Backing up

[Kaitlyn]

What is your process like? How do you actually back up your photos?

I know Lightroom has an option to copy it elsewhere on import, but then you lose an edits you make after.

So what do you do to back up externally and help ensure both new photos and modified files get backed up there?

[teodor]

External HD....nextstar 3 enclosure with a westerb digital caviar 1TB drive in it

[Kaitlyn]

External HD....nextstar 3 enclosure with a westerb digital caviar 1TB drive in it

That doesn't really answer my question.

[gobbledygoo]

Everyone's workflow is different of course but this works for me:

I transfer my CF card to my PC (where I do the touch-up's, edit, and deletes). The raw files and finished products (along with Lightroom catelogs) are all located under one folder ingeniously called "Photos"

That "Photos" folder is backed up every night to my NAS via a batch file calling robocopy to copy whatever files has added/deleted/changed to the NAS (one way sync: PC->NAS)

PC is just running regular harddrive while NAS is running RAID5.

There are syncing programs out there that will do this too. Allway Sync is one and they have a free personal edition but depending on how much photos you actually have the total folder size may exceed what they define as "personal" and thus you have to shell out for the Pro version...

[TruE SkiLLS]

I use a mac and aperture, so my backup workflow may be a bit different as well.

1. Import photos from SDHC to Aperture. (pp, delete, w/e) Remove card as soon as import done
2. Automatic Time Machine backup to 1st hard drive in my 4-bay USB enclosure (this happens hourly or so)
3. Turn on vault (aperture feature) and it stores a backup library in my 2nd hard drive of enclosure.
Once this is done, then i'd reformat my cards.

4. End of night whenever I shoot something big, I copy the whole Aperture Library into my 2nd hard drive. (so i have a backup library from vault AND a full fledged library copy)
5. Once in a while, I'll turn on vault and copy library into an external 2.5 hard drive, which I carry with me sometimes, but I'm planning to leave it off-location (at friend/family house)

[NewsyL]

So what do you do to back up externally and help ensure both new photos and modified files get backed up there?

http://www.scootersoftware.com/index.php

Use "Beyond Compare 3" to compare (varying levels of scrutiny available) the files on the working drive to the files on the back up drive.

Try the 30 day free trial... to clarify, it provides for 30 individual days of use, not 30 days from the first day you installed.

I have it configured to show only files that have changes or are new. Used with a hard drive dock and multiple bare drives, one of which is kept off site.



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[dr]

http://www.scootersoftware.com/index.php

Is this software for file redundancy? I need something like that for my external HDDs.

I will absolutely DIE if my files disappear one day.

[BlackRanger3d]

I use this.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

I back up to an onsite NAS once a week. The NAS has two drives that are mirrored. I have a third HDD (identical to the NAS drives) that goes I cycle through the NAS and a bank safty deposit box ever month. Yes I'm crazy. But I would cry if I lost all my pictures.

I also do a monthly full drive image to my NAS using acronis.

[fishwallop]

My backup strategy involves manual directory copying.

My primary storage (not my system drive) is a Raid-5 array, so if one disk dies, it's not the end of the world, just a big annoyance.
I have a docking station in my computer case for SATA drives. After each significant shoot or editing session, I copy the whole photo directory over onto the hard drive in the dock and swap it out. Every few months, I take the most recent backup drive offsite and swap it for the one I had there, which I then re-use.

I also have all of my older photos, with their smaller file sizes, backed up to a set of DVDs. I don't bother with DVD archives of RAW photos from the 5d2. Most of the time I will make a DVD with 3600*2400px jpgs, which is more than enough for secondary backup since I almost never print larger than 8x12. If I do happen to print a photo larger, I'll throw that photo's RAW and edited JPG on to the backup disc in a separate folder.

[NewsyL]

Is this software for file redundancy? I need something like that for my external HDDs.

I will absolutely DIE if my files disappear one day.

File redundancy.... I may not be interpreting correctly what you mean by that. To me, redundancy is having copies of the same file on a number of backup drives, thereby insuring that I have several copies of the same file. I make rotating incremental backups of new and edited files to standalone bare drives. I make a virgin backup once every 6 months which involves reformatting the backup drive and then copying all key data back to it. One bare drive stays off site in a safe location.

I normally use BC3's "Folder Compare" to compare my E:\Images root folder on the source drive to my X:\E\Images root folder on the backup drive and only sync files that have changed on the source to the backup. I have BC3 configured to show only files with differences. This provides a screen view showing a left/right compare - any differences are immediately visually obvious. Makes for very quick backups of image files.

It is capable of detecting changes in files due source hard drive failure. In this case it will show files on the source drive as being different, or missing, as compared to the back-up drive. Vice versa for a backup drive failure which is uncommon and less worrying due use of a multitude of bare drives.

If you have a folder of files on one drive that are suddenly different from the other, you can drill down to see what the differences are with BC3's file viewer or hex viewer and compare the two files side by side. Corrupted image files will often show areas missing from the image.

One issue that comes up on occasion is from when you rename legacy folders or move files to a new sub-folder in your source drive. With BC3 it will show on the source side of the screen a folder full of files from a time/date that you know should have been previously backed up. On the backup side it will show a full folder of files matched to nothing in the source. You just have to make the connection between the two orphaned folders - BC3 allows you to rename the folder on the legacy backup drive to match the source drive folder and once that is done BC3 compares folder to the folder and confirms that all files are identical.

Try it - play with it on a spare backup drive.

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[iridium001]

Manual copy to external drives for me.

They are only turned on during backup and turned off when not in use. This way it reduces the usage hours and wear and tear on them.

You can easily get a 2TB drive for $60-$70 these days. You could take it further and go NAS like most people here.

[SpillOnAisle9]

Manual copy to external drives for me.

They are only turned on during backup and turned off when not in use. This way it reduces the usage hours and wear and tear on them.
You can easily get a 2TB drive for $60-$70 these days. You could take it further and go NAS like most people here.

30 years in IT most of the times I've ever seen disks fail is when they are powered on. If it's just running in a steady-state
there's less that can happen except for over/under voltage. You're actually taking more of a chance of it failing doing it the
way you're doing it. But it's your data....do whatever the hell you want with it

[zero383]

I work in IT and in my company we don't allow our employess to shutdown their computers when they leave for the day. Why? Because it wears down the drive much faster if you do that. We keep them spinning ALL the time. We have computers that have been running for 15 years non-stop and are still going (Pentium 1's I believe). The ones that have been shut down and started up again frequenty have all had their drives fail within 5 years. That's just from my experience though.