Simple, inexpensive backup system

[The_Traveler]

I have always been a little iffy about my backups. Never lost anything but it always seemed a little jury-rigged and so I decided to get a better one going.

I looked at Drobo*(see comment below) but decided against buying yet another mystery. I like to do things exactly how it suits me.
So I bought a Sabrent USB 3.0 dual HDD disk bay to use with three 2 terabyte Hitachi drives.
Using Synckback SE from twobrightsparks.com (I've been using it since beta) I set up two group profiles - one to backup all my files to both drives and the other to back up just my images.
The total backup runs every day at 4:30 and I'll run the photos only after a big editing session.
My system is to keep two disks online and the third at my neighbors house.
Every week or so, I swap the one from my neighbor in and give him one of the online disks.

Backups run fast, on schedule and essentially untouched for just a bit more than the cost of 3 drives.

*(I investigated Drobo and a friend lent me his Gen 2 Drobo to see how it worked as a backup. It was USB 2.0 which clearly wasn't what I wanted but I just wanted to see how the system worked. (I had my own drives).
So I read the Drobo site; there was no mention of my model number on their legacy system software page. So I tried the chat support.
The chat line tech was more than unresponsive, it was hostile.
I said I just wanted to know which manual and software went with the model I was trying; the support guy sent me a url for the page that I'd been reading but wouldn't answer any question, even to identify my model, because I wasn't on warranty.
I read on their Forum about how a very few people had real problems but those people spent lots of time trying to trace hidden issues.
My friend actually had similar problems that only cleared up when he spent another several hundred dollars on Drobo 5.
I was put off by yet one more system whose inner working were a mystery and whose tech support was so unfriendly)​

 

[bratkinson]

Whatever works for you and whatever you understand how it works should be the one and the same and be the methodology you use. However, I suggest you move your offsite copy further than your neighbor in case of a tornado, or fire big enough to light your neighbors house as well.

I learned in 35 years as a mainframe programmer/analyst that backup is critical to corporate existence. The advent of PCs and moving the backup requirements to the user level have caused countless lost data failures in the industry...I've read about physicians offices and police departments 'losing everything' when a hard drive crashed as they had never made any backups.

These days, I make sure I never have less than 3 copies of my photo projects on three different physical devices while that project is 'in process' - one to two weeks, typically. When I come home from a shoot, the first thing I do is copy the memory cards contents to SSD, HD, and a USB thumb drive (or two, or three) that goes in my pocket as 'off site backup' just in case. Folders of edited photos go from the SSD to the HD and thumb drive daily. When done, I make double sure everything on the SSD is on TWO HDs and one external, usually offsite, USB hard drive before I wipe it off my SSD to make space.

I do things by entire-folder copying from A to B. Or cloning the entire hard drive from one to another. To me, RAID is useless as if I accidentally delete something (as I always end up doing multiple times during processing), it's instantly all gone on all copies in the RAID. I still have the original in 2 or 3 other places, even the CF or SD cards in many cases if I delete something from my current 'working set'.

I don't use automated backup software either, primarily because it is typically 'incrementally' done...in other words, you must have ALL copies from Day 1 of a particular file as only the newer, changed version is saved on a history-drive(HD, CD, tape), never to be re-saved again unless it is updated or erased. So, if you want restore the current version of your checkbook, you may have to go back perhaps 2 weeks worth of backups to get the version that was the last one saved from two weeks ago, if you hadn't made updates to your checkbook file. Perhaps some automated backup systems handle this automatically, I don't know or care.

And cloud backup? Do you really want rather 'public' access to scanned copies of your drivers license, birth certificate, financial documents, or your checkbook files? Read the agreements very carefully! Everything from data being sold to the company being sold to 'unfriendly' entities is a possibility covered in the agreement that everyone 'blindly' agrees to. And don't forget about the cloud being hacked...as has been in the news a couple of months ago. I just got notified Saturday that my health insurer of 7 years ago got hacked and all my personal data stolen. In short, if it's not in YOUR safe keeping, it will likely become PUBLIC!

So, as I said up front, use what you understand and can keep secure, and at an acceptable cost.

 

[The_Traveler]

I don't use automated backup software either, primarily because it is typically 'incrementally' done...in other words, you must have ALL copies from Day 1 of a particular file as only the newer, changed version is saved on a history-drive(HD, CD, tape), never to be re-saved again unless it is updated or erased. So, if you want restore the current version of your checkbook, you may have to go back perhaps 2 weeks worth of backups to get the version that was the last one saved from two weeks ago, if you hadn't made updates to your checkbook file. Perhaps some automated backup systems handle this automatically, I don't know or care.

Syncback pro does versioning automatically.
I handle versioning for some specific things like accounting package files that are critical within the automated process by backing up to a dated zip file. (occasionally I delete old zipfiles.)
I also have a profile that queries me when I exit LR if I want my current year of photos backed up.
So, if I work a lot on photos, they are backed them up at the end of every season - no fuss, no intervention.

 

[Tight Knot]

Maybe I've got this all figured out wrong, or I'm trying to reach too far into the future to hope for a good, user-friendly, safe and secure cloud system. Maybe later in the future. I'm just very reluctant to constantly have to buy and store at least 2 HD's (1 on site, and 1 off-site back-up) which always ends up being expensive as I currently have 5 HD's and need more

 

[The_Traveler]

Things change.
I guess either I don't shoot as much as you or haven't been shooting as long or have more images that are crappy because, since 2005, I've accumulated 650 GB of files.
I'm pretty draconian about culling files and I'd rather buy a bigger hard drive every couple of years than depend on a service like the cloud that is in flux.
I want to be able to see that all my images are safe and that I can get them back if I need them.

 

[bratkinson]

ONLY 650GB of files? I retain only the 'keeper' shots and as the likelihood of my needing to re-edit them is close to nil, I wipe off the RAW files as well when I move things to my 'storage' drive. Right now, I'm trying to avoid replacing my 1TB drives (and clones) with something bigger. But I can still 'squeeze' things for a while longer. I had to put my most recent shoot, a mere 46gb of stuff, on an intermediate 'temporary' HD as I didn't have that much available on my 1TB drive until I did some housekeeping a couple of days ago. So my space is almost at an end.

 

[The_Traveler]

ONLY 650GB of files? I retain only the 'keeper' shots and as the likelihood of my needing to re-edit them is close to nil, I wipe off the RAW files as well when I move things to my 'storage' drive. Right now, I'm trying to avoid replacing my 1TB drives (and clones) with something bigger. But I can still 'squeeze' things for a while longer. I had to put my most recent shoot, a mere 46gb of stuff, on an intermediate 'temporary' HD as I didn't have that much available on my 1TB drive until I did some housekeeping a couple of days ago. So my space is almost at an end.

Perhaps someday you will start posting some of those keepers here.

 

[gsgary]

This is one of the main reasons i hate digital and have almost given up with it