Photographers, what do you do for storage?

[fuzzybabybunny]

Recently the sheer enormity of my hobby has hit me. After getting dangerously close to running out of HDD space on my two 500GB and two 160GB HDDs, I found myself ordering two 750GB HDDs, totaling about $300. That was only a couple of weeks ago, and now both of my 750GBs only have about 350GB of free space each. I mirror all of my photos, so every time I need to get more HDD space I have to purchase two HDDs at a time. Back in the day I never would have imagined that I'd be doing this much... as of now I'm trying to figure out a better way to protect my data. Do HDDs basically last forever if they just sit around?

I talked to a photographer on my winter break road trip and he stressed the importance of backing up. He's got 1TB on his computer, 1TB locked up in a safe in his house, 1TB at a relative's house in another state, and 1TB stored online. He was telling me how important it was to have off site storage - his example were the photographers in New Orleans. A lot of them lost their entire life's work. Even the ones who stored off-site in another part of the city were doomed because they didn't think that their entire city would go under... crazy stuff.

So how do you guys do it? Do you mirror it manually every time there's a big change? Do you not mirror at all? Any cool programs for automated mirroring?

 

[tfinch2]

Every CF card I shoot, I back up 2 DVD-R copies. One I keep in my apartment for quick access. The other I keep in a fireproof briefcase in my dad's gun safe.

I trust properly cared for optical media more than HDD's.

 

[corkyg]

I archive all my digital images on three separate HDDs, and then on CDRs and DVDs. Prior to 2005, I used CDRs - and have been gradually combining them onto DVDs. My files currently go back to 1996. Files did not get humongous until about 2003. That's when I started using DVDs.

And - there is a lot of conversion too. I have 35mm slides going back to 1953 in many Carousels that I am constatantly scanning and converting. I probably won't live long enough to finish - but it is nostalgically fun. : )

And, as usual, I also do a lot of purging. Not all photos are worth archiving.

The bad news is that nothing lasts forever - not HDDs, not DVDs, not CDRs.

 

[jpeyton]

Non-pro photographers should be fine with two layers of protection:

1 copy on your computer HD

1 copy on an external HD

Keep the external drive in a different room, in a fire/flood-safe, etc. Photos that you use, process, and cherish can be uploaded to a online storage site, but these photos will generally make up a small fraction of your entire collection. When you need to free up rooms on your HDs, back up photos to DVDs and store them safely.

Professional photographers need an extra layer:

1 copy on your computer HD

1 copy on an external HD

1 copy on an off site HD

Adding off site storage is dead-simple with off-the-shelf NAS hardware; or use a number of free NAS Linux solutions or Windows Server with a cheap PC. Keep the off site storage at a relatives house or with anyone you trust; there are also many commercial off site storage solutions available.

There is so much free or cheap software available that will automatically back-up your photos on a set schedule, locally and off site.

 

[alfa147x]

How about this have a old computer with about 1TB of space, having it back up via ftp to a off site old computer with 1TB of space in another state

*just need a good friend

 

[The Stigenator]

Thanks for reminding me now, i will spend tuesday my day off backing up gigs of pictures on dvd-r

 

[pennylane]

I need to back up to DVD-R and then bring/mail them home (a couple hundred miles away).

I kind of want to get through the junk I have queued up first, though.

 

[randomlinh]

At home... pretty much every night, all my important documents, which include my photos, go to an external drive on my machine. it'll also go to a file server in the house.

Every 3-4 weeks I'll bring in a HDD I keep at work to make those backups as well.

Then flickr has mostly everything else well as an "oh shit hit the fan" scenario. It's all jpeg, but better than nothing at all.

Next, I want to either implement mozy or amazon's s3 service. I'm not sure which.. I have very little to budget for this, and mozy has "unlimited" storage. Yes, sounds too good, but they are backed by EMC now.

