But does your backup strategy cover this?

[ibdb]

Saw a story around Seattle recently of a wedding photographer who lost all her shots of two recent weddings. She also lost a bunch of gear, and her computer, to a burglar who broke into her place and took off with the gear and her only copies of the shots.

I know there's another rant/discussion going on right now about losing shots to card failure, but do your post shooting routines cover this? How quickly do you move a backup off-site, or burn copies to discs that aren't likely to vanish if your computer and external drives do?

TV Report on the Crime (http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_082107WAB_wedding_photog_theft_KS.58004657.html )

From the Shooter Herself (http://www.photojj.com/news/?p=31)

[picturecrazy]

Yes, my system would have recovered from this. Aside from the files on my hard drive, I have them on an external hard drive, and then a portable hard drive which is stored off site and is not connected to any power source (so no electrical surges can damage it) and at 3AM every night my off-site linux backup server backs up all the files.

So I could have had my placed robbed like hers was, have my offsite backup location struck by lighting and destroy all plugged in electronics in the house, and then gotten flooded, and I still wouldn't have lost anything.

It's her fault. She was not prepared. We might be photographers but we have a responsibility to take necessary precautions.

If you put your child in a day care and a fire hit the day care and the staff was not prepared with a good escape plan and a child was lost, would you say... awww that's tough luck, not much they could have done! no you absolutely wouldn't say that because you expect them to be prepared, because that's part of their business.

[picturecrazy]

ok, maybe my response was a tad harsh sounding.

what I'm trying to say is... theft is a very common problem. Something that we all should be prepared for. Put a copy of your files online, or in a water/fire-proof safe in your house or something. I'm not saying we should all be prepared for every natural disaster that might strike, but theft happens to us all... THAT is one thing that we should have a plan for.

[turbo212003]

An online backup/external drive is the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with such pictures.

[figmented]

smugmug full rez upload unlimited space ftw :)

[howzitboy]

all mine are backed up at work and home. and i dont think a thief would come into my house and steal a bunch of burned dvds lol. they are pretty heavy (easily over 1000 of them)

[Lightstream]

Wow....

I'm sure some of you should work in disaster prevention. That way, mankind would fear no act of God, no natural disaster, nor any carelessness or human failure. After all, you assuredly can plan for anything, right?

I would not tempt fate.

[sando]

Currently, yhe only back-up I do is to DVD. As soon as the pics are copied to the PC from the CF cards, I then back them up.

[Bobster]

yup - DVD backups + 2 externals so covered on that one :)

[Toogy]

Yep, I back up all my photos to DVD right after the wedding and store them off-site.

[JimAskew]

Simple solution to this in my mind. The night of an event, no matter how tired I am when I get home, I download all files to my PC, verify the count matches the camera count, and then copy the files from the PC to an external HD. Then I burn a DVD for additional backup and verify that it was made correctly. The DVD goes offsite the next day as backup only and is never used. Besides theft there is always the possibility of a lightning hit or a fire.

Case in point, this past Sunday I was standing in line at Circuit City to buy a new HD and the fellow in line behind me had a cart full of PCs and wireless gear...he had lost everything to a lightening hit the previous night...PC, files, etc. He said he had insurance for the hardware but the files are gone forever.

These simple procedures apply to all businesses that use data files. If you do not have a COOP (Continuity of Operations Plan) then you have a disaster waiting to happen. At my day job our files from our PCs are backed up nightly to a server at our home office 200 miles away.

[Toogy]

Now the question I have for everyone, because I know I am not as good at this as I should be, how often do you back up the finished files? I REALLY need to get on this!

[picturecrazy]

what do you mean how oftten do you have up the finished files? Wouldn't you only need to once? I mean, once they're done they're done and won't change. I burn them onto disc, and my external drives, and my backup server grabs a copy too.

[Toogy]

well your system is better than mine! I need to backup my finished files to DVD, and sometimes I slack on that.

[picturecrazy]

DUDE! thats a disaster waiting to happen! one copy on one hard drive is a time bomb. It's not a question of IF... more like... WHEN it will fail on you! At the least, get an external hard drive... they are cheap now! 500GB for a couple hundred bucks. Just copy them onto that drive; it's much less work and faster than burning a disc. Then turn it off when it's done copying. Do that at the least!!!

