How do you backup you photos?

[FlyingPete]

After having another drive failure on the weekend I thought it would be interesting to do a poll on how people back up, so here goes!

[FlyingPete]

Actually can I have a Moderator please!

Can you please change this to allow multiple selections, and remove the last option!

[Citizensmith]

DVD and a second HDD for me.

[CyberDyneSystems]

The mixture ... including RAID-1

[msad1217]

External HDD and then at the end of each month copy to DVD. Which could be more than one DVD disc sometimes depending on how many pictures as raw files are quite large.
-Manny

[tommykjensen]

CF-Card->Epson P2000
Epson P2000-> PC1 drive 1
PC1 -> PC1 drive 2
PC1 -> DVD
DVD -> PC2 drive 1
Mount PC2 drive 2 (hotswap drive)
PC2 drive 1-> PC2 drive 2
Remove PC2 drive 2

[S230]

I thought this question was asked not too long ago. But anyways, I store mine in a mixed variety. The Primary backup is CD because of the reliability. the next would be DVD because of size. I would also keep a copy on local hard drive and another offline.
There would also be a CD kept offsite as well.

[Mac]

I have a copy on my main system, which is copied to an external drive, and then at month's end, backed up to DVD and dropped off at my parents house, about 45 miles away.

[tim]

I'll vote once the poll's been modified, I do a mixture of at least two of those.

[the.digital.guy]

DVD and a 2nd Hard Drive.

[FlyingPete]

What’s this? No synchronous replication over DWDM?

This is actually very cool, although very expensive technology. DWDM is Dense Wave Division Multiplexing, you use this when you lease a single (or multiple) pieces of point to point optic fibre (up to 100km apart for sync replication). The DWDM box provides you with up to 32 channels (last time I checked anyway) of up to 2.5Gbit/s. That is 10 Gigabytes of data per second :eek: Now that is download!

It uses optical processes to change the colour (wave length) of each channel, and combines them to a single channel; they are then split out again at the other end, here are few electronics here, they mainly use prisms etc.

Synchronous replication is every block written at one site, is also written at the second site (write OK is not sent to the OS until both sites are written), main problem here is corruptions are replicated synchronously! (they take snapshots of the volumes at regular intervals to combat this, throw in a 5500 slot tape silo and they are all set.

I was involved in a project that installed a setup like this here in NZ, cost around US$4 Million for this and some other toys (24TB of SAN storage etc….).

Now that is data protection ;)

[Eric DeCastro]

dvd

[MazerRakhm]

Copy to media when I, um, remember...

I do want to get one of those exteranal HD backups though. They're getting to be rather reasonable in price, and I know several people who say they are very effective. (Not to mention automated so I can't forget!)

[MazerRakhm]

What’s this? No synchronous replication over DWDM?

We're actually contemplating this at my office, but for this environment and the price tag, I'd rather they invest in true HA for 24/7 availability.

[jimtfoto]

Burn project to DVD after shooting ... then monthly backups of all projects to DVD.

cheers,
jim

[Jon]

It goes onto 4 hard drives on 3 PCs, 2 DVDs and a NAS before it leaves the card. Now to a FlashTrax as well.

[Longwatcher]

Everything goes on DVD as soon as I can manage it and then I maintain a backup copy on a second external drive until I am confident I no longer need it and then I make a DVD of all edited images. And I am in the process of converting old CDs to DVD, so old off-line copy gets upgraded to new standards as they seem to be somewhat standardized. I keep the old format as well, so potentially have 3 copies of data in at least two different formats.

I am even thinking about converting CRW and CR2 to DNG on upgrades just to feel safer.

[Todd Jacobsen]

RAID 5

[Screamer]

Via both External HDD and DVD.

*important*

I keep one set of DVDs offsite, that way in case of loss of fire/natural disaster etc...I have a set. There is no point in keeping all of your data in one place when using redundant copies. ;)

[S230]

I used to store images on HDD but it had failed me several times. The files are physically there and readable except that the data integrity is deteroriating and I found some images with lines across them. This goes the same with raid because worst is if there is a fault in the controller or with a bad drive, the data gets replicated across the chain.
CD's are not 100% but at least with multiple copies, they should provide better solution for now.

[blinking8s]

i have stacked external HD units...

[cheme]

external hard drive and dvd's for me

[napolar]

RAID 5, DLT Tape Backup (Goes offsite), and two PC's

[Penance]

DAt40 for me.
Relaiable but not fast.

[COKE CAN]

I just bought a DVD burner with my new video card.

[Jesper]

Like many of the others: external harddisk and DVD-R.

[FlyingPete]

RAID 5, DLT Tape Backup (Goes offsite), and two PC's

What DLT version are you using? Everyone seems to be dumping their older drives (35/70GB), should be able to pick them up for a bargin!

