Backup Equipment / devices.

[SnappingShark]

So what do you use?

I have asked my wife to get me the DAM book for my birthday, and I will inevitably spend some time setting up a workflow and backup practices that I currently skimp on.

I'm a database guy job wise, and backups are a part of my life - although I think images are probably different because of the workflow involved.

Anyhoo - I was curious of your devices - and although a lot of threads before this one - wanted to be "current" and up to date.

I was initially looking at a 3TB Lacie, but if that goes t1ts up, I'm screwed - so should I re-invest in a new NAS? Or go to the cloud?

Currently, I'm just working locally and time-machining to a pretty old western digital external HDD.

Thanks for stopping by, and perhaps even taking the time to respond

 

[astroNikon]

depends how much you want to spend.
I've been taking backups of my home PCs for ages and my normal routine (which over time has involved increasing the capacity of the drives).

With LR I use an external 3TB drive for all my work (this drive also contains copied files from all my previous computers)
Though I backup the PC I work on (as it contains other documents, and the LR catalog info with the changes that are applied to the RAWs on the external disk).

I also have a 2nd 3TB network drive, which gets a "copy" (a copy versus a "backup" file) of the files. This occurs when I want it, as I simply drag and drop to the network drive and tell it only new or changed files. I used to have a DOS script for this but windows 8 totally blows on dos scripting .. you have to use the new Scripting thing.

One of the things I've learned over time is that if you use a backup system that if somethings goes belly up that same backup system needs to get up and running to restore any backup. I had a Primary Domain Server which also housed the backup Emerald system once go belly up. Well ... that was just totally painful. I also had a home backup device too and that is painful when I upgraded systems. So now I just stick to making a COPY of my live data (can also use compression to save disk space).

 

[SnappingShark]

For a full solution I'm looking to spend $500 or less. This will probably put me in a 2 bay 1TB NAS range I am thinking, or a 3TB Lacie Cloud + another for the third step (they're only $169 now for 3TB!).

I'm good with PowerShell scripting, so can probably sort out a script to run at a click to "copy" the backup over to a third device - although will have to double up with automator for the mac heh.

I think I've just got my solution for $340! hah!! nice. I still need to read that book though!!

 

[Derrel]

I use external WD My Book 3- and 4-TB drives, some older Seagate HD's, and stacks of simple, low-tech devices called, CD-ROM discs and DVD-R discs. I like the CD and DVD discs because they have no moving parts are are very shock-resistant, and the data sets are each small, minimizing the chance of catastrophic failure by, you know, breaking the collection down into much smaller units than any modern hard drive would hold. The DAM book...read it, thank god I got it from the library and didn't pay a cent for it...wow...so poorly written, so wayyyy too fricking long and sooo disorganized, one would think a high school journalism class did the editing for it--before lunchtime. The thing should have been a fricking PAMPHLET,not a whole book-- seriously.

 

[Tailgunner]

I'm running 3-1T WD external hard drives but it's poorly set up...I back up to each separately instead of say a Daisy Chain.

My future setup is a G-Dock w/ 2-1T removable drives or a G-Raid w/ 2-2T removable drives.

 

[bratkinson]

Although it takes longer to do a backup - when I feel like doing it - I go the 'full clone' method. When I built my computer, I put the OS, my documents, and 'currently being processed' photos on SSD, and everything else in a 1TB drive partitioned into 7 'drives' for my convenience. I still have about 150gb available on that drive, so I've still got a little while before graduating to a 3tb.

But what I did was to have an identical SSD and 1TB hd. And everything is in 'slide in/out' bays. So, when it's time to clone one drive to its twin, I simply slide in the target devices, and let the computer run for about an hour or so. When done, I remove the -original- drives and move the former target drives to the spots where the originals were. That way, I'm doing a do-it-yourself device usage 'balancing' so they should wear out more or less together. The clones are within an arms reach of my computer.

For what it's worth, about a year ago, after backing everything up and installing some new software, my system was trashed by the software. Less than 2 minutes later, I was up and running from the previous source drive that was cloned and put on the shelf.

For offsite protection, I have a USB 1TB drive that I will clone the 1TB HD and manually move critical files from the SSD to it, on an irregular basis.

 

[WillygLounge]

Whatever route you decide to go, I would ensure your device haves RAID so should one drive fail, you will not lose any data and you can replace the damage drive with a new drive to rebuild the RAID array.

 

[bratkinson]

As I have read in a couple of my computer-oriented newsletters I subscribe to, RAID is a good idea, BUT, it may be more complicated to do a recovery than non-computer-savvy users may understand. From my perspective as a former mainframe consultant and 30 years already building/fixing/repairing PCs, RAID is most useful for keeping 24/7/365 installations up and running (almost) no-matter-what.

BUT...

My biggest concerns these days, as an amateur photographer who wants to ensure his computer remains functioning and have adequate backup to preserve what is needed, I don't use RAID. Why? If a virus attacks your computer - say the 'latest' virus that encrypts your files and demands a ransom payment to recover, RAID won't help you one bit. You can either pay the man or trash your computer. Having physically separate, uninstalled backups on a shelf allows me to recover in under 5 minutes from any virus that gets past multiple layers of 'protection' from my modem to the router to the internet security software on my computer. Hard drive crash or SSD failure, same recovery capability. It may not be the most current and up to date, but it's 5 minutes or less, regardless of the failure.

 

[lambertpix]

Drobo 5N. I spent all kinds of time thinking that Drobos were way too expensive, and it would be way cheaper for me to just build something and run one of the umpty-seven "RAID-like" filesystems that are available now, etc., but every time I started actually planning out a build, it started looking (surprise) big & ugly & expensive, so I punted. In the meantime, no backup. Eventually, I just bit the bullet and bought the Drobo when Amazon had a sale. It's small, quiet, and it works. Problem solved.

BTW, I've always mirrored my data drive on my workstation, so I had a measure of redundancy (saved me more than once), but no real backups to speak of.

 

[Tailgunner]

Having physically separate, uninstalled backups on a shelf allows me to recover in under 5 minutes from any virus that gets past multiple layers of 'protection' from my modem to the router to the internet security software on my computer. Hard drive crash or SSD failure, same recovery capability. It may not be the most current and up to date, but it's 5 minutes or less, regardless of the failure.

This is how all my current back up drives are done and like you said, takes me about 5 minutes to back up. My future plan is a G Raid w/2-2T drives but I will also run a separate physical 2T external drive.