I used to burn DVD's, but it got very cumbersome to index and maintain. I need to get back to figuring out a good way to fit it in my workflow.

As for software... in Windows I'd just use syncback and set up schedules, in OS X, I use chronosync.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
How about this have a old computer with about 1TB of space, having it back up via ftp to a off site old computer with 1TB of space in another state

*just need a good friend

you buy me the hardware and ill be your friend

 

[soydios]

I shoot almost exclusively RAW. I then Import the RAW/NEF files into Adobe Lightroom on my desktop, post-process them (crop, white balance, sharpen, color, contrast, & noise reduction), and then export in 80%-quality ProPhotoRGB-colorspace JPEGs. These JPEGs are then automatically synchronized over to my laptop. Both the desktop and laptop are periodically backed up, on the order of once a week for the desktop, and once a month for the laptop. The desktop (twin 320GB internals mounted as separate drives) is backed up to a single 750GB external over eSATA, and the 160GB laptop is backed up to a 160GB external over USB. So all my critical files are mirrored across 4 hard drives, and the backup drives are not always connected (key to avoiding virus contamination or power surges, even though I have protection for both anyway).

Thus, my photo backup looks like this:
- on desktop internal HDD: original RAW files, post-processed JPEGs
- on desktop external backup: "
- on laptop internal HDD: post-processed JPEGs
- on laptop external backup: "

So, if anything were to happen to my desktop, I could simply restore from the complete system backup. If anything were to happen to the desktop and the desktop backup, I would still have excellent quality JPEGs, though not originals. If anything were to happen to my dorm room while I was away (fire, burglary), then that would be a serious problem, as both systems and their backups are within 3 feet of each other on/in my desk. But if there's a fire evacuation, I just grab my laptop and the desktop backup, throw 'em into my backpack, and I'm outta there.

 

[sswingle]

My photos all get copied to both a NAS and to flickr.
Other data gets copied to the NAS and a USB hard drive.

 

[OdiN]

I currently have them on two RAIDed external drives.

I also backup to DVDR.

I wish BDR drives and media were cheap.

I don't really have anything off-site at the moment which isn't good. I don't have any place to store anything off-site really.

 

[GTaudiophile]

A Ubuntu Linux Server 6.10 running two 500GB HDDs in (hardware) RAID 1.

Edit: Makes it easy to use WinSCP to SSH into the server and download any files I need, no matter where I am.

 

[najames]

You might want to look at unRAID. I have been a long time user of Linux RAIDs and am also checking into it. Sorry I am not a photographer, just happened to see this in a search.

unRAID lets to easily add drives when you need them.

WARNING, make sure you use a good flash drive with unRAID. I wasted a couple hours only to find out the PNY drive I had didn't work, Sandisk Cruzer worked perfectly though.

http://www.lime-technology.com/

Other options FreeNAS, Linux RAID might be beyond many.

 

[soydios]

I've used FreeNAS before, and it's a very easy-to-use simple NAS solution.

 

[kaizersose]

-Local copy on desktop HDD for standard viewing and editing
-Copy on home server running raid
-Semi-Annual Backups of collection onto DVD-R which then go into a firebox

one tip which I got from a pro was this: dont be afraid to delete the crap. when I am done shooting now, I go through and delete anything that is unquestionably bad. helps to keep the size of the backups down when you arent backing up trash.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: kaizersose
-Local copy on desktop HDD for standard viewing and editing
-Copy on home server running raid
-Semi-Annual Backups of collection onto DVD-R which then go into a firebox

one tip which I got from a pro was this: dont be afraid to delete the crap. when I am done shooting now, I go through and delete anything that is unquestionably bad. helps to keep the size of the backups down when you arent backing up trash.

Yeah, that's a hard thing for folks to swallow, especially my cousins.. they take a million shots... of one thing, and keep them all almost, heh.

