital/wd-elements-desktop-2-tb.html

2TB for £54.99!!!!!

Buy 2........ Keep you main library on your laptop/PC, copy on to both external HDDs, keep one at home and leave the other one at someone elses.

Update the keep at home drive every week (or everytime you add new photos) and update the "off-site" one every month..... simples.

OK, it's a little crude but for most amateur photographers it's an adequate solution :)
 
That is a good price for a 2TB hd.
With prices that low it would be rude not to buy one.... Must resist....
I've currently got a 500gb extranal but am tempted by this.
 
If you are using USB or NAS drives make sure they are not RAID 0. If you have a single drive in the device fail you lose everything on it without using complex recovery routines
 
FWIW I have one of those Western Digital drives linked to above. Its been left turned on 24/7 for the last 3 months, no issues, no heat - brilliant little drive. And IMO it looks tidy on the desk, its well designed.
Im on the side of the fence that thinks turning HDDs on and off repeatedly is what kills them, and that leaving it on 24/7 is fine.

Another guy in my office has 3 Buffalo LinkStation NAS drives, which has had turned on 24/7 for the past 3 years - never had any issues with any of them.

My personal backup procedure is this:

Import photos through Lightroom to my internal hard drive. A duplicate copy is also sent to my WD External drive
Once a week on a Wednesday night my external drive is synced (with Synctoy) to another Internal drive, dedicated for photo storage - this is automated and happens without my input. Only new photos are added. Nothing deleted.
I have also just bought a WD 2TB NAS drive from Amazon for £122, which I intend on keeping reduced size Jpegs on, so I can access them from anywhere in the world via the remote logon access.

Probably overkill... but having had a hard drive fail previously with everything on it (luckily before my days of Photography) I know how painful it is! So better safe than sorry IMO, and HDDs are so cheap these days, everyone should have at least one external backup drive
 
jonhowell said:
If you are using USB or NAS drives make sure they are not RAID 0. If you have a single drive in the device fail you lose everything on it without using complex recovery routines
Click to expand...

my backup storage is RAID0 (just to get the size up), but its a backup of a RAID5 system.

like i keep banging on and on about, it doesnt really matter too much what you choose but you should have at least 2 physical copies of your data (RAID device counts as 1).
 
Yeah you are well covered there but I get a bit irritated with some USB drives that offer loads of space because they are RAID 0. At least with any other type of RAID you don't lose everything as a result of a single drive failure
 
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