Best method to archive photos???

crn3371 wrote in post #14097527
I would never use cloud storage as my only form of backup.

IMO, cloud storage is for remote availability of select data, not backup.

Transmission is too slow (recovering a couple of terabytes of image files could take weeks) and the storage capacity is usually too small anyway.

Merlin Driver wrote in post #14096474
Have you been pleased with Carbonite??

I would not be pleased with any service that simply vanished (went out of business) without alerting its customers and without passing the data onward to another storage service provider so that client data was protected. Yet this kind of service failure has indeed happened in the past!!! I trust no outside provider to be my only data storage/backup. Even giant corporations have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth.

Wilt wrote in post #14099881
I would not be pleased with any service that simply vanished (went out of business) without alerting its customers and without passing the data onward to another storage service provider so that client data was protected. Yet this kind of service failure has indeed happened in the past!!! I trust no outside provider to be my only data storage/backup. Even giant corporations have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth.

Interesting points...

I have a qNAP (http://www.qnap.com/US​Eng/) in my home for my RAW images, and a I have full res jpegs on Smugmug (I have a Pro account).

I know the pain of loosing pictures, my first 3 years of photography were lost due to a raid controller wrecking my storage. Luckily it was just me experimenting with my XTi back in the day.

IMHO Cloud + Home storage solution is the best one can do. DVD/BluRay/CDRs IMHO are not a great medium for keeping photos...

jtalerico wrote in post #14103154
Interesting points...

I have a qNAP (http://www.qnap.com/US​Eng/) in my home for my RAW images, and a I have full res jpegs on Smugmug (I have a Pro account).

I know the pain of loosing pictures, my first 3 years of photography were lost due to a raid controller wrecking my storage. Luckily it was just me experimenting with my XTi back in the day.

IMHO Cloud + Home storage solution is the best one can do. DVD/BluRay/CDRs IMHO are not a great medium for keeping photos...

Absolutely horrible and they're not as convenient to use as hard drives.

And when we say "convenient to use," we also mean convenient to convert to different formats.

I recall back in the day transcribing data from 5.5-inch 360K floppies to my first hard drive (a Seagate ST506), and that was a severe pain in the okole even though that was only a few megs of data (but a lot of floppies).

Since those dark days, I've converted megabytes and terabytes of data from ST506 to IDE to SATA with hardly any effort whatsoever...in my sleep, in fact.

If/when I have to convert my TIFFs and JPEGs to some other image format, I'm sure there will be converters that will be able to batch-convert an entire hard drive while I sleep.

I can't imagine preferring to do any of that with stacks of optical disks, but with my data on hard drives I'll be much more likely to make those conversions and keep my data current with the latest storage mediums and formats.

One might ask, how important your data is, if no print was made from it. It's your favorites file that you should go the extra mile on. That reduces the pain of archiving to acceptable levels, at least for us hacks.

This is my (almost bullet-proof) setup, suitable for technical people (I rely mostly on Linux, but a similar solution can be developed for any platform). It requires one off-site computer under your control, and connected to Internet (my office workstation).

I maintain three copies of all my important files. One is the original files on my home desktop. Once in a while I copy all important files to an external USB hard drive next to my desktop. The desktop runs Windows XP, so I use free Windows program SyncBack. Most of files (photos, videos) are copied as full backup, some less important ones (webs server log, emails etc) are copied as mirror. I enable hash codes comparison ("Use slower but more reliable method of file change detection" in "Compare Options") - much slower, but will catch errors from a failing hard drive (either internal or external). This is very important - recently I had my first case of an old (5 years old) photo file becoming corrupt on my desktop hard drive. The file size was not affected, so if not for this hash comparison feature, I wouldn't catch it.

Next, I use Linux program "rsync" set up for full backup copy (with hash computation and comparison) from my USB hard drive to the remote Linux workstation (my office computer). This can either be done over Internet (securely encoded inside an SSH tunnel) - if the amount to copy is not huge; or I can bring the external hard drive to my office, and do it over USB. I wrote my own Bash script to automate the process. I can share it if anyone is interested.

I plan to replace the external hard drive every 3-4 years, or if I see signs it's failing.

The above setup has these advantages:

- Three copies is much more reliable than two.
- Hash computation and comparison on both copying stages ensures that all my files are bit-identical, so I can catch early signs of a failing hard drive, and recover corrupt files. I can also catch any data corruption which happened during the copying (over USB or Internet).
- The fact that the three copies are on different OS (Windows and Linux) reduces the risk that a bug/worm will wipe out all of the data.
- The fact that the third copy is off-site (12 km away), greatly reduces the risk of fire or the elements destroying all my data.

I believe the largest remaining risk is a chance of a human (my) error. One day, doing some major procedure (moving to some future medium technology, moving to new OS etc.), I might do something stupid, and wipe out some/all the data.

