OT: How do you back up your digital photos?

[stanger89]

So, we've had lots and lots of discussions about redundancy and backup, and I'm really not intending to start another one of those. I know we've got a few photographers (or maybe just photo-takers like me ) here so I thought I'd pose the question. What do you use to backup your digital photos?

It was pretty easy before, I'd just burn a few to a DVD whenever I got enough to fill one. But I've gotten behind and I've managed to take a lot of pictures, so the other day I bought a BD-RE drive largely with the intent of using that for my backups.

I was planning on just using Imgburn to do the "backup" since it has the capability of only burning files with the archive bit set and clearing the bit when it does it. However I ran into a small problem and that's that imgburn doesn't support multisession discs. While I have a lot of pictures, lately I've not been taking a lot so it can take a long time to come close to 25GB, such that I feel it takes too long to fill 25GB to safely wait to fill a BD-R.

So what do you guys use? So basically what I'm looking for is something that will allow me to incrementally burn just the new (not yet burned) files from a folder to a BD-R.

[OneOfMany]

The method I use for photo storage works well for me, and makes backups fairly easy. YMMV

1 - When I dump my photos onto my WHS, I create a directory and copy all photos to this directory. Dir naming convention:

20100531 - to 31 May 2010

This keeps all my files in chronological order in Windows Explorer. It also allows easy searching by date in Windows Explorer.

eg.
20100531 - to 31 May 2010 //contains from 29 Apr - 31 May etc.
20100428 - to 28 Apr 2010
20100320 - to 20 Mar 2010

If I dump from an alternate source (my daughters camera for eg.)

20100531G - (her initial)

I then backup each directory to a DVD without multi-session. Why? 50packs I sell for $20.

I use Windows Live PhotoGallery to allow me to tag and modify EXIF and XMP metadata. No external database file is required. More importantly, I can leave the default file name, and multiple pictures can use the same "Title".

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to read/display/filter by this metadata in Sage, but folders help me find dated pictures. I also have menu option to launch PhotoGallery if desired.

Once I burn the DVD folder, the disc is taken offsite.

Grant

[stanger89]

That's largely what I do, the Canon software downloads the pictures to dated directories which works great. I'd just rather burn to BD instead of DVD. That will be even more true once (if?) I upgrade to a 7D of 5D Mk II which will take pictures upwards of 20MB a piece, not to mention video.

[Mark SS]

www.backblaze.com is so cheap its difficult to ignore. A friend recently finished his initial 800gb sync with them. Took several months (thanks to the speed of our ADSL upload here in the uk) but its now done, and all for $5/month.

[GKusnick]

I personally do not trust burnable optical media for backup. There have been numerous reports that the dyes in those media are not stable long-term -- particularly those cheap 50-disc packs. If you're expecting to be able to recover files burned to disc five years ago or more, you may be in for a rude shock.

So I back up photos the same way I back up any irreplaceable data: by mirroring everything to multiple computers at multiple physical locations, and replacing hard drives as they fail with larger drives. All media fail eventually, so the key to data permanance is to keep it in motion and not tie it to any particular medium.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I personally do not trust burnable optical media for backup. There have been numerous reports that the dyes in those media are not stable long-term -- particularly those cheap 50-disc packs. If you're expecting to be able to recover files burned to disc five years ago or more, you may be in for a rude shock.

I also don't trust optical media.

I back-up the full all photos to another disk in the server.
I also make a monthly backup on an external HD and a backup on another hard drive which I take off-site every 3 months.

Oh and I keep another copy on my personal laptop.

[stanger89]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I plan to never have to rely on my discs. The "permanent" location for my digital photos is my NAS (which utilizes redundancy).

But a lot of the discussions recently made me realize I'd become lax in my backups, plus I was tired of not having a burner (of any sort, not sure how I managed that) in my desktop/workstation, so I ordered a BD-RE drive and some blanks (good Verbatim ones) to get caught up.

Regarding Backblaze, I'd love to, but I keep all my data on my ReadyNAS and BackBlaze won't back up network data, so I'm SOL there.

[ToxMox]

Perhaps consider something like SmugMug.

I also have local backups but it is nice to know how well they take care of your data plus you get a great way to share your images.

[stanger89]

Not bad, but not really a backup. They don't support RAW (as far as I can tell) and even if they did, it's $150/year for the "Pro" version which would be required for 20MB 7D/5DmkII images and 1080p video.

Ok, modify that a bit, you can upload RAW, but they get sent to Amazon S3 and you get billed separately for that.

I don't know, maybe I could get BackBlaze working with some "tricks" (thanks for the tip )

Even then, anyone know a good disc burning/backup app?

[dravenone]

I copy my pics to my WHS drive, none of the folders are duplicated. Then I use drobo copy, scheduled nightly, to copy all my WHS folders to my drobo. Then I try to regularly backup my WHS photo and music folder to BDRE using Roxio and keep the discs at work.

[btrcp2000]

WHS duplicate folders

Synctoy every now and then to a DNS-323 which is set for RAID1

When I do something major to the server, I will copy and paste the pics folder to an external drive

[parkimar]

I use Mozyhome - also backs up all my home videos, documents, Sage settings and other stuff (about 80GB) so far.

Cheers

Mark

[omega]

I use CrashPlan (www.crashplan.com), with multiple destinations for redundancy (my server, fiancee's PC, friend's server in another state). Alternatively, you can pay for their online storage if you don't have sufficient fault-tolerance available yourself.

For backing up photos and other documents, you're probably fine with the free version (the paid version really only gets you more fine-grained controls and more frequent backups). What I like most about CrashPlan is the unlimited version retention and the block-level deduplication, which really cuts down on the space needed for backups.

[Fuzzy]

I also primarily use MozyHome. More than sufficient for photos. Locally, they are kept on a RAID1 array, with an occasional backup to offsite storage at my brother's house (though, since setting up Mozy, I've been far to lax in doing the offsite backup).

[Djc208]

The folder is duplicated on my WHS, and there are three HDs in the pool so there is a "backup" drive for duplication if one should fail.

On Friday I back up some of the share folders (like pictures) to an external HDD using the WHS backup, then keep that drive off site.

Periodically I will back up the photos to DVD as an extra save point.