OK, How does everyone organize your backup disks?

[Norm]

I'm backing up all the originals and finals on DVD and HD and the disks are getting out of hand. Some have told me they stack them back on the spool the blanks come on, but how do you find anything without going through all those stacks?

[AjP]

well, I'm not buring DVD's.. I have extra HD just for backup purposes and using HandyBack wich set/tunned to do incremental backups every other day in certain time...so I'm not even worry about it at all, unless computer crash and I need to restore my stuff

[Hogleg 44]

I just did that with my 2005 July through December images last weekend. I do them six months at a time in two DVD sets. Raw and Jpg's.
I use a program called 'Archive Creator' which spans multiple disks, and creates an HTML image index of all of the images in a set and puts that index on each disk in a set. It shows that image and tells you which disk a particular image is on. It displays both Raw and other image formats. I put each disk of a set in separate thin 'jewel cases'. and keep each set together in a time period. 2005-Raw, Jan/June...July/Dec...and so on.

[PeteQ]

For anything important I burn a master set of disks as soon as I dump down from CF cards before they are reformated. Now I have my negatives. And then I will burn a second set of disks that contain all the edits when I'm finished along with the associated RAW files. Now I have a subset of RAW + edits/finished of the ones I like. That way I figure I have two saved copies of at least the ones I liked... Right now I am organizing by subject. I try not to keep things on the HD after I am dome as space gets eaten up quick with these 20MB RAW files. Throw in a few Photoshop layers and I have a bunch of files in excess of 400MB so it just makes sense to remove them when I am done playing with them.

[awsilver]

Lets see...our process is really quite simple....CF to Laptop HD mirrored onto a removable firewire harddisk. From there, copied to local workstation, and DVD made of all orignal nefs. Nef's converted to DNG with proper naming convention, and the lot copied to the file server. Nefs then removed from local workstation, dng's copied back to a second external HD and shared with Ray (partner) which he copies to his external, then to his workstation. DNG's batch processed after first pass wb and converted to jpgs and batch uploaded to the web server into a mysql database (online proofing, etc...). Working files end up as PSD...all files saved, and copied back to the file server (which in the end makes 3 working copies at all times, plus 2 "floating" copies on the externals). Webserver incrementally backed up daily onto DAT4 tape. When all processing/retouching is done all the stuff is sycronized again (just to make sure) and DVD(s) are created for DNG files and PSD files (no need for the jpegs they are on the web server)....whew...it's a lot simpiler in "real life" -- hopefully I'm not missing a step...oh yeah, usually if it's a lot of different stuff going on there's another copy on the secure FTP server so we can transfer the files when we're in a hurry (but I wouldn't consider it backup).

Makes me tired just think'n about it.

[Norm]

Originally Posted by PeteQ

For anything important I burn a master set of disks as soon as I dump down from CF cards before they are reformated. Now I have my negatives. And then I will burn a second set of disks that contain all the edits when I'm finished along with the associated RAW files. Now I have a subset of RAW + edits/finished of the ones I like. That way I figure I have two saved copies of at least the ones I liked... Right now I am organizing by subject. I try not to keep things on the HD after I am dome as space gets eaten up quick with these 20MB RAW files. Throw in a few Photoshop layers and I have a bunch of files in excess of 400MB so it just makes sense to remove them when I am done playing with them.

Originally Posted by awsilver

Lets see...our process is really quite simple....CF to Laptop HD mirrored onto a removable firewire harddisk. From there, copied to local workstation, and DVD made of all orignal nefs. Nef's converted to DNG with proper naming convention, and the lot copied to the file server. Nefs then removed from local workstation, dng's copied back to a second external HD and shared with Ray (partner) which he copies to his external, then to his workstation. DNG's batch processed after first pass wb and converted to jpgs and batch uploaded to the web server into a mysql database (online proofing, etc...). Working files end up as PSD...all files saved, and copied back to the file server (which in the end makes 3 working copies at all times, plus 2 "floating" copies on the externals). Webserver incrementally backed up daily onto DAT4 tape. When all processing/retouching is done all the stuff is sycronized again (just to make sure) and DVD(s) are created for DNG files and PSD files (no need for the jpegs they are on the web server)....whew...it's a lot simpiler in "real life" -- hopefully I'm not missing a step...oh yeah, usually if it's a lot of different stuff going on there's another copy on the secure FTP server so we can transfer the files when we're in a hurry (but I wouldn't consider it backup).

Makes me tired just think'n about it.

So how do you guys find a disk that has the photo that you are looking for after 6 months?

[awsilver]

Originally Posted by Norm

So how do you guys find a disk that has the photo that you are looking for after 6 months?

