External Hard drive?

[versedmb]

Is anyone using an external hard drive as their primary photo storage site?

I only have a desktop at the moment. I'm planning on getting a laptop soon. If I put all my photos on an external HD then I could switch back and fourth between the desktop and the laptop much easier. I think it would make using Lightroom simpler as well.

Of course I would back-up everything to a second external HD.

[OdiN1701]

I use an external RAID array for backup but the stuff I work on my system with is kept on an internal RAID array.

If you get a drive, I recommend staying FAR away from Maxtor drives. I've seen more of them fail than anything else.

Stick with Western Digital or Seagate lines.

[cdifoto]

I like to use the laptop's internal drive initially since it's faster and allows me to work without having a drive dangling off me, but once I'm done initially I'll move them over to the external to make room for the next go. I still work off the external if needed.

[incendy]

I think a SAN solution would suit you best based on what you want to do. I recomend the drobo as it is quite simple to setup and performance is really good as well.

http://www.drobo.com/Products/Index.html

[mai_lin]

Is anyone using an external hard drive as their primary photo storage site?

I only have a desktop at the moment. I'm planning on getting a laptop soon. If I put all my photos on an external HD then I could switch back and fourth between the desktop and the laptop much easier. I think it would make using Lightroom simpler as well.

Of course I would back-up everything to a second external HD.

I do - but I do all my photo editing work on a desktop - I have a laptop but I don't do any of my editing on it. I have all 300 GB (currently) on a 750 GB external and will back up to a 1 TB external after the holidays (hoping to get one as a gift). It's worked well so far... but I don't swap between machines. I got it basically to get everything off the desktop in order to save resources and make it run faster/better.

In your case I'd get a second external to back up to ASAP.

Good luck!


Jen D.

[versedmb]

I do - but I do all my photo editing work on a desktop - I have a laptop but I don't do any of my editing on it. I have all 300 GB (currently) on a 750 GB external and will back up to a 1 TB external after the holidays (hoping to get one as a gift). It's worked well so far... but I don't swap between machines. I got it basically to get everything off the desktop in order to save resources and make it run faster/better.

In your case I'd get a second external to back up to ASAP.

Good luck!


Jen D.

Yea, that's what I'm thinking about.

I think LR 2 makes working off of an ext HD easier than it was previously. I would do most of my editing on the desktop (working on the ext HD), but switching over to the laptop would be easier if all of my edits were done on the ext HD.

[strmrdr]

the biggest problem is that many of them do not have enough cooling for the drive for full time use.

[cdifoto]

My enclosure has a fan. It's on 24/7 and never hot. Barely even warm.

[mai_lin]

the biggest problem is that many of them do not have enough cooling for the drive for full time use.

Especially because you don't have a back up yet - DON'T run exclusively off the external. Take whatever you are editing and bring it to the machine your own and edit there - then move back to the external.

After working for 5 years in software development (I'm a .NET programmer) I've seen externals do some funky stuff when used full time. These aren't server grade so use them as back up when possible, primary use isn't smart without a back up.


Jen D.

[stathunter]

I have several 500 gig western digital external drives that I use. I try to keep one as a back up of the current files that I cannot loose (weddings etc) one is an active one plug into my desktop the others are backups from older photos --
I take too many photos per week to not have external drives--- I have had no problems with my western digital "mybook" drives.

[cdifoto]

Mine's just a plain Caviar in an AMS Venus enclosure.

[neil_g]

vote for seagate over here.

i get increasingly worried when people mention raid these days, especially when they rely on mirroring as a backup method. this is not sufficient. remember to keep at least 2 physically different locations for data (i.e - 2 separate drives, copy at work / copy at home etc etc).

I think a SAN solution would suit you best based on what you want to do.

i think you mean NAS, SANs are usually business scale storage networks ;)

[OdiN1701]

vote for seagate over here.

i get increasingly worried when people mention raid these days, especially when they rely on mirroring as a backup method. this is not sufficient. remember to keep at least 2 physically different locations for data (i.e - 2 separate drives, copy at work / copy at home etc etc).

i think you mean NAS, SANs are usually business scale storage networks ;)


Yeah, a SAN would be awful expensive for this heh.

And yes RAID shouldn't be the only backup (i.e. only onsite backup), but it is (for me at least) more for the convenience/security factor. If a drive goes bad - I can still run my system while I wait for a replacement drive to arrive. So no interruption in work. Offsite backups are important. Whether it's at your studio or a safe deposit box or something.

[neil_g]

tbh it worrys me the marketing spin on things like the drobo who go on about keeping your data safe yadda yadda, but dont mention that if the raid controller fails all your drives are toast. no mention of separate backups at all..

[versedmb]

Especially because you don't have a back up yet - DON'T run exclusively off the external. Take whatever you are editing and bring it to the machine your own and edit there - then move back to the external.

After working for 5 years in software development (I'm a .NET programmer) I've seen externals do some funky stuff when used full time. These aren't server grade so use them as back up when possible, primary use isn't smart without a back up.


Jen D.

Yea, I would get 2 ext HD's - one for editing photos and one for backup. I would always have a backup. It would free up so much space on my desktop's HD.

[Electric Shepherd]

My albums are all backed up in pretty paranoid fashion; my photos are on the HD of both my Macbook and desktop PC, backed up to external HDs on both [a LaCie Quadra D2 over firewire using Time Machine on the Mac, and a Western Digital My Book over USB for the PC] and burnt onto DVDs which I keep off site at work as I accumulate a DVDs worth!

Repeat after me; "Annally retentive" :lol:

[incendy]

Drobo isn't that expensive, Windows Home Server also work well for this scenario. Either way, those are my two favorite solutions and over a gb network performance is really great. Both also allow for easy expansion later on

[incendy]

vote for seagate over here.

i get increasingly worried when people mention raid these days, especially when they rely on mirroring as a backup method. this is not sufficient. remember to keep at least 2 physically different locations for data (i.e - 2 separate drives, copy at work / copy at home etc etc).



i think you mean NAS, SANs are usually business scale storage networks ;)

NAS and SAN have have basically become the same thing now that IP based SAN solutions have become a standard option. Drobo to me would qualify as either because it does offer segmentation, even though it isn't done through fiber or scsi :)

[neil_g]

tbh its not really either without the network addon. and with (even drobo state) its NAS ;)

"true" SANs are like you say fibre or scsi attached virtual local drives. yes ip based "SANs" exist but they are essentially NAS.

excuse me if that doesnt make sense, long day at work lol

[incendy]

tbh its not really either without the network addon. and with (even drobo state) its NAS ;)

"true" SANs are like you say fibre or scsi attached virtual local drives. yes ip based "SANs" exist but they are essentially NAS.

excuse me if that doesnt make sense, long day at work lol


That makes sense if you look at it like that but then you have iscsi which does allow virtual drives through ip and completely detroys the boundries haha.. It has become very convuluted to say the least.

[neil_g]

true, but i never see the point of iscsi. whats the point of spending the cash on a SAN and then having a low bandwidth connection. but maybe thats just me..!

[incendy]

true, but i never see the point of iscsi. whats the point of spending the cash on a SAN and then having a low bandwidth connection. but maybe thats just me..!

You can turn any Linux or Windows 2008 box into an iscsi server with all the benefits of having centralized storage and backups. Over a gigabit network it is actually a really nice solution for storage