Looking for file storage alternatives.

JayClark79 · Oct 12, 2009

I was considering signing up for smugmug... but now that i know about thier vault and how it works im not to thrilled about it.... How do you guys out there store all of your files?

Buckster · Oct 12, 2009

I went with an array of 1TB drives, which works well for my needs. I have redundant backups of EVERYTHING, on separate hard drives, all online and accessible instantly at hard drive bus speeds via my eSATA interface, and if one of my hard drives goes bad, I'll know it right away and be able to replace it, copy the backup to it, and have my redundant assurance/insurance again quickly. At the moment, I'm running with a 10TB hard drive system:

Here are the external drive enclosures:

Each of the Addonics enclosures holds 4 drives, and I've stuffed them with eight 1 Tb drives total. The top two Antec enclosures are single-drives, and they're each holding a 750 Gig drive. The final 500 Gigs is in my main system unit, but only used for operating system and programs. So, 10 TB at the moment, but a totally expandable system if I want to add more later.

Those 10 drives/cables all plug into a pair of e-SATA port multipliers (that's just an unrelated USB hub on top, for running my mouse and keyboard and importing data from my Photo Geo-tagging device):

Each port multiplier reduces 5 drives/cables down to 1:

And those two resulting cables are then plugged into a card on the motherboard of the main system unit.

Altogether, it's a very slick, fast and efficient hard drive system.

c.cloudwalker · Oct 12, 2009

SmugMug is an image hosting/sharing site. It should not be your storage solution. What happens to your photos if SmugMug is gone tomorrow? Seems unlikely? True, but so did the economic crash we've been experiencing for a while now.

Buckster, I'm impressed. But, tbh, I shouldn't be. You are doing it the way everybody should be doing it. Although I would probably be burning everything to disc too, on a regular basis. Expensive? Yes but I wasn't the one to say that digital photography is so much cheaper than film photography.

I was just talking, on another forum, about the loss of visual historical records that we will experience due to the advent of digital photography and the problem of storage so this thread is pretty timely. :er:

DennyCrane · Oct 12, 2009

c.cloudwalker said:
SmugMug is an image hosting/sharing site. It should not be your storage solution. What happens to your photos if SmugMug is gone tomorrow? Seems unlikely? True, but so did the economic crash we've been experiencing for a while now.

Buckster, I'm impressed. But, tbh, I shouldn't be. You are doing it the way everybody should be doing it. Although I would probably be burning everything to disc too, on a regular basis. Expensive? Yes but I wasn't the one to say that digital photography is so much cheaper than film photography.

I was just talking, on another forum, about the loss of visual historical records that we will experience due to the advent of digital photography and the problem of storage so this thread is pretty timely. :er:

You make excellent points. This is the downfall of cloud-computing. Placing complete trust in a storage system that can and eventually will fail. Buckster has it all together. You're right... we should all emulate that setup. I just saw on the news today that a major Microsoft server network crashed and lost everyone's phone backup data (contacts, numbers, etc) for T-Mobile. Oops.

battletone · Oct 12, 2009

While Buckster has a great setup, the best backup is not in the same place. People loose everything in a fire or theft. If there is anything that you would be heart broken if it ever disappeared, I would find another solution such as a standalone drive stored elsewhere, or as I do, and upload via ftp to my host. granted everyone doesn't have a webhost, but I can keep backups of a few of my important files/photos where god forbid a fire cannot touch both backups at once.

Buckster · Oct 12, 2009

battletone said:
While Buckster has a great setup, the best backup is not in the same place. People loose everything in a fire or theft. If there is anything that you would be heart broken if it ever disappeared, I would find another solution such as a standalone drive stored elsewhere, or as I do, and upload via ftp to my host. granted everyone doesn't have a webhost, but I can keep backups of a few of my important files/photos where god forbid a fire cannot touch both backups at once.

Actually, the hard drive storage is my main working / storage / backup solution, but it's not the end of the story, specifically because of the possibility of a site disaster such as you've described.

Like you, I'm also uploading RAWs to the server that hosts my web site, as well as redundant DVDs; one for the fireproof safe and the other to my sister's house on the other side of town. I just don't think about them much, probably because I've been lucky enough not to ever have to resort to use them for a restoration (knock on wood).

Now if only I could just figure out a way to recover from the giant Earth-destroying meteor that will manage to get all of them in one shot anyway. 'Course... I guess I won't care too much after that, so... :lol:

mtfd635 · Oct 12, 2009

What's wrong with smugmug's vault and how it works?

roboticboredom · Oct 13, 2009

Well i think people are saying that smugmug might me a temporary solution for maybe small amount of storage... if you are saving RAW images its going to eventually take up way too much space - thats all. Plus i would never trust my sole backup to 100% online non-tangible storage.
Just buy a few external HD's and make a few back ups. :lmao:

Ham1 · Oct 14, 2009

SmugMug uses Amazon S3 for storage and we don't have any limits on storage space or bandwidth.

We find that most people are using SmugMug as their 2nd or 3rd copy, photo insurance almost. It is amazing how many people keep their own 1st and 2nd copies in the same room, in the same house.

NOTE: SmugMug does not compress or alter your original high-resolution photo uploaded and you can get the original back for free anytime!

Markham

JayClark79 · Oct 15, 2009

Man Buckster thats some set up.... Ill probally by T1 or a 650gb something... that should hold me for a while... i know im filling up this laptop to damn quick

SpeedTrap · Oct 15, 2009

One setup that is a bit more simple is the DROBO,
It is a great solution for people that are not tech minded, it does all of it's own setup and monitoring. I have been using one for a while now and have been very happy, currently it is set up with four, 1 TB drives and is a setup similar to a Raid Array, but without the complexity for the user.

The only downfall I have found so far is the price, but once you have done the inital investment you should be good fo a while as it is expandable up to 16TB

Plato · Oct 15, 2009

JayClark79 said:
I was considering signing up for smugmug... but now that i know about thier vault and how it works im not to thrilled about it.... How do you guys out there store all of your files?

I don't trust complexity plus I don't have a bazillion gigabytes worth of photos. I burn to DVDs and put them in my safety deposit box. I expect to eventually replace the DVDs with flash drives.

Baje212 · Mar 1, 2011

Very nice set up there !! Don't think I'll ever be able to fill 10TB of space but good job with the layout.

djacobox372 · Mar 1, 2011

I use two 1 TB external harddrives. One which I keep at work and one at home; I also have a mirror of these drives on my PC, for a total of 3 different backups.

In the past I had just two backups (my computer and an external drive which I kept at work), but there's a small chance that both drives could be damaged/corrupted during the transfer process, so I like having a third drive for insurance.

Just make sure you store one backup off-site, in case of theft or fire.

Every online storage solution I tried was too painfully slow.