Guess I kind of skipped that part: Basically for us everything is done chronologically...so when we do something for a client or even if it's just a "fun event", the renaming process in the middle of all that injects the date into the filename. Our file naming convention uses a three letter prefix, followed by the date (yyMMdd) and a 4 digit sequence number (unique part of the photo) plus if we have "alternates" there maybe a letter following (you get something like RTS_20060109_5149 and maybe RTS_20060109_5149A). Cataloging is done on the web server...so finding the reference file to go to is pretty simple since on the web server they are stored by date, session name, set name, and filename.

When making the disks, they are labeled with the date (yyyyMMdd), the "session name" and what kind of disk it is (Originals (RAW), Working (DNG) or Finals (PSD)) and it's disk span (1 of 1...1 of 2). The disks also retain the hierarchy structure of the web server using subdirectories. So basically finding a disk is just a matter of finding the date the file was taken and possibly the session/set name (when you get into the disk contents) -- then root through the spool-o-backups until you find the correct disk if the file server is unavailable.

[bullsparade]

So hogleg, I have been looking at archive creator...it works well huh? I like the indexing it talks about...seems it would make it easy to find images on multiple CD's

[BobbyC]

I use a simple serial number system for each disk and catalog it in my database. I can even attach a disk s/n to any job or customer. This would not be great for a stock shooter or journalists who may need to search by categories of pics and such, but I can look the DVD's up by job or customer and that works for me. I also keep backups on hard drives and for that I just use folders for each job.

If you use folders on a CD or DVD, that folder file could become corrupted and keep you from getting to the files in it, I always copy the files directly to the root with no folders on the CD/DVD.

[chedemann]

I guess I am too anal :-) Here my workflow.

1. After I down load the CF card to my computer I extract the jpg from the raw file and store in folders by date. If there are multiple clients on a given day the are given their own folder in the date folder. These file are stored on my main internal HD in the computer.

2. At end of each day's shooting I make 2 (yes Two Copy on DVD's) for archive backup that have by the date. I then print out 1 copy contact sheets and store in with the first DVD in a file folder with a copy of the model release and stored it in a Fireproof file cabinet at my home/studio and the seconded is stored in a fire proof safe at my day job under my desk. The claints contracts and person info are filed by name and stored in and other fire proof file cabinet with a reface to the shoot dates in their folder.

3. I have HD back up software that back's up all of my internal HD’s to a removable caddy system nightly, which is stored yep in the fireproof safe. There are two copies of my HD’s back up that I rotate weekly to insure against drive failure.

This may seem like a lot of work, but several year’s ago I formatted the wrong HD (ouch!!) and lost a year’s worth of pictures. That will never happen again!!!!

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by bullsparade

So hogleg, I have been looking at archive creator...it works well huh? I like the indexing it talks about...seems it would make it easy to find images on multiple CD's

It works for me just as advertised. I just created a set of 6 DVD's which are comprised Raw(CR2) images, and another set of 3 disks which are the corresponding set of Jpg's. Each of the 6 dvd's has an image thumbnail index of all of the images on all 6 DVD's. If you are looking for a certain image and it is not on the DVD(orCD) you are looking on, you can see which disk it is on to retrieve it. You do see the actual image thumbnail and not just the file number.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by Hogleg 44

I just did that with my 2005 July through December images last weekend. I do them six months at a time in two DVD sets. Raw and Jpg's.
I use a program called 'Archive Creator' which spans multiple disks, and creates an HTML image index of all of the images in a set and puts that index on each disk in a set. It shows that image and tells you which disk a particular image is on. It displays both Raw and other image formats. I put each disk of a set in separate thin 'jewel cases'. and keep each set together in a time period. 2005-Raw, Jan/June...July/Dec...and so on.

I might add to this though, that this is not my only backup! I use Downloader Pro to copy my images from the cards to the computer, and Downloader makes an immediate backup to a different HDD as it copies the images. It puts the images on two different drives at the same time. So I have an immediate Backup. Then periodically I back them up to two other external drives, one I keep in my car. So this makes copies of the images on 4 HDD's, 1 inside the computer and 3 outside of the computer, plus the DVD's. Then I copy the DVD's and store that backup copy at my daughters home.
Maybe this is sheer overkill, but I have 6 copies of all of my images, these being on 4 different HDD's and different 2 DVD's!

[BobbyC]

I just got downloader pro as well, it's a great little program.

If you have the means, I don't think you can make too many backups. :o)

[Norm]

Originally Posted by awsilver

Guess I kind of skipped that part:

So basically finding a disk is just a matter of finding the date the file was taken and possibly the session/set name (when you get into the disk contents) -- then root through the spool-o-backups until you find the correct disk if the file server is unavailable.

So it sounds like you're putting your DVDs back on the spools they come on -- right? No other type of DVD disk storage?