File Storage?

[FrankMi]

Thanks for the replies Frank, Yvonne and Bill

My aim is to have the external drive set up as an exact copy of the image and video folders on my PC so that I can access and edit the files on a laptop and then just plug it into the main PC to sync the changes.

These days I tend to use the laptop more so the main PC will become my backup device and the external drive will be my working files and off site storage in one.

Steve, I would think that Lightroom would be ideal for this as it can sync on a file by file basis and keep track of where everything is. It can even pick out the duplicate images regardless of file name.

[stevewe88]

Steve, I would think that Lightroom would be ideal for this as it can sync on a file by file basis and keep track of where everything is. It can even pick out the duplicate images regardless of file name.

Surely all lightroom is doing is ignoring the duplicate files rather than deleting and/or looking for changes to duplicated files? Or have I got that totally wrong

I have a copy but simply couldn't get on with it compared to using Bridge and CS5, so I didn't really take the time to understand how it works.

[FrankMi]

Hi Steve, my statement on duplicate files was out of context. When I look at the images in Lightroom, it displays the duplicates beside each other in the catalog so that it is very easy for me to tell if I have unwanted duplicates, a feature that I find to be very handy. I have not tested to see, but I doubt it will ignore synching the duplicates. Sorry for the confusion.

[stevewe88]

Hi Steve, my statement on duplicate files was out of context. When I look at the images in Lightroom, it displays the duplicates beside each other in the catalog so that it is very easy for me to tell if I have unwanted duplicates, a feature that I find to be very handy. I have not tested to see, but I doubt it will ignore synching the duplicates. Sorry for the confusion.

No problem Frank, thanks for your help

[300plus]

Hello,

I think a major point is being missed here. You backup because the copy on your hard drive might be damaged AND because your computer may be inside your house which just burned to the ground.

Backups to external hard drives only solve one of these. You also need to keep an "oh crap" copy elsewhere. I've tried taking external drives to the office to keep there, but I forget and before you know it there will be many shots (or hours of PP) onlyl on my drives in my house. Relying on a human process will fail eventually. After all, that is why you are taking backups to begin with.

I use an online backup service to keep a copy. Twice daily it sends my work to the cloud. This is almost fool proof. Sure my local backups will contain every version I have of a file, but if something like fire or theft happens to my main PC, the backup will go as well.

Cloud backup services are pretty cheap and well worth the cost.

Cheers, Steve

[Ken MT]

What you don't do as some people in Christchurch New Zealand did before the 6.3 magnitude earthquake was to copy the files to an external hard drive, and left that backup on sitting on top of the computer. When everything hit the floor, and may have got covered with liquifaction (water and silt/sand), nothing worked again. Store the backup away from the computer. I store the backups in the gun safe along with my camera gear (and a .22 rifle!)

[The Blue Boy]

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on an M-drive from Millenniata. Probably cost the earth but I think it'll be worth it. Take a look.

Millenniata

[speedneeder]

What is the down side of just using the cloud concept? Carbonite or whatever?
I know that IF something happened, it would be a pain in the butt and take a few days to get ALL my files back, but.... they are all immediately available for direct download with my service, so I would only have to wait a minute or two if I needed a particular file right this very minute!?
I agree with others that manually keeping backups is prone to mistakes - and only supports your OCD tendencies! lol

[Colin Southern]

Hi Brian,

Horses for courses I guess. I have nothing against using "clour" based services in theory, but it does require a leap of faith that the data will be kept both safe and secure (how much do we know about how well our data is being kept?)

Also, here in NZ, data traffic is expensive - restoring 1 TB of data on a 10GB plan would cost thousands of dollars.

[The Blue Boy]

Colin,

What's your opinion on these new discs from Millenniata? Be interested to hear.

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

What's your opinion on these new discs from Millenniata? Be interested to hear.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the link -- it looks really interesting.

Definately looks like a step in the right direction, although I think they're playing up the dangers of conventional technologies a fair bit (I store my DVDs in a stable environment and have never had a problem).

