DSLR Photography Forum

Just wondering if anyone backs up offsite in case (touch wood) their electronic equipment ever gets destroyed by fire or natural disaster? I'm sure there are different options - e.g. make copies of DVDs and drop them off at someone else's house; or maybe put them in a fireproof safe. Has anyone considered backing up via the internet to a hosting service?

I've currently got around 200G of disk space with my web host, so perhaps I could upload a copy of my photos there; however it will be a major pain with only 64kbps upstream...

There are some products such as sharpcast which offer a service to synchronise data between your PCs and also to their website, but I think you need to use their client. Their service is around $64.95 per year...
http://www.sharpcast.com/products

Anyone heard of or use any others?

I don't have amy backup of my pictures. I think I should consider to do it...

Interesting subject.

Irma, you really should backup your photos.
I have heard too many sad stories of almost everything being lost.

Online backup isn't an option I would ever consider.
Every web host is subject to much more traffic and possible attacks than a home system.
They ALL crash eventually, and without handling the backup myself I would be forced to trust a stranger with different goals and integrity than my own.
No thanks.

And I just went through something like this, backing up everything three ways while I switched to my new computer today.
All of the image files on my (storage) CDs and on my (easy access) external hard-drive are good.

Online backup puts the responsibility and care of your image files in the hands of someone you have never met.
It's hard enough getting a drive-thru food order that matches what you wanted to eat, and these are the same people who will be handling the online storage.

Bottom line is that online backup is better than nothing, but I wouldn't rely on it.

At the moment only backup my pictures on dvd. But ill move on to a more secure solution soon. My brother has been nagging me about it for quite some time lol. He works at Proact(one of the largest player in europe when it comes to digital archives, backup solutions etc.) so im planning taking advatange of his knowledge and have hm setup a NAS solution and just use my current 1 terrabyte drive as a working disk. (since nas is way to slow to work from)

As for offsite backups, well i dont think id ever trust anyone with my data unless it cost me a fortune :-)

/Paul L.

I just backup to Cd or DVD...and all those are sat in a box next to my PC..... buying a fire safe has been on my list of things to do for over 3 years.....

I back up (far too seldom - on average every 6 months) to DVDs and sometimes store them off site in my safety deposit box. I really have to get more disciplined about it.

Irma: I'm shocked. You are one hard drive failure away from losing all your fine work. Please back up your stuff today.

I have lost a hard drive and my wedding photographer friend lost two hard drives including some non backed up wedding photos

Thanks so much for the advice and comments on my pictures. I never thought they were worth to save them, really.

How and what do you store? I mean, do you store them with all their layers or flatten the image to store. Do you store also all your originals or only the ones you picked, converted and treated.

Thanks for any advice.

OK so call me paranoid but I have an external hard drive backup of all my photos and music....I then have a backup of the backup on another external hard drive!! I know too many people who have had their hard drives fail (internal and external). I could not bear to loose over 5 years worth of photos.

For the really important stuff I also back it up onto DVD and store it in a fireproof box. It only gives me 30 minutes guaranteed protection but everything I want is in there so can just grab it (If i am here at the time :/).

In terms of offsite backups an online solution may be OK but what happens if they go bust or get hacked or have an outage? My hosting company lost two of my sites recently in an outage and asked ME if I had copies!!

Irma - I store everything, original Raw files, source PSD files the lot.I like to refer back and make changes sometimes. If worried you can zip up folders to compress down TIF's etc. In the UK you can get a 500GB drive for about £80 so storage is not a problem.

I store on external drives. I Have 2 - one for all data and I do a backup of the PC approximately ever 3-4 weeks. I have a second external drive specifically for saving backups of all photo files. The 'photo' drive is a portable USB Firelight drive so it's very useful for transferring files between the PC and laptop.

In addition - I also save copies of the photo files to DVD maybe once a month.

As has already been said ...... you only ever lose your data once. Been there, done that so I now have maybe 2-3 copies of all the important stuff now - along with essential stuff stored online in case I need to reformat and can't get to the DVD/CD data until the PC is up and running again.

Irma - my own specific 'filing system' is to save digital negatives in one folder and jpegs and PS layered files in another folder. I sort them according to content and date within those folders ......... so that makes them easier to find when I'm looking through the DVDs, CDs or external drives.

Polly

I think in my case an external drive would do better.

I have two hard disk with 232G each, I have free just 90G in each hdisk... I just saw it today. The size of my picture of the tree I just posted is 243M and I don't want to flatten the picture, since it is like my guide to make more.

We had one external drive once and was very sad because it crashed and we had to buy a program to recover our pictures, still G lost a lot of his pictures.

Which brand of external drive you have/recommend?

Irma Wrote:I think in my case an external drive would do better.

I have two hard disk with 232G each, I have free just 90G in each hdisk... I just saw it today. The size of my picture of the tree I just posted is 243M and I don't want to flatten the picture, since it is like my guide to make more.