[Toogy]

I know!! I will!

[picturecrazy]

I know!! I will!

:) good to hear!!! now buy one tonight!!!

[Toogy]

Does anybody know what the limit to number of external drives your system can handle?

I already have 4

[ToddziLLa]

Does anybody know what the limit to number of external drives your system can handle?

I already have 4
Depends on how many USB or FireWire ports you have! But then there are hubs too!

[JimAskew]

well your system is better than mine! I need to backup my finished files to DVD, and sometimes I slack on that.

Toogy,

Sunday I bought a 500 gig HD USB2 interface by Seagate at Circuit City for $129.95! It comes with a 5 year warrenty. I'm going back tonight and get a second one. This is dirt cheap security IMHO :)

[JimAskew]

Now the question I have for everyone, because I know I am not as good at this as I should be, how often do you back up the finished files? I REALLY need to get on this!

You should back up daily all "work in progress" files and then archive finished files to DVD for off site storage. If you lack external HD space then copy to a DVD...if you do not close it then you can keep writing to it until you are done or the DVD is full.

Given you skills as reflected in your posts here IMHO your edits are truly art and, if lost, would be hard to precisely replicate...not to mention your time invested. Backup and backup and backup :)

[canoned]

Unlimited storage at exposure manager, Ext drive storage at home and studio as well as dvd copies. Wasn't always this anal. 30 years of shooting film never really worried, never had anything happen. Switched to digital and now prepared for eveything to happen.

[Fleurina]

This WD hard drive is on sale on Dell's website for $114, but if you pay with paypal, it's only $103!! This is the cheapest I have seen on a 500gb HD.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0649833

[JimAskew]

This WD hard drive is on sale on Dell's website for $114, but if you pay with paypal, it's only $103!! This is the cheapest I have seen on a 500gb HD.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0649833

Wow! Even a better bargain as I suspect shipping is less than $10?

[ibdb]

Yes, my system would have recovered from this. Aside from the files on my hard drive, I have them on an external hard drive, and then a portable hard drive which is stored off site and is not connected to any power source (so no electrical surges can damage it) and at 3AM every night my off-site linux backup server backs up all the files.
So...As I read this, your "vulnerable window" is between the time you load to your computer and external hard drives and whenever it is after 3AM that your off-site backup completes. Remember, this photographer lost her computer, external drives, and a stack of DVDs.

ok, maybe my response was a tad harsh sounding.

what I'm trying to say is... theft is a very common problem. Something that we all should be prepared for. Put a copy of your files online, or in a water/fire-proof safe in your house or something. I'm not saying we should all be prepared for every natural disaster that might strike, but theft happens to us all... THAT is one thing that we should have a plan for.
Your first response was definitely a bit harsh sounding, but I understand your perspective. I used to work computer incident response and disaster recovery, and I saw that the photographer had some very clear areas of vulnerability, too. She lost a significant amount more than just the wedding shots.

Next question would be whether your redundancies are something you advertise to your clients, or would you rather they not be reminded of the potential that something could somehow go wrong?

An online backup/external drive is the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with such pictures.
On-line backup would work -- but remember, the external drives walked (climbed?) out the broken window along with all her other gear.

all mine are backed up at work and home. and i dont think a thief would come into my house and steal a bunch of burned dvds lol. they are pretty heavy (easily over 1000 of them)
She did write of losing a stack of DVDs -- they may have been movies or something, I don't know. I do know that anyone looking for possible financial information would be glad to have a stack of burned DVDs to go through once they got away.

yup - DVD backups + 2 externals so covered on that one :)
Again -- her external drives are gone, too. Some DVDs may also have disappeared. How do you secure your backups? Are they off-site? In a safe?

Simple solution to this in my mind. The night of an event, no matter how tired I am when I get home, I download all files to my PC, verify the count matches the camera count, and then copy the files from the PC to an external HD. Then I burn a DVD for additional backup and verify that it was made correctly. The DVD goes offsite the next day as backup only and is never used. Besides theft there is always the possibility of a lightning hit or a fire.