It'll be interesting to see what the costs are.

[The Blue Boy]

Colin,

Yeah, costs will be interesting. I've put a pre-order in just for the heck of it and I'll let you know. As for DVD's "failing", well, the theory is sound but I've never had one fail on me. Yet.

[Boatman]

You guys have sure hit a sore issue. I have Carbonite and two drives and fear I'm still not doing enough to keep backed up.

The problem with Carbonite is that it can't deal with large quantities of data. If you shoot .jpg-s, Carbonite is probably fine. If you shoot raw, then convert to an x8 sized .dng file you will quicly have so much data that Carbonite will always be about two weeks behind in the back up - and that's assuming the computer is always on. I turn mine off when not in use, so Carbonite never catches up. Also, Carbonite can get very confused if you start moving drives around.

I recently started a strategy of putting my .jpg-s and .dng-s on one drive and the .rw2 (raw) files on a different drive. That way I have the originals somewere other than where my working image are. But this is kind of awkward and time consuming to do and does not address earthquakes, fires, theft, etc.

Recently I purchased a scanner and the tiff files from it are 350MB for each 35mm scan. My first digital image created from the tiff, seven layers in .psd format was over 1GB! I know I can knock that size down once I'm finished and have a final image, but really, how big are these files going to get?

[speedneeder]

The cost of data plans and something like carbonite simply not being able to keep are things I had not thought of and are definitely legitimate concerns.

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Yeah, costs will be interesting. I've put a pre-order in just for the heck of it and I'll let you know. As for DVD's "failing", well, the theory is sound but I've never had one fail on me. Yet.

same/same

[Colin Southern]

Hi Homer,

Personally, I run a mirrored pair of drives for data - which I back up (cough, occasionally) to an external HDD, and I burn a copy of my commercial work to 2 DVDs (one kept off site) (and of course I always have the online gallery version as a kinda psudo-backup).

I feel pretty secure doing it this way - plus it's fast, and inexpensive.

[MrB]

To anyone interested, here is a related problem -

The procedure for me is probably similar to many others - the obvious rubbish images are usually erased in the camera; all the rest are transferred from memory card to PC hard disk drive on which also resides the photo software; then all image files (including processed) are copied to external drive and also to a laptop hard disk as an extra back-up.

The questions that arise for me are -
1. Which files should I save?
2. Why do I need to save them?
3. What will I ever do with them?

Usually I can't answer these questions, or I can't be bothered to give them enough thought, or I am paralysed by the notion - "I just might need that file one day", so that everything gets saved and backed-up.

After only just over a year of this fascinating hobby, I have over 5000 files - if I gave each image just a 5-second view, it would take about 7 hours to get through the lot. This 5000 is, I suspect, only a tiny fraction of the number that some CiC members have, as terabytes are being mentioned in this thread.

If you are an amateur/hobby photographer, it would interest me to know whether you are ruthless regarding which image files you keep on disk, and what you actually DO, or intend to do, with all your stored images?

Philip

[Colin Southern]

If you are an amateur/hobby photographer, it would interest me to know whether you are ruthless regarding which image files you keep on disk, and what you actually DO, or intend to do, with all your stored images?

Philip

Hi Phillip,

I think that there are a number of ways of looking at issues like this. Personally, because storage is cheap, I transfer files from my camera as DNG and backup each and every one of them, with the possibly exception of total clunkers. It's easy (for me anyway) to just point the burning software at a folder - let it "do it's thing" (x2) - whack a label on it - and file it away: "job done". Sorting through trying to work out what to backup and what not to backup is a waste of time.

[The Blue Boy]

Colin,

As promised, an update on prices for the LG and Millenniata discs and Rewriter Drives. I was shocked to see how reasonable they are!

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

As promised, an update on prices for the LG and Millenniata discs and Rewriter Drives. I was shocked to see how reasonable they are!

Thanks Mark,

I've sent the link to my suppliers to see what they think.