How Do You Back Up Your Photos??

[Huck]

Just curious to know how most people here back up their photos. I have had my computer crash and curious to know for the future. I was lucky and able to save the hard drive this time.

I was thinking about burnng a DVD each time I put the photos onto the computer and/or using a external hard drive. Any tips or thoughts?

[Detonate]

I have a seperate computer setup with 4 250 gig HD's in a Raid 0 + 1. Then I let Windows Live Care backup my files every night.

Works like a champ.

[JPalmer]

Huck...my setup is such:

The newspaper has massive servers that backup up to 6-months.

The bossman burns DVDs of all the images we turn in for publication AND burns DVDs of all the original files for each of us.
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Then I burn myself a copy of all the daily files AND and DVD of my images for publication.

I take those DVDs home and copy them onto an external firewire drive (actually a pair of them mirrored together).

Once I'm done..I take the DVDs to the bank to put in my safety deposit box.

[JohnT]

All of my important, irreplaceable files are backed up every night onto two redundant external hard drives. This gives me three separate locations for storage. Unless there's a fire or burglary, I figure this covers me very well. Also, I run double surge protection. I should probably back up the image files to DVD and store those in a different location, like a fire safe or bank safety deposit box.

[Nocturnus]

I backup every time i have ~4g of new files. Burn them to DVD. I work at a colocation facility so I just put my dvd's there @ work. Stable enviroment. I'm also thinking about burning 2 extra (so 3 at a time). One at work, one in a safe deposit box and one sent to my parents along with on my drive. I'm looking at getting some SATA drives and doing a raid.

[Daniel Bates]

I have a (way too small) external HD that I back up to every month or so. Let's just say I've got a ways to go in backup technology...



I want to get one of those internal drive enclosures and a 500GB HD and use that for my backup, but the funds aren't available.

[kenw]

archive or simple backup?

backup on a large external drive is no substitute for archiving, which should NOT be on magnetic media.

[LoungeLizard]

On-going backup to an external USB HDD.

Archive to TWO external USB HDDs (currently at three pairs). Intent is to keep one at home and one off-site. I gave up on DVDs just due to the sheer volume.

[Hanky]

I now have 2 Maxtor (win xp) 160 gb each w/ ireplacable stuff I can't access because they broke and it cost too much to recover. This time I bought a WD instead of letting Dell fix it.
Am burning dvd's but it will take awhile to finish up. Tape drive would be nice to have.

[AndrewCCM]

I keep multiple copies of my important files on my network. I do an incremental MS Backup across to my PVR machine and it's external 300GB drives for JPGs/RAWs. I also archive to CDs from time to time.

I am NOT prepared for a fire or anything like that..but for me..this works. I do have most important files online somewhere or duplicated at my partners house on the other side of the metroplex.

EDIT: Forgot to mention - both shooters backup to Epson P2000's in the field...So we have extra copies of our RAW files there too. Makes dumping the data back to the machines back home much faster too.

[HotHolly]

We burn to disk (store in firebox) and save on 2 different hard drives. Hopefully, out of 3, one will survive if something happens...

[Bartman01]

Backup to external hard drive and was backing up to 2nd machine. 2nd machine is now no longer functioning due to my stupidity (you CAN actually lock down RAM that is seated backwards - and it does this neat trick where it physically burns off the contacts on both the MB and the RAM module) and being too busy to fix it permanently at the moment.

External HD occasionally taken to my mom's house and copied to her PC since she lives in the same general area.

Best solution would be to have a copy of every file on at least two different backup devices. Keep one one site and one off site.

[flash]

great question. I download to my vosonic (psd) throughout the shoot. Before I am done with my shoot, (studio or on location) the images are already backed up onto my vosonic. Back at my computer, I plug the vosonic into my computer and download them to a folder on my "working" drive. I move the jpg's to a "High Res color" folder, and convert all remaining RAW files to jpg, then also move them to that folder. Then I go through them and remove any out of focus, bad exposure, blurred shots, etc. (If I think I can use them for some funky effect, I'll move them to another folder rather than delete them) Then I burn 2 identical copies of DVDs of all images, in these folders, as is, including XMP files. I post the photos online for my customer to view, on my ordering site. If my contract includes a disc for the client, I then convert/res down/whatever from the "post online" category and burn those to a CD or DVD for them. When I'm done doing any manipulations, I move the entire folder off to an archive drive. I have 3 external hard drives and 3 internal, all connected for easy access. They range from 250GB to 500GB. As needed, I will purchase more hard drives to use externally for archive storage. I've got multiple DVD burners on my computer which makes burning the discs easier - 4 of them. The thing I'm lacking is off site storage of these discs, which I've been lazy about...need to get a plan in place for that. And if that's the case I might consider burning a 3rd backup DVD. Hope that helps.

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

I want to get one of those internal drive enclosures and a 500GB HD and use that for my backup, but the funds aren't available.

Save your money on those expensive enclosures: If your machine uses SATA get an eSATA external enclosure that also has USB (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=1785959). If you don't have SATA, get an add-on card. That way you have the convenience of a directly connected HD at home and a usable external HD away from home.

[dstarr]

As soon as I'm done with a session, I immediately create a folder with the job number on an external hard drive. Then I create an "original" a "wip" (work in progress) and a "done" folder under that. I "copy", not move, the files from the CF card to the "original" folder.....

As soon as the copy is finished I burn a CD or DVD of the images & file it away with the job number on the label.

After I verify that everything copied successfully, I remove them from the CF card. There are now two copies, 1 on hard drive & 1 backup copy safely filed away. I then make a "copy" of all of the files in the "wip" directory... I go through & delete the obvious shots I won't use & edit the rest if needed there. Move them to the "done" folder when finished....

The original files are never touched, I can always go back & recover anything I might need. After I'm completely finished, I back up the "done" folder on to CD or DVD and file it away with the original cd...

Belt & suspenders approach.... I've __never__ lost an image (knock on wood)! When I switched to digital, I was scared to death of losing an image. But with this method I'm actually safer than with negatives. I've had the lab scratch negatives before, but here, I always have two copies at all times.

Dave