Also, setups of this kind are "high maintenance" - it works as long as I am actively doing it. If I'm gone or incapacitated, this will fail.

Strangely enough, the most old-fashioned way of archiving photos - printing them - can be more reliable, because it is (almost) zero maintenance. Just think of you finding some very old photos in your grandparents chest - they may be of poor quality, but at least they survived. And then think of your grandchildren finding an old hard drive in your chest 40 years from now - what is the chance they can recover the data? Very close to zero.

So I'm okay when my wife tells me that once in a while we have to print some of our family photos, for albums.

Yeah, one has to first assume that

• someone has INTEREST in plugging the unknown harddrive in to see what's on it,
  
• that they have INTEREST in puzzling thru folder structure and figuring out what kind of naming convention was used by you in storing photos,
  
• than they have INTEREST in viewing hundreds of thousands of photos (especially now that digital shooters who capture 25000 in a single year is so commonplace)
  
• and that they can even plug the harddrive into the computer of the future, to get access to the data
  
• and that software still exists which can read the data (especially if they are RAW files made with a brand of camera no longer existant)
  

Did I mention I lost two 4Tb Iomega drives within a month of each other and both under 12 months old?

Wilt wrote in post #14107468
Yeah, one has to first assume that

• someone has INTEREST in plugging the unknown harddrive in to see what's on it,
  
• that they have INTEREST in puzzling thru folder structure and figuring out what kind of naming convention was used by you in storing photos,
  
• than they have INTEREST in viewing hundreds of thousands of photos (especially now that digital shooters who capture 25000 in a single year is so commonplace)
  
• and that they can even plug the harddrive into the computer of the future, to get access to the data
  
• and that software still exists which can read the data (especially if they are RAW files made with a brand of camera no longer existant)
  

Agreed - I don't even think you can plugin a hard drive into anything 40 years from now - computers as we know them might not even be around anymore; and SATA/IDE/USB formats will be long forgotten.

Regarding RAW: very true. That is the reason why I started backing up both RAW and processed JPEG (100% quality) photos - this is nothing compared to my 1080p HD home videos .

Simple and effective that works for me.
BlacX Duet plus MS SyncToy

And if your laptop does not have USB 3.0, StarTech 1 Port ExpressCard Adapter

Wilt wrote in post #14107468
Yeah, one has to first assume that

You only have to make those assumptions if you try a "file it and forget it" strategy.

If you continually transfer/convert your data as media and formats change, then those concerns won't be concerns.

Of course, there is still the question of whether anyone will care to look at them anyway. But media and format won't be the issue.

And you never know...sometimes an obscure photographer is discovered (or hyped) to be a genius only when someone uncovers her files after she's died.

RDKirk wrote in post #14108130
You only have to make those assumptions if you try a "file it and forget it" strategy.

If you continually transfer/convert your data as media and formats change, then those concerns won't be concerns.

Of course, there is still the question of whether anyone will care to look at them anyway. But media and format won't be the issue.

And you never know...sometimes an obscure photographer is discovered (or hyped) to be a genius only when someone uncovers her files after she's died.

The point behind my prior post was about the situation of you, the photographer, being dead and gone, and the relative inacessiblity of your digital legacy of photos, compared to the boxes full and albums full of prints. Your heir's heirs will need to have sufficient motivation, not merely the availability of hardware and software, for your digital legacy to live on, rather than simply addressing the issue of the magnetic recording deteriorating over time or the ability to plug in and read the data. We might be motivated, will our heirs? Some will reply, "Who cares, after I am gone?", and historians will respond, "the historians and anthropogists of the future"

I'd disagree. Even today, the chances of my son or daughter reviewing my images after my death will be far greater if they are in up-to-date digital format than if they are in boxes. They might peruse my digital files, because after all, my financial records are digital as well and they will keep all their own records of value digitally.

I can guarantee you, though: When I die, all old boxes will be set out on the curb never opened. It will never occur to the Net Generation 20 years from now that an old box might hold something they might value.

I will agree, that with equal motivation, our heirs are more likely to page thru digital files than leaf thru boxes, simply due to relative ease of using electronic viewers than leaf thru stacks of photos in boxes -- after all, the each generation goes after ease over quality (witness MP-3 vs. CD, cell phone cameras vs. even P&S, ease of distributing digital cinema in spite of its poor resolution of under 4 pixels per inch on the theater screen). But it is inherently easier to open a box to discover the contents are full of photos, than to find a collection of old harddrives and figure out how to plug them in to make them work...even a grade school dropout can open a box and leaf thru photos. Heck, I have old floppies that can be read in USB floppy drives, but I don't bother to plug them in and see what files are on them, beyond reading the handwritten paper label...I'm admittedly too lazy and too busy to take the time!