Be mindful of your DVD-R's in the firebox... cheaper fire-proof safes only keep stuff from touching the flames... it can still get pretty damn hot inside. I remember reading about this somewhere, but never did find any conclusive testing. Figured I'd bring it up since you mentioned it so other folks can give some input on it.

 

[aphex]

I keep all my RAW/JPG photos in three locations;

1. Internal HD
2. External 500gb Backup
3. Full Size JPG's to my unlimited Zenfolio Account

I'm up to about 200gb of NEF's

 

[Brainonska511]

1. Internal hard drive (100GB; 3.4GB of Photos - mostly jpg, the newest photos have a RAW file and an edited/exported jpg)
2. External backup drive (160GB backup only drive for all of my files)

I'm thinking about buying some DVD-Rs just to provide an archive to store at home - so if everything at school went dead/missing, I'd at least have a backup of some kind in a remote location.

 

[Jawo]

My collection really started to grow when I got my dSLR last May. I sort the images into events and put in one folder; backup the images straight from the card on another HDD; then have an eSATA drive as external storage. I have some pics posted to flickr/picasa but not many...say 25%. Thinking about how to do off site storage at my parents house.

 

[montanafan]

At least three copies of each photo. One on an external HD and one on a CD-R at home, and then I put a copy on at least one computer HD at work.

 

[QuixoticOne]

At the moment I've got around:

* a 1TB RAID-5 in an old PC for (mostly) offline backups; it gets turned on when backups / restores need to happen, and is off otherwise (to keep the drives from burning out too soon, and to help prevent crashes / glitches).

* a second 500GB RAID for online usage just to routinely store files as they come in and are used routinely.

* multiple external chassis independent USB disk enclosures with random sized hard discs in each one, 40GB up to 250GB or so at the moment. They get used for playing "tower of hanoi" shuffling data between physical locations, traveling with them for picture storage and downloads during trips, moving data to offsite backups, etc.

I'll set up another independent 1-2TB RAID-5 shortly for mostly online backup and repository type of usage.

I have some custom software / processes that I'm working on improving to help synchronize files between locations to ensure the backups are good and complete, et. al. I use error correction codes on the backup file sets (not part of the RAIDs, just on the individual files/directories whether on HDD or DVD or whatever) to ensure that any given subset of the files is verifiably intact and that any partial corruption / deletion can be detected / corrected.

I have other evolving software / processes to manage the collections of photos so that they're more easily found / categorized and that various desirable workflows (print, crop, mail, upload, color management, photo editing, incorporations into other publications, et. al.) can be generationally applied to create independently stored but organizationally linked derivatives.

The main inconvenience so far is the lack of a good, inexpensive, compact, rugged solution to downloading during extended vacations / traveling where one may be inconvenienced or reluctant to bring a full fragile laptop and big external drive etc. I've got a 30GB portable "photo downloader" though I find its software/user interface defects to be almost intolerable for continued usages. Maybe something new will come along (ASUS EEE? Or similar?) that'll be a relatively cheap/small laptop/portable PC that can access USB/Firewire drives for some really flexible download options.

I really can't believe just how *bad* most of the photo "organization" / gallery type software is now when dealing with several thousands (on up) of photosm especially if they're scattered around various storage devices, many of which are READ ONLY and can't host modified metadata / thumbnail indices et. al.

 

[AndrewR]

My backup solution is exceptionally weak right now because I don't have the money to do anything else. However, I plan on eventually having a full collection on my computer and on an external hard drive. Then I'll also backup the pics (at least the RAW) onto DVD-R.

I do have DVD-R backups of most of my pics right now, but the external HDD is missing at the moment until I can afford to buy a couple new HDDs.

 

[jamesbond007]

To make it short and sweet:

1.) Multiple RAID1 arrays on local machines with 1 drive of each in a hot-swappable bay.
2.) Syncronized backups to a server at a friend's house about 35 miles away.
3.) Most of the photos I take are uploaded onto Flickr when I'm done processing them. Some are public, most are private galleries.