your photo (and video) storage solution

jchin · February 13, 2011

Can someone share their photo (and video) storage solution?

I find myself running out of room on the 2TB drive way too quickly with the 21mpix RAW and 1080p video from my 5D2. I am using LR for the photos. The MOV files are stored along side with the photos from the same event.

pathfinder · February 13, 2011

Good question,

Shoot less, edit more in camera or post shooting, or........ use what I use

an eSata Raid array

3 TB drives are available too.

hgernhardtjr · February 13, 2011

FWIW, I believe in overkill and beyond relying on someone else's online storage, I have 5TB internal for working and backup, 4TB esata external backup, a different-room-located and secured wireless NAS unit kept updated for anywhere-access of recent work, and a combination of older DVD and now Blu-Ray for semi-permanent backup, stored away in a safe, dark, dry off-site place.

2TB bare drives are available for as little as $70 if you don't want a rocket — and recently with $10+ mail-in rebates, for a cost of $60 each making them ideal for inexpensive backup or complete-system cloning. External housings for the drives (esata/USB or FireWire/USB connectivity) are available for around $25 and HD "docks" that will dock bare drives are available for under $50 (I use one, and store bare drives in sealed HD plastic cases).

By the way, PogoPlug Pro makes for a nice cost effective wireless or wired networked storage solution using one-to-several USB hard drives, and is remotely and securely accessible from anywhere in the world (somewhat slow) . I just set up a system using PogoPlug Pro for someone and it works well ... total cost for the 2TB drive, fan-cooled USB housing, and Pro unit (all on sale) was US$140.

Nonetheless, as Pathfinder stated, an esata raid unit is a very nice and statistically secure all-in-one solution — but, as an old-timer IT person I witnessed the (perhaps unusual) failure of one all-in-one-case raid array that took all the data with it when its power supply went nuts so I tend to keep my files backed up in several physically different locations/media as I am sure Pathfinder does, also.

aquaticvideographer · February 13, 2011

Drobo + Backblaze
I keep my Aperture library split across my MacBook Pro's hard drive and an SSD drive I have plugged into it. I keep my Aperture vault (library backup) and originals of my videos, including original footage plus final cuts on a Drobo that currently has about 3TB of storage (infinitely expandable). I keep everything backed up on Backblaze, my cloud backup provider of choice. I also have a SmugMug account where I keep my more valuable JPEGs backed up and available for display to friends and family. (I'll skip over SmugMug in my explanations below.)

The Drobo is great because:

- It's fault-tolerant. If one of the hard drives in it fails, it won't lose any data and will let you replace that hard drive with a new one.

- It's infinitely expandable. When the Drobo fills up, you just take out two of the smallest hard drives and replace them with two larger ones, and you've instantly got more storage. (You have to take them out and replace them one at a time, however, in case you are trying this at home.

)

- It's well-designed. If you're a fan of the Apple aesthetic, you'll feel right at home with Drobo. It's clean and simple and...

- It's automatic and easy. Nothing to administer, and no need to move files around from the older, smaller drives to the new ones-Drobo takes care of that for you.

- It works! I've had a hard drive fail on me while in the Drobo and in use, and Drobo didn't blink an eye. It just moved all of the data around that drive, and then moved it onto the new replacement drive when I got it.

Backblaze is great because:

- It's cheap: <$60/year.

- It's unlimited: You can store as much backup as you want, à la SmugMug, for the same price. They back up external hard drives that are attached to your computer just like the computer's internal hard drive-no limit to the number of external (or internal) drives they will back up for the same price.

- They have flexible restore options. You can choose to download backed up files, or for really big jobs, you can order external hard drives with your files pre-loaded on them. (This costs extra, at the time you order it.)

- It works! When my friends' house was broken into and their home office was stole out from under them, they were able to get a full restore of all of their electronic data because of Backblaze. And it got to them the day after they ordered their external hard drive backups. And everything was there, safe and sound! My friends were relieved and I was glad I had nagged them into setting up Backblaze. (I'm their volunteer IT guy.)

I will admit that I am a bit of a backup fiend, because once I almost lost my entire photo library due to a failing iBook hard drive. I got everything off of it just barely in time, and ever since then, I've been keeping redundant local and cloud backups of everything.

jchin · February 14, 2011

However, I use Lightroom. How does LR handle all these extra drives, which may end up using the same drive letters depending on when they are plugged into the system?

Thanks for the info about Backblaze. I will look into that as an off-site backup. How fast is their connection? I've read about some "unlimited" backup storage, but they limit your upload speed to a trickle so uploading 16GB of RAW images takes a week. Is it like that with Backblaze?

aquaticvideographer · February 14, 2011

jchin wrote: »

How fast is their connection? I've read about some "unlimited" backup storage, but they limit your upload speed to a trickle so uploading 16GB of RAW images takes a week. Is it like that with Backblaze?

Nope, Backblaze is like SmugMug-they don't throttle your connection. It's limited by your upload bandwidth.

If your question regarding drives and drive letters was about Drobo, Drobo is seen as one gigantic hard drive by your computer, even though it has multiple hard drives in it. It presents as one logical drive that you can expand.

Tas67 · February 14, 2011

I currently have 2TB drives that I back up to....and then I have a couple of smaller drives that back up those back ups.

Yes, it sounds a little disorganized but isn't really.

In the nearby future, I'm planning on going the Drobo route but can't justify the cost at the moment.

Mark Dickinson · May 17, 2011

I use a WHC HP version right now. I can tell you when you have a problem on your computer you'll justify the money for it. I really want to figure out if these drobo's are better. I have issues with the WHC right now.

oakfieldphotography.com · May 17, 2011

I try to keep it simples.

I have 2 by 1 terabyte hardrives that mirror each other.

Pat:D

sara505 · May 18, 2011

I have two computers in two locations.

8GB onboard in each, and I store my photos (all except for current month, which I keep on a "working folder" on C) on a 2TB expansion drive.

Then...

for back-up I have three 2TB externals for each computer and keep two on-site, the third I store in the opposite location and bring each of the movables "home" periodically for updating.

Yeah, it's all out of control afaic.

I very recently upgraded all eight external drives from 1TB to 2TB.

If you've ever lost a drive, as I did a couple of years ago - you are very diligent about back-ups. To this day, plugging in an external causes my heart to stop beating until I see everything sitting there where it belongs.

Mark Dickinson · May 18, 2011

Good article, CNET seems to like the Synology http://reviews.cnet.com/best-network-attached-storage/

Im thinking about these or a drobo.. any suggestions here to? Will help the poster and me out:)

pmaxwell · May 18, 2011

I am watching to see what Thunderbolt technologies come out soon.

This one has potential (depending on price).
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?m=192&region=en-global&rsn1=40&rsn3=47

your photo (and video) storage solution

Comments