Photoclubalpha

I'm back. I had a serious problem with one of my hard drives and thought I've lost a big archive of mine. Thank God, everything got fixed and all files seem to be recovered.
Why am I saying this?
For a couple of reasons.
First and most important, always (and I mean ALWAYS) do back up your pictures. I got lazy and didn't do that for the last 4 or 5 months and I got really mad at myself I didn't. What if I had lost them... Frankly I was afraid. I don't want anyone to experience the same thing, so make back ups NOW, and do not postpone that.
Second reason is a to remind you to the a copy of your files.
Finally the third reason to apologize to members posting lately, cause I couldn't even look or even find which threads were newly submitted (some are probably marked as read, though I did not). But I will find to look over again.

Oh, before I forget, do back up your files.

I worked in the disk drive industry for almost 25 years. I started out as an engineer and served as a Project Manager, Section Manager R&D Manager and Manufacturing Manager. The point is that I know something about these devices. I backup nightly and automatically. To me, anything less is unthinkable.

Nice to have you back Doc! And great that you did not lose any images
Myself I always save my images on the computers HDD + an external USB-drive. Maybe not the best solution but I've had some bad experiences with unreadable DVD-R's
Perhaps I should give it a go anyway, but with about 100GB of images it will surely take me a while - even with dual layer DVDs.

/Zeb!

Sonolta wrote:I have a couple TB of images in this drawer!
-Sonolta

Do you have another drawer off-site?

Winston wrote:

Sonolta wrote:I have a couple TB of images in this drawer!
-Sonolta

Do you have another drawer off-site?

Yeah, that's another thing... should really have a HDD at work or something too

Yes, that's just it.

How do I make a reliable backup, and where do I store it?

Our server here eats backup tapes, I love that machine ( not really, tapes are a crappy backup solution in my eyes )
My answer is external drives as a backup, just bought a few TB HD's. Works for me, when I don't forget to synchonize.

Good to see everything is ship shape, Dr H.
I inadvertently solved my backup situation, I subscribed too MS Live One Care in order to get a decent virus checker that wouldn't screw up the system, and it comes with an auto backup facility (didn't realize at the time), boy what a nag, eventually I stopped ignoring the popup messages..(and being downgraded from green to amber), I got an external WD/USB drive just to shut it up...now it's all happy (everything is backed up) and it's given me a green rating again...worth the effort though, and for peace of mind.
Greg

I use a product called FolderClone, costs about US$30.

It lets you replicate a folder structure on one hard drive onto another. If the structure is already there, it will add new files and delete old ones, only working on files that have changed. So, after the first iteration, it's very fast, isn't encrypted or compressed, and ideal for adding in changes.

You can invoke it manually or let it do it's thing automatically.

http://www.folderclone.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Windows-only.

Mike-Photos wrote:I use a product called FolderClone, costs about US$30.

It lets you replicate a folder structure on one hard drive onto another. If the structure is already there, it will add new files and delete old ones, only working on files that have changed. So, after the first iteration, it's very fast, isn't encrypted or compressed, and ideal for adding in changes.

You can invoke it manually or let it do it's thing automatically.

http://www.folderclone.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Windows-only.

So, If you accidentally delete one or more files your backup is lost?
If you make a poor edit and it's replicated, your original is lost?

True backup programs protect against this.

Winston wrote:

Mike-Photos wrote:I use a product called FolderClone, costs about US$30.

It lets you replicate a folder structure on one hard drive onto another. If the structure is already there, it will add new files and delete old ones, only working on files that have changed. So, after the first iteration, it's very fast, isn't encrypted or compressed, and ideal for adding in changes.

You can invoke it manually or let it do it's thing automatically.

http://www.folderclone.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Windows-only.

So, If you accidentally delete one or more files your backup is lost?
If you make a poor edit and it's replicated, your original is lost?

True backup programs protect against this.

Hi Winston
I have six copies of my folders, removable hard drives are cheap. I update three at a time, then another monthly, the 5th monthly, and the last annually.
Practically, I personally almost never delete or change older files under any circumstances, so I'm very comfortable.
For my work, by the way, where the files are smaller, I can go back to any single day in the last three years.

Mike

It's your process that's protecting you, not the program. Sounds like it works fine for you.

I have "must have" files that change daily. Things like my M$oft money file, email directory, Lightroom catalog, etc.
I make lots of mistakes and so prefer automatic solutions.

I lost 60GB of photos in a portable HDD that crashed on my last year... Not work related (since I don't earn money from photography) but it was heartbreaking. So the moral of the story is, backup to DVDs as well! Don't rely on HDD only. They CAN and they WILL fail! *ugh!* Gives me that sinking feeling every time I think about how stupid I was not to had backed up onto DVD or CD before this....

Winston wrote:I worked in the disk drive industry for almost 25 years. I started out as an engineer and served as a Project Manager, Section Manager R&D Manager and Manufacturing Manager. The point is that I know something about these devices. I backup nightly and automatically. To me, anything less is unthinkable.

To which type of device do you backup? I like my backup far from my main pc...

Hard drive. I periodically, manually, take a copy off-site...I don't like that part. If I lived in South Korea or Japan, I would have the bandwidth to do it autmatically and electronically. Here, in the U.S., we are still dealing with stone-ax internet technology.

Winston wrote:Hard drive. I periodically, manually, take a copy off-site...I don't like that part. If I lived in South Korea or Japan, I would have the bandwidth to do it autmatically and electronically. Here, in the U.S., we are still dealing with stone-ax internet technology.

Is the hard drive inside the computer, usb/firewire or part of some nas device?

I've seen some rather cheap nas devices (€ 80, without disk) and those could be used.

I'm using usb drives now,but I disconnect them all the time and it doesn't seem safe to automate.