Backups

cybercrypt13 · October 27, 2005

If I paid for a backup of my images, does that also contain a backup of your respective databases? For example: If your server crashed and lost all my images and my site information, could I mail the CD's back to you and have you reload my site without me having to duplciate it all over again?

What I'm really after is protection of mind. It is going to take a considerable amount of time to setup and load images and I don't want to have them lost in case of equipment failure...

Thanks,

glenn

Andy · October 27, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

If I paid for a backup of my images, does that also contain a backup of your respective databases? For example: If your server crashed and lost all my images and my site information, could I mail the CD's back to you and have you reload my site without me having to duplciate it all over again?

What I'm really after is protection of mind. It is going to take a considerable amount of time to setup and load images and I don't want to have them lost in case of equipment failure...

Thanks,

glenn

Hi Glenn,

The backup will just be your images. Which is a good thing. Here's my backup strategy: nightly automated incremental backup to external hard drives. Monthly, I burn dvds of all my images. Of course, all my finished work is also on my smugmug site. I really like having the belt, suspenders and suspenders working for me

cybercrypt13 · October 27, 2005

andy wrote:

Hi Glenn,

The backup will just be your images. Which is a good thing. Here's my backup strategy: nightly automated incremental backup to external hard drives. Monthly, I burn dvds of all my images. Of course, all my finished work is also on my smugmug site. I really like having the belt, suspenders and suspenders working for me

Sorry, I must not have been clear... I am talking specifically about the website, not my images. I have my local backups taken care of, however, I am creating galleries, price levels, grouping photos into those galleries and so on with respect to smugmug. My question is, how can I protect my investment if you have equipment failure?

Thanks,

glenn

Mike Lane · October 27, 2005

I wonder if this is something that star*explorer can do? Maybe Nik will educate us:D

Andy · October 27, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

My question is, how can I protect my investment if you have equipment failure?

Thanks,

glenn

gotcha - i'm asking baldy ... stay tuned

Baldy · October 27, 2005

Hi Glenn,

Currently, our backup CDs mostly preserve your images and to a limited extent your organization. Images are organized into folders on the CD/DVD which correspond to galleries (and have gallery names). Within those folders, the image names have our unique identifier, a hyphen, and your original file name.

Here's an example and answers to other questions about what happens if you crop, etc.:

http://www.smugmug.com/prints/backup.mg

We aspire to save the other stuff like comments, captions, etc., but there are a lot of issues, like how you would read them and import them into other programs, etc.

If you save captions and keywords in the IPTC data, however, that's imbedded in the photo so you get them back, same as you uploaded them.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Chris

Andy · October 27, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Sorry, I must not have been clear... I am talking specifically about the website, not my images. I have my local backups taken care of, however, I am creating galleries, price levels, grouping photos into those galleries and so on with respect to smugmug. My question is, how can I protect my investment if you have equipment failure?

Thanks,

glenn

glenn, some prior posts on dgrin to hopefully help you out...

baldy linky

onethumb linky

cybercrypt13 · October 27, 2005

Thanks, but baldy is missing my point as well. I don't want the information in order to use it. I want it in case of equipment failure on your end so that I'd be able to send it back to you and you could get my site back up without me loosing all the information and processes that I had created.

This is a very serious issue with me because if I were to spend 6 months putting all this stuff on your site and you ended up loosing it I'd probably never use your service again. I would like the piece of mind in knowing that my databases, photos and comments from myself and others are preserved along with prices for galleries and so forth.

Its taken me a lot of time to get things setup and I don't want to have to go through this again...

So what I'm looking for is a way that I can have my entire site along with 100% of what goes into backed up and mailed to me so that if you go down, I can mail it back...

Thanks,

glenn

Andy · October 27, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Thanks, but baldy is missing my point as well. I don't want the information in order to use it. I want it in case of equipment failure on your end so that I'd be able to send it back to you and you could get my site back up without me loosing all the information and processes that I had created.

This is a very serious issue with me because if I were to spend 6 months putting all this stuff on your site and you ended up loosing it I'd probably never use your service again. I would like the piece of mind in knowing that my databases, photos and comments from myself and others are preserved along with prices for galleries and so forth.