...

These simple procedures apply to all businesses that use data files. If you do not have a COOP (Continuity of Operations Plan) then you have a disaster waiting to happen. At my day job our files from our PCs are backed up nightly to a server at our home office 200 miles away.
Best answer I've seen so far!

As I wrote earlier, I used to do computer incident response and disaster recovery full time. Making sure that we were constantly moving data files to a secure off-site disaster recovery site was a full time + job for a medium sized company with a lot of data. The amount of data that a wedding photographer with a high megapixel camera and an active shutter finger can create in a day is more than enough to put any disaster recovery plan to the test -- assuming that you have one in the first place.

[picturecrazy]

So...As I read this, your "vulnerable window" is between the time you load to your computer and external hard drives and whenever it is after 3AM that your off-site backup completes. Remember, this photographer lost her computer, external drives, and a stack of DVDs.


not quite. I backup all the RAW files onto an external drive, then onto a portable hard drive. As soon as that's done the portable drive is removed and stored off site. It wouldn't be anywhere near the computer and other drives. My vulnerable time is the trip between the wedding and my home where I only have one copy of the files... on the CF cards attached to by belt.

[BEWITCHED]

[quote=Toogy;3813212]well your system is better than mine! I need to backup my finished files to DVD, and sometimes I slack on that.[/quote

Toogy you are not the only one . But you will be i am off to buy an externall hard drive . as we speak .Thanks to all . I am new to the game And SHOULD start doing the right thing have a great day karen .:lol:

[Bobster]

Does anybody know what the limit to number of external drives your system can handle?

I already have 4

on windows NT you can have from C-Z and then you can start loading as virtual folders

you can buy external drive cages that will do RAID, and with ESATA Cages, you can have faster than Firewire with error correction :)

you don't have to have all of your drives connected at the same time.. i have a book with Drive 1 - 3 in and have a list of all the folders that are on them so i can pick whichever i need to hook up to access information

as for when do i back up finished photos? when they're finished with. i also backup every day on external, and after i'm done i a back up twice on DVD's

[howzitboy]

i have about 600gigs of wedding pictures on dvds by my computer. u guys upload that much off site? how long does it take to upload say one wedding? how much do they charge? how long do they keep them?

[canoned]

I've been using exposure manager for a couple of years now.www.exposuremanager.com. They charge $79 per year. unlimited storage. Takes me about 4 hours to upload 1500 images at app. 2mb each using dsl. I don't upload original file sizes. They e-mail you if someone orders so you can upload only those larger files. saves time. However you can upload any size, still no limitations. works great

[canoned]

Oh, forgot to mention earlier that We always take the laptop to the wedding. Wife loads as they are filled. Don't leave reception till all are loaded. Get home offload to 2 separate ext drives . Next day burn dvds of raw files. PP and upload offsite 2 days later. only then do I re-format cards. Figure if I get mugged on way home they'll certainly get laptop but doubt greatly theyed take the time or have the inclination to find the cards.

[tim]

(Didn't read whole thread)

Yes, my backup system would cope. Until images from a wedding are on my offsite hard drives they stay on the CF cards, which stay in my backpack. The images from last weekends weddings aren't on the hard drives yet, but they're on cards I took when I went on a business trip to another city. It's actually the culled and edited RAW files. Plus other things like documents are backed up using www.mozy.com

AFAIK my systems will survive any foreseeable situation that I survive. And if I don't survive I won't mind so much.

[sando]

Tale of woe:

Friend of mine bought a new external hard drive and began backing up.
20 minutes later he knocked it over onto it's side.
Dead hard drive.

Unluckily he'd alreday deleted the files from his internal hard drive.

Lesson learnt.

[Bobster]

thats gotta be 1 hell of a knock!

[jessiper]

all mine are backed up at work and home. and i dont think a thief would come into my house and steal a bunch of burned dvds lol. they are pretty heavy (easily over 1000 of them)


Yeah, my burned DVD's are not even in the same room as my computer, and I doubt anybody would take them. I also have an external hard drive, though.

[Bobster]

sheesh, ordered another 320GB HDD today (cheap as chips mind - can't believe the price of HDD right now)