We had one external drive once and was very sad because it crashed and we had to buy a program to recover our pictures, still G lost a lot of his pictures.

Which brand of external drive you have/recommend?

I wouldn't like to be too specific as it depends on what size and type of external drive you prefer and find to be most convenient.

Personally - I like to use the quick and easy USB Firelite drives for storing and carrying photofiles. I use an 80Gb size for the photofiles and that's big enough for me as I move them onto DVDs after a while - so the Firelite never gets filled up. I also find it quick and easy to put files onto it within a day or so of taking the shots as it's USB powered, small and portable - so i can copy them to the laptop as well as the PC ...... then they're stored in a total of 3 places (PC,laptop, firelite) before they eventually get archived on DVD.

the Firelite usb range isn't the cheapest way to do things but it suits me best. my husband has a seagate 320Gb mains powered external drive and that cost him about £80 iirc. that's pretty good too - though it's not as small and portable as my 2 usb Firelites.

Here's a link showing the sort of thing I use but there are cheaper and larger ones available if you choose tp use something mains powered.

Mine can fit in a pocket so I can carry the files about and share them with family and others on laptops etc - so that's why I like them.

Pol

I have a 250GB WD External hard drive. It is plug and play for windows XP. USB lead from PC to drive.
It works just like an internal drive. Switch on and a windows box comes up asking what you want it to do, Same as the camera does. Or go into 'My Computer' and access it from there as you would with CD/DVD drive. About £79.00 GB pounds.

I back-up from my ext. HD to DVDs, but in case of a fire etc, would I really grab either, the HD or a stack of DVDs?

I don't back-up off site, but I am thankful to have my smumgmug account sometimes, as we travel a lot, and most of my older pictures tend to stay behind somewhere. So the smugmug gallery is my way to show less recent work to people if they ask me.

uli

I have Lightroom set up to automatically convert raw files to DNG and store them on my laptop, and also copy the original raw format to an external drive. Once I have about 4gb of data, I burn it to a DVD that matches the folder name on my external HDD. At that point it all falls apart, since I have nowhere else to keep it. "Eventually" I'd like to give the DVDs (or a duplicate set) to my brother, who lives about 100km outside of the city, and just keep updating his library every few months.

For those too-rare instances when I'm being paid for my work, I'll set aside the compact flash card and not format it until long after the job is done.

I currently have photos on my laptop and also backed up to an external HDD via the network. It's a Maxtor shared storage drive, not bad, pretty good for file serving and sharing between users. It's limited to the speed of your network though, so I think in hindsight a drive with a USB 2.0 connection would be much faster.

That said, if we were ever burgled or if there was a fire, I'd be in major trouble...

Hm... I still think that an online storage service could be a good option. Sure, you're at the mercy of the storage provider, but I wouldn't rely on it as the ONLY form of backup. Hm... a Uli's suggestion of a smugmug account sounds attractive - they have unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth, and as an added bonus, you can use it as an online gallery as well to show off your pics. Any thoughts or opinions regarding this, Uli?


Actually I'm thinking of getting a portable image tank type device for my Europe trip, and if I get a large enough HDD, it could serve as an additional form of backup...

NT73 Wrote:I have a 250GB WD External hard drive. It is plug and play for windows XP. USB lead from PC to drive.
About £79.00 GB pounds.

Was it from Maplins? I've been noticing them on their site, currently at about £70 and I'm tempted.

I was given the FireLites as a gift and they're superb, ideal size etc ..... but I must admit I'm also tempted to go for a larger capacity such as the 250Gb so I can keep everything on an ext HD (even though I have everything on DVds etc too)

What are the dimensions - would it fit into your pocket or near enough?

Polly

shuttertalk Wrote:Hm... I still think that an online storage service could be a good option.

I don't store photos online - but I do use personal webspace and a subaccount for storing vital text info. I mean the sort of stuff that might be needed after a major crash and reformat. For example - emails carrying plugin receipts and download links, plugin serial numbers etc. email addys of occasional but nevertheless important contacts.

I'd lost one crucial email one time after I had a crash - so I created a subaccount specifically for storing various mail copies online ...... and it saved my bacon last Summer when I had a major catastrophe. It meant I could retrieve what I wanted without having to plod through a load of ancient backup CDs

I'm also neurotic enough to ensure our sons have copies of vital stuff ..... and I also have quality commercial prints of the most treasured photos.

How's that for neurotic, eh.

Polly

Polly!!

I never thought about all this... I am really surprised!!

I'm on the task. I have asked a friend of mine where to buy these devices, and what brads he knows and are available in Germany.
Let's see what he tells me...

I have a lot of memory in my website... I'll do the same as you Polly, I will store some of my pictures print size there too...

Thanks so much to you all for commenting and sharing your experiences.... I'll backup ASAP...

Irma Wrote:I have a lot of memory in my website... I'll do the same as you Polly, I will store some of my pictures print size there too...

I