What are you using for backup?

03FatBoy · December 19, 2006

Just wanted to get some thoughts on what everyone is using in terms of backing up your pics. You are backing up your pics, aren't you???

I use a few different types on a few machines. After taking photos (or downloading my dad's photos), I burn the originals to a dvd and put that in a fire proof safe, inside another fire proof safe.

I have a seperate data drive for storing images and edited images. I also have a hot swappable removable drive that i use to mirror the data drive. It gets updated one per week and then removed and placed into the fire proof safes.

As my collection grows, I've been thinking about going online using Mozy for my backups instead of buying larger hard drives. For $5 per month, you get all the storage you need. I've been using Mozy (free version) for a long time now to backup my email and such. It's a really nice service.

So, what are YOU doing?

gus · December 19, 2006

03FatBoy wrote:

You are backing up your pics, aren't you???

Nup...they are safely in www.smugmug.com

DavidTO · December 19, 2006

I certainly don't mess around with DVDs. Too much of a PITA.

I have a drive I back up to, automagically, and daily.

You like this Mozy thing? How does the referral thing work? You get credit or something? Are they using Amazon? You trust they'll be around?

Antonio Correia · December 19, 2006

I have a 500 Gb Lacie external disk where I move my photos when they are done, liberating the computer.

I keep RAWs and JPGs.

I make CD / DVD from ime to time.

I have SmugMug for the JPGs ...

reach4urstar · December 19, 2006

I use smugmug as a backup.

Seriously, I upload ALL my pictures to smugmug... the ones I don't want viewed, I just make those private galleries.

I also use a Network Attached Storage drive that automatically backs up both of my computers daily, including pictures.

03FatBoy · December 19, 2006

DavidTO wrote:

I certainly don't mess around with DVDs. Too much of a PITA.

I have a drive I back up to, automagically, and daily.

You like this Mozy thing? How does the referral thing work? You get credit or something? Are they using Amazon? You trust they'll be around?

I do use mozy - but just for home stuff like email and such. I do get credits for extra space, but that's really not what I'm after. And yes, I really like it. Works nice in the background or at night when you are sleeping.

I'm really more interested in what people here do or backups than getting more storage space. So please, don't take the linky the wrong way.

Call me dumb, but I never even thought of smugmug as a backup, but I guess it kinda is - at least for yer jpegs.

Maybe someday they'll accept RAW files also.

claudermilk · December 20, 2006

I use removable hard drives. Cheap, quick, easy, reliable. No longer bother with DVDs as they fit none of those criteria.

Mozy sounds intriguing. Unlimited as in Smugmug-style unlimited?

03FatBoy · December 20, 2006

claudermilk wrote:

I use removable hard drives. Cheap, quick, easy, reliable. No longer bother with DVDs as they fit none of those criteria.

Mozy sounds intriguing. Unlimited as in Smugmug-style unlimited?

Yep. For 4.95/month it's unlimited. I don't have an unlimited account - just a free account that has 2gb. But the service is good.

I like the fact that you don't have to do anything to do the backups. It just does it for you in the background or at night. And the fact that the backup is off site.

With any other backup, YOU have to get the drives out. YOU have to back things up. YOU have to take it off site. To me, it's worth 5 bucks a month.

DavidTO · December 20, 2006

03FatBoy wrote:

Yep. For 4.95/month it's unlimited. I don't have an unlimited account - just a free account that has 2gb. But the service is good.

I like the fact that you don't have to do anything to do the backups. It just does it for you in the background or at night. And the fact that the backup is off site.

With any other backup, YOU have to get the drives out. YOU have to back things up. YOU have to take it off site. To me, it's worth 5 bucks a month.

Well, aside from the offsite thing, doing automatic backups is a cinch.

mercphoto · December 20, 2006

DavidTO wrote:

Well, aside from the offsite thing, doing automatic backups is a cinch.

Agreed. Automated backups are not that big a deal and Mozy certainly doesn't have anything new or novel there.

Photo Shelter is a really great idea for photographers. Backup and store any type of file (RAWs, PSDs, TIFFs, JPGs, etc. etc. etc.). Really good interface for uploading and downloading, searching. They can even become your Internet sales portal as well where you display and sell your images. Multiple and geographically diverse server sites. Etc. Their big problem is they are expensive expensive expensive. But many at Sports Shooter swear by the service.

I follow the advice in "The DAM Book" for organizing files and it helps a lot in terms of keeping a backup system going. DVD's get burned to match the buckets on the disks. Disks get periodically mirrored to another drive kept offline. iView Media Pro tracks where everything resides.

luke_church · December 24, 2006

I wrote a slightly overlong rant about the difficulties of backuping here
http://lukechurch.blogspot.com/2006/07/when-youre-standing-in-deep-water.html

It's all an absolute nightmare, when you try and simultaneously manage

-> High availability (How much downtime will you tolerate?)

-> Confidentiality (Some of the data I work on _must_ not leak. So anytime it leaves my room/the office, it has to travel encrypted, including offsite stores)

-> Availability of confidential information (Given the above, how do you ensure that you can regenerate the data, despite the loss of the disk that stored the key, the keys are much too sensitive to backup through normal routes)

And finally the problem in my case:

-> Availability under attack (How does the system do if someone is deliberately trying to cause things to go wrong. For example, the process that I use to create the backups runs with a different privlidge set that can only read my files and write to the local backup drive. My standard working user account is not allowed to write to the backup drive, so if someone compromises the account, they have to work harder to compromise the backup disk)

So this is all probably completly over the top for most photographers, but I guess the take home message is:

I don't trust any backup solution, until I've literally run the disaster scenarios. If you want to make sure that your system keeps your photos safe despite your office burning down, then take the computers, unplug all the drives and put them in a cupboard, and now get your data back.

I hope no-one has any nasty suprises over the holiday period

Luke

Pupator · December 24, 2006

My PC has two identical-size SATA hard drives. Each morning at 1am, an automatic backup is run (using SyncBack) of all important data from one to the other. Once per week all of that data is backed up to a sever a buddy and I share (it's located at his house).

I back up my pictures to DVD every few weeks - but that's more for portability than security.

What are you using for backup?

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