Photo storage ?

natc143 · Dec 26, 2008

Hey everyone!

I started my business a few months ago and have been thinking about better ways to store and backup my photos. What do you use? I've looked at some LaCie Hard Disk solutions.

What do you use? What do you recommend?

I was considering having a hard drive backup and perhaps an offsite backup?

Thanks in advance!
Natalie

SpeedTrap · Dec 26, 2008

I have been using NAS, Network Attached storage. Some the the enclosures can handle upward of 4 TB and can be set up wireless.
Just do a Google search for Wireless NAS and have fun reading
I only typically move my storage devices offsite when I will be away for a week or more.

MikeBcos · Dec 26, 2008

I use Adobe Bridge to organize my photos and also to download them from the camera, I have it set to convert the Raw files to DNG and save them in a folder on my desktop, it copies the JPGs to another folder (I shoot Raw+jpg), it also saves a backup copy of the Raw images and the jpgs to yet another folder on a file server. The file server backs up daily using Mozy online backup. This way I have two copies of everything at home plus an offsite backup.

Christie Photo · Dec 26, 2008

All hard drives eventually will fail.

I store 2 copies of each job on CD/DVD. I file them just as I did my negs in the past. Each job has it's own envelope, numbered and stored sequentially.

-Pete

natc143 · Dec 26, 2008

Thank you everyone! I appreciate your feedback! I'm also not fully utilizing adobe cs3, but will look into the bridge recommendation. Thanks =)

TUX424 · Dec 27, 2008

"IF" you wanted to keep everything on site you could set up a RAID 1 (Mirroring) This is where you buy multpile hard drives and you hook them up in a RAID 1 which will alow so that you will have the capictly of one of those hard drive but the data will be the same over all of the drives. So however many drives that you have will be the number of copies of that file you will have, but try the google machine on some more detail

TwoRails · Dec 27, 2008

natc143 said:
Hey everyone!

I started my business a few months ago and have been thinking about better ways to store and backup my photos. What do you use? I've looked at some LaCie Hard Disk solutions.

What do you use? What do you recommend?

I was considering having a hard drive backup and perhaps an offsite backup?

Thanks in advance!
Natalie

An external HD (hard drive) is highly recommended. I don't do it, but keeping a copy in another location is a good idea in case of a house fire or the like. Seagates are a very reliable brand for external HD storage. You can get a prebuilt unit such as a Free Agent Pro:

Newegg.com - Seagate FreeAgent Pro ST307504FPA1E3-RK 750GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394a / eSATA External Hard Drive - External Hard Drives

Another easy method, and is less expensive overall depending on the amount of storage you need (you didn't mention if you had 20GB or 2TB of storage needs) is to get separate drives (not in enclosures) and then you can use a 'dongle' to read / write to them, saving the cost of an enclosure for each drive.

Drive example:
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Dongle example:
USB 2.0 to SATA + IDE (2.5 / 3.5 / 5.25") Cable Adapter 2020

Some folks like to also backup to DVD but I stopped that as it's way too time consuming for me and having multiple HD backups is sufficient.

HTH

TR

MikeBcos · Dec 27, 2008

TUX424 said:
"IF" you wanted to keep everything on site you could set up a RAID 1 (Mirroring) This is where you buy multpile hard drives and you hook them up in a RAID 1 which will alow so that you will have the capictly of one of those hard drive but the data will be the same over all of the drives. So however many drives that you have will be the number of copies of that file you will have, but try the google machine on some more detail

RAID should never be used as your only backup system. If the data on your primary drive becomes corrupt that corruption will be copied across every drive rendering them all useless.

You should also use a separate backup system where your important files are saved to an external drive that is swapped out weekly, and preferably stored offsite, or to an online backup service.