Pixtus - Photography Forum, Photographers, Photo Tips

Murph · **I am horrible -** 03-02-2008, 06:21 PM

I am horrible about doing back ups of my work. Yeah, I copy to the 3rd HD on the computer, but I am a slug about burning the images to DVD. I bought archival gold DVDs just for this purpose, and still let it get away from me. I need to do backups at least once a month.

How about the rest of you?

ttusa · 03-02-2008, 06:23 PM

I back up ,Murph, to two external hard drives, and I know what you mean. I can get kinda wimpy about keeping up with it, unless it's something I think is REALLY good and I'm more motivated about backing up.

David_3 · 03-02-2008, 06:31 PM

I didn't back-up anything, and when my computer died a few weeks ago, I lost it all.

Sometimes you lose when you gamble.

Howard Barlow · 03-02-2008, 06:40 PM

I back up to 3 or 4 drives, but I don't burn to disc.

Hanky · 03-02-2008, 06:43 PM

LOL, I'm sluggish to dvd's.
You have to begin the process then step away while it works, tedious boring.
In the future I hope loaded items go to as many chosin destinations as needed upon
initial data input.

Big T · 03-02-2008, 06:51 PM

I am a Real Estate Broker and since I have had a few nasty computer crashes and lost some very important files and pictures, I use a online back up system called www.carbonite.com , for 49.00 per year for unlimited backup of all your files, docs, pictures, it updates all the time, so you do not have to schedule a backup, they have a free 30 day trial

kenw · 03-02-2008, 06:59 PM

i think the file structure you establish on the hard drive can make it easier to do backups. Over the years I have developed my process with my inherent laziness and scatter-brained-ness in mind.....

Pics are in "main" folders (ie, "2008 A") subdivided by date and subject or whatever. When that main folder 2008 A gets to be about 650-670MB, the whole folder gets burned to a CD. 2 of them actually. So now the HDD is backed up every 650MB or so. Then I start filling a new folder (like 2008 B)

drag and drop a single folder and walk away. repeat for a 2nd CD.

When I get enough for a DVD, repeat the process, except I drag and drop 3-4 main folders (2008 A+B+C+D) or however many will fill a DVD.

This gives me 4 backups for every pic.

AndrewCCM · 03-02-2008, 08:46 PM

I backup to a separate machine on my network. I also burn RAWs to DVD.
I do this no later than 48hrs after my shoot. I also do not format my CF cards or clear my P2000 until I have the backups completed.

nikondude24 · 03-02-2008, 09:12 PM

Andrew, I do the exact same thing.

auswipe · 03-02-2008, 11:06 PM

I have an Acronis job that executes every day at 11:15 AM and dumps the incremental image to an extra drive in the machine that is just for backups. Then on weekends I copy that data from the archive drive in my machine to an external USB HD.

When I backup my wifes machine onto the external HD I copy the resultant backups to the archive drive in my main rig so I have her stuff (and laptops, etc) on two different spindles.

I need to invest in some NAS storage to make it easier to have multiple backups and need to automate my daily incremental jobs to my website where I have about 180 gig of free space.

I haved to blow away the main backup and incremental jobs about once every 6 weeks as they take up so much space and start with a fresh new backup.

It is a little complicated but I like having the security, "just in case."

jcarouth · 03-03-2008, 12:32 AM

i'd just like to point out that you really should have at least one of your "backups" off site. in the event of a burglary or fire or flood or tornado (well the tornado might get all the sites, but you get the point) having 11billion backups in your house won't really help you out at all if they're all gone...

i'm still working on my backup that is solely dedicated to photography, but i use subversion to backup a lot of my stuff to a server hosted at a data center in california. i also have two identical external hard drives which are rotated between two different locations. then i burn my compressed archives to dvds which are stored until i make it to the bank and are deposited in a safe deposit box.

kind of ocd, i know, but i've lost too many "important" things before. i don't take chances anymore.

J Eddington · 03-03-2008, 04:02 AM

I download, Burn CD, back up to 2 hard drives at 2:00am EVERY night. I have the computer set so it does the backup by itself or I would forget.

carrbowl · 03-03-2008, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murph

I am horrible about doing back ups of my work. Yeah, I copy to the 3rd HD on the computer, but I am a slug about burning the images to DVD. I bought archival gold DVDs just for this purpose, and still let it get away from me. I need to do backups at least once a month.

How about the rest of you?

No..you are the only one that is BAD!!!!!!!!!

(Good thing you don't know i just finally got my act together and got 2007 done!!!) For me it was learning a system...got it down somewhat...but for me it is trying to keep up with each shoot...and doing it once I have enough to put on a dvd....Ken's system looks like i might be able to adapt to that...thanks KEn...

JPalmer · 03-03-2008, 02:55 PM

I'm ultra-paranoid... and a bit of a pessimist.

Daily backups on our newspaper's tape-drive.
Weekly burnings of DVDs... (multi sessions) and transfer to the primary 2 HDs I use on my home machine...

Monthly backup to a seperate HD that I keep in a fireproof safe and dissconnected usually.

adirty1 · 03-03-2008, 03:12 PM

raid 5 at the house and mirrored raid NAS back up of the raid 5. The client folders get burned to dvd or cd 6 months after shooting and then live in the safe that is rated to protect plastic media. Files are then purged from all Hdds to free up space and the process starts all over again.