[BlueTit]

External hard drive and I think I created a DVD once! I think this is something I better get sorted looking at the procedures some of you guys are following. I will just keep my fingers crossed until I do.

[Wazza]

I have two HDDs on my PC in my bedroom, with 200Gb+120Gb.
And I put my spare old 80Gb into the family's PC in lounge. They weren't using the other IDE, so it was good to backup over the network. :)

[Acc]

External HDD and at the end of each month copy to DVD.

Acc

[S230]

It's amazing that so many people rely solely on hard drives.

[napolar]

Pete,
I'm using a 20/40 at this time, but I just retired several 35 / 70 here at work and I will be upgrading at the house.

[markubig]

ooooh! Thanks for reminding me to back-up ... haven't done that in almost 6 months . .. i use DVD

[NYC2BGI]

I create CDs but because one went bad and lost some really nice pics I now create 2 or 3. I have backups of backups since blank CDs are so cheap.

[HighDesert]

External HD and DVDs.

[Titus213]

Load raw to HD on Laptop
Copy raw to HD on desktop
Convert to JPG on second HD on desktop
Backup JPG to 3rd HD on desktop
Burn raw to DVD (every 4.7 Gig)
Burn raw to CD (100 pictures/CD)

And I'll bet I still can't find the original when I want it.....:rolleyes:

[I Simonius]

As I only have a CD burner that's what I use

It seems to me though that as reliability is always a question perhaps I should back up twice to CD

Q: Would it make sense to reverse/change the sequence of images on the second backup CD so if there was any problem it wouldn't occur on thje same image twice?

[EOSAddict]

Having switched totally to digital I am now paranoid about losing data. Am running a combination of backups:

1.Photobackup runs at startup cataloguing new images and backs up to CD or DVD every 200 new images
2.VersionBackup runs at startup and backs up incrementally to a different partition.
3. I also run a regular Picasa (or PSE3 now I have it) DVD backup.
Also plan to place one copy of DVD backup offsite - just in case!
Oh and finally am holding most of my collection on my P2000 (until it gets full!)

You think that's enough?

[tim]

You think that's enough?

Personally i'd add an offsite hard drive based backup, as I don't trust DVDs. I copy my RAW images to my work PC, and don't bother with DVDs at all. Right now i'm sitting on 40GB of image data, 10 DVDs, too much trouble for me when I can use a portable hard drive and my drive at work. If you're really cheeky copy it to a network drive and let work back things up for you ;)

[tommykjensen]

If you're really cheeky copy it to a network drive and let work back things up for you ;)

Hmm, I guess its not all companies that put quota on network drives ;) Here at work I would be able to store about 25 raw files on my personal network drive

[tim]

Hmm, I guess its not all companies that put quota on network drives ;) Here at work I would be able to store about 25 raw files on my personal network drive

I'm a software developer, we might want to throw a 2GB database dump on a drive, it's not worth the hastle and cost of limiting us. Look at the cost of storage vs cost of developer time - there's no contest there. They might ask why I have 40GB of data in my home directory though, and not be impressed when I tell them they're my holiday photos ;)

[tommykjensen]

I'm a software developer, we might want to throw a 2GB database dump on a drive, it's not worth the hastle and cost of limiting us. Look at the cost of storage vs cost of developer time - there's no contest there. They might ask why I have 40GB of data in my home directory though, and not be impressed when I tell them they're my holiday photos ;)

Well I do have access to more storage I just need a business justification ;) but personal photos ain't exactly business related. But for business I sometimes need to dump a 12-16 GB database to setup a development copy or to backup on long term storage for accounting purposes.

[tim]

Well I do have access to more storage I just need a business justification ;) but personal photos ain't exactly business related. But for business I sometimes need to dump a 12-16 GB database to setup a development copy or to backup on long term storage for accounting purposes.

Do you guys use metric or imperial gigabytes?

[tommykjensen]

Do you guys use metric or imperial gigabytes?

However windows is setup to count the bit and bytes.

[tim]

Sorry Tommy, I was kidding ;)

[where1]

I have my scheduler make a backup onto a second hard drive of all new and changed files in My Documents every night.
After downloading my CFs into my computer, I also download them onto my X-Drive. I delete them after they make onto DVDs.
I have a cache area where I put all my wanted files waiting to be burned onto CD.
After I have 6 CDs, I copy them to DVD twice and store one off site.

After deleting some pix I did for a client on oops, it was nice to go get them off the second hard drive.

[Pelao]

I shoot raw and once the images are on my drive I immediately burn a CD and copy to a second, external drive. these are my negatives.

Then I process and back up the resulting images, again to CD and an external drive.

I don't use DVDs - I don't trust them.

I use these CDs:


Delkin (http://www.delkin.com/delkin_products_archival_gold.html)