Its taken me a lot of time to get things setup and I don't want to have to go through this again...

So what I'm looking for is a way that I can have my entire site along with 100% of what goes into backed up and mailed to me so that if you go down, I can mail it back...

Thanks,

glenn

Hi Glenn, thanks for posting again. As Baldy described, the backups you order will correspond to galleries, etc. You'll probably want to keep a record of your actual pricing methods, as that's not presently provided on the backup CD or DVD. As Baldy said, captions and other information that you have in the IPTC data will of course be saved as well. Another thing that I keep backups of is my cobranding - my header, footer, and css. And whenever I make a modification, I save a new version of this information. Of course, it goes into my nightly automated backup so I'll always have it.

Hope this helps,

cybercrypt13 · October 27, 2005

andy wrote:

Hi Glenn, thanks for posting again. As Baldy described, the backups you order will correspond to galleries, etc. You'll probably want to keep a record of your actual pricing methods, as that's not presently provided on the backup CD or DVD. As Baldy said, captions and other information that you have in the IPTC data will of course be saved as well. Another thing that I keep backups of is my cobranding - my header, footer, and css. And whenever I make a modification, I save a new version of this information. Of course, it goes into my nightly automated backup so I'll always have it.

Hope this helps,

Ok, but how are you downloading your changes? Are you just entering them in a text file somewhere or is there a way to login and download the actual script files from your account? Because I only see the square boxes that I can type my changes into.

And just to make sure I understand. You are also telling me that all of my images, plus all of my gallery information and user comments are all included on the CD/DVD backups?

So if you went down and lost all my records, I could mail the DVD back to you and you could use that to restore my site back to where it was at the time of that backup?

Thanks,

glenn

Andy · October 28, 2005

Hi Glenn, answers inline:

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Ok, but how are you downloading your changes? Are you just entering them in a text file somewhere or is there a way to login and download the actual script files from your account? Because I only see the square boxes that I can type my changes into.

hi glenn, regarding site mods and customization that pro account holders can do, here's what i do and recommend to people: simply copy and paste the header, footer, css stylesheet and any other info from your customization panel, into a text document, and save it, as you would, any other important file. whenever you make changes, make a new copy.

cybercrypt13 wrote:

And just to make sure I understand. You are also telling me that all of my images, plus all of my gallery information and user comments are all included on the CD/DVD backups?

baldy answered that above, here in this post

cybercrypt13 · October 28, 2005

andy wrote:

Hi Glenn, answers inline:

hi glenn, regarding site mods and customization that pro account holders can do, here's what i do and recommend to people: simply copy and paste the header, footer, css stylesheet and any other info from your customization panel, into a text document, and save it, as you would, any other important file. whenever you make changes, make a new copy.

baldy answered that above, here in this post

Ok, I understand the backup of the CSS stuff now, but baldy stated the following: We aspire to save the other stuff like comments, captions, etc., but there are a lot of issues, like how you would read them and import them into other programs, etc."

Then you stated that the captions and so forth are saved in the backup so you both seem to be stating something different, or I'm just confused. I just want to be clear on what is and is not backed up. When Baldy says there are problems then he leads me to believe that some stuff actually is not backed up. It would aid greatly if the help section of the site actually documented exactly what is and is not backed up as well as what you could plan to loose if the computer system crashed and all was lost.

Andy · October 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Ok, I understand the backup of the CSS stuff now, but baldy stated the following: We aspire to save the other stuff like comments, captions, etc., but there are a lot of issues, like how you would read them and import them into other programs, etc."

Then you stated that the captions and so forth are saved in the backup so you both seem to be stating something different, or I'm just confused. I just want to be clear on what is and is not backed up. When Baldy says there are problems then he leads me to believe that some stuff actually is not backed up. It would aid greatly if the help section of the site actually documented exactly what is and is not backed up as well as what you could plan to loose if the computer system crashed and all was lost.

Your captions are backed up if they are in your photo's metadata. I'll clarify further what Baldy said: the captions are not in the backup dvd/cds at present.

I believe I've linked above, a post by onethumb that states Smugmug's commitment to this subject.

Thanks again for taking the time to post this, we appreciate it very much.

jfriend · October 28, 2005

A different way to do smugmug gallery backup

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Ok, I understand the backup of the CSS stuff now, but baldy stated the following: We aspire to save the other stuff like comments, captions, etc., but there are a lot of issues, like how you would read them and import them into other programs, etc."

Then you stated that the captions and so forth are saved in the backup so you both seem to be stating something different, or I'm just confused. I just want to be clear on what is and is not backed up. When Baldy says there are problems then he leads me to believe that some stuff actually is not backed up. It would aid greatly if the help section of the site actually documented exactly what is and is not backed up as well as what you could plan to loose if the computer system crashed and all was lost.

FYI, I have a different approach to backup. I don't rely on copies of stuff from smugmug for a backup of my smugmug images. Instead, I create a directory hiearachy on my PC that mirrors my smugmug site. Then, when I want to upload new images, I create the JPEGs, copy them first to that directory, then upload from there to smugmug. I then backup that hierarchy myself (copy to 2nd hard disk and to DVDs).

cybercrypt13 · October 28, 2005

jfriend wrote:

FYI, I have a different approach to backup. I don't rely on copies of stuff from smugmug for a backup of my smugmug images. Instead, I create a directory hiearachy on my PC that mirrors my smugmug site. Then, when I want to upload new images, I create the JPEGs, copy them first to that directory, then upload from there to smugmug. I then backup that hierarchy myself (copy to 2nd hard disk and to DVDs).

Thanks for the info, however, if smugmugs server crashes you will still loose all user comments, galleries, prices and so forth that you had setup. All your categories will be gone as well. You will be forced to upload and start over from scratch. Granted that your approach would allow you to get the galleries back up quickly, however, there would still be conciderable setup required to get your business back up to speed.

Andy · October 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Thanks for the info, however, if smugmugs server crashes you will still loose all user comments, galleries, prices and so forth that you had setup. All your categories will be gone as well. You will be forced to upload and start over from scratch. Granted that your approach would allow you to get the galleries back up quickly, however, there would still be conciderable setup required to get your business back up to speed.

Glenn, we appreciate your zeal on this issue - and you're welcome to add your thoughts to the features request thread... but there's nothing else beyond the help and advice given in this thread, and what onethumb has already said. if you wish, you can also email customer support.

All the best,

jfriend · October 28, 2005

Just two different (and valid) opinions

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Thanks for the info, however, if smugmugs server crashes you will still loose all user comments, galleries, prices and so forth that you had setup. All your categories will be gone as well. You will be forced to upload and start over from scratch. Granted that your approach would allow you to get the galleries back up quickly, however, there would still be conciderable setup required to get your business back up to speed.

Yes, that is true. It sounds like it's more important to you than it is to me. Not something to argue about, just different priorities for the two of us.

I wouldn't be a smugmug customer if I thought it was a likely event that they would lose everything. And, in the unlikely event that it occurs, I have backups of all the stuff that can't be recreated (albeit with some work) that really matters to me. BTW, if smugmug went down and lost everything, I don't know if I'd be coming back as a customer.

cybercrypt13 · October 28, 2005

andy wrote:

Glenn, we appreciate your zeal on this issue - and you're welcome to add your thoughts to the features request thread... but there's nothing else beyond the help and advice given in this thread, and what onethumb has already said. if you wish, you can also email customer support.

All the best,

Andy, there was no zeal involved there. I was only answering someone elses response. I have accepted at the moment that you don't provide what I would like to have... I will just follow what happens and mention it again in a few months... I didn't want to be rude and not respond to them...

sorry

Andy · October 28, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Andy, there was no zeal involved there. I was only answering someone elses response. I have accepted at the moment that you don't provide what I would like to have... I will just follow what happens and mention it again in a few months... I didn't want to be rude and not respond to them...

sorry

Hi Glenn,

Zeal is a good thing

it means enthusiastic devotion to something.. no worries, it's all good Glenn.

Cheers

Backups

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