So just how does SM do backups

havanese · August 5, 2009

I was curious to read about the issues this guy had with Flickr and how they supposely lost 3,000+ photos and they can't get them back.

I'm sure SM does backups but wondered how they do them?

If my primary photos became "lost" what does SM do to retrieve them?

Just curious,

Andy · August 5, 2009

We won't go into much detail, but I'll tell you we have multiple copies in multiple locations.

Still, and very important: it's critical that you maintain your own copies of your photos as well.

Personally, I use raided hard drives locally, and a 3rd party cloud storage service for ALL my data (including photos & raws - backblaze.com) and SmugMug

jfriend · August 5, 2009

Andy wrote:

and a 3rd party cloud storage service for ALL my data (including photos & raws - backblaze.com)

Hey Andy, are you really getting unlimited online backup storage for $5/month from BackBlaze? So you could literally upload as much as your bandwidth allows? If so, I'm going to give it a try.

Andy · August 5, 2009

jfriend wrote:

Hey Andy, are you really getting unlimited online backup storage for $5/month from BackBlaze? So you could literally upload as much as your bandwidth allows? If so, I'm going to give it a try.

$50 a year, actually! It couldn't be easier, John. I started a several months ago, it took a few weeks for all my stuff (~ 1Tb of data) to upload (it goes on in the background, you can throttle how much bandwidth is used - I did smaller amount during day and fully open when I slept)... and now it just incrementally backs up. I love it. I can recover files easy peasy anytime, via familiar tree-type interface to my files.

Backblaze.

jfriend · August 5, 2009

Andy wrote:

$50 a year, actually! It couldn't be easier, John. I started a several months ago, it took a few weeks for all my stuff to upload (it goes on in the background, you can throttle how much bandwidth is used - I did smaller amount during day and fully open when I slept)... and now it just incrementally backs up. I love it. I can recover files easy peasy anytime, via familiar tree-type interface to my files.

Backblaze.

I'm going to give it a shot. Much more cost effective for us photo packrats than the S3-based solutions. Thanks for the tip.

havanese · August 5, 2009

My solution for all types of files (docs, photos, video)

Backup to one internal HD
Then one External
Then to Amazon S3 via jungledisk
then of course for Smugmug

jfriend · August 5, 2009

Andy wrote:

$50 a year, actually! It couldn't be easier, John. I started a several months ago, it took a few weeks for all my stuff (~ 1Tb of data) to upload (it goes on in the background, you can throttle how much bandwidth is used - I did smaller amount during day and fully open when I slept)... and now it just incrementally backs up. I love it. I can recover files easy peasy anytime, via familiar tree-type interface to my files.

Backblaze.

I'm starting to back up now to Backblaze. The estimated completion is a long time from now, even when I've excluded prior years photos (1Mbps upload on my DSL). If I could ever get the initial stuff up, it could probably keep up with new content.

I can't find a way to set a different throttle settings for daytime vs. late night. I see the main Throttle setting, but I don't see how to set it differently for different times of the day. I'd also like to set it for the middle during the day, but let it have all the bandwidth late at night. Am I missing something?

Andy · August 5, 2009

jfriend wrote:

I can't find a way to set a different throttle settings for daytime vs. late night.

Oh sorry, I just did it manually....

jfriend · August 5, 2009

Andy wrote:

Oh sorry, I just did it manually....

OK, I guess that's what I'll have to do too.

The current estimate while excluding all photos prior to 2009 is 85 days to get things backed up. It drops to 38 days at min throttling. It's 140+ days if I include all my photos.

I wish my DSL provider had faster upload available.

Andy · August 5, 2009

jfriend wrote:

I wish my DSL provider had faster upload available.

Yeah it was relatively fast for me, I've got that Docsis ultra high speed. I think Comcast in your area has something really fast, too, no?

jfriend · August 5, 2009

Andy wrote:

Yeah it was relatively fast for me, I've got that Docsis ultra high speed. I think Comcast in your area has something really fast, too, no?

Comcast has faster upload (5Mbps continuous), but it's $63/mo which seems like highway robbery to me.

Alexander · August 21, 2009

Andy wrote:

$50 a year, actually! (...) Backblaze.

Oh cool, thank you for that link!

Andy wrote:

*droool*

jfriend wrote:

Comcast has faster upload (5Mbps continuous), but it's $63/mo which seems like highway robbery to me.

*faint*
I'd pay that.With a big smile on my face, Huggin' and a kissin', dancin' and a lovin', wearin' next to nothing!

I currently have a downstream of 6Mb/s and an upstream of 348Kb/s.And I pay about $100/mo.

SamirD · August 21, 2009

Andy wrote:

If you don't mind me asking Andy, how much does that run a month?

SamirD · August 21, 2009

jfriend wrote:

Comcast has faster upload (5Mbps continuous), but it's $63/mo which seems like highway robbery to me.

That's a steal. Combining three 8m/768k down/up cable modems costs me almost $200/month. And it barely yields 2mb. :cry

Andy · August 21, 2009

SamirD wrote:

If you don't mind me asking Andy, how much does that run a month?

Optimum Ultra
http://www.optimum.com/online/pricing.jsp

SamirD · August 21, 2009

Andy wrote:

Optimum Ultra
http://www.optimum.com/online/pricing.jsp

WOW! That is cheap for that type of bandwidth.

So just how does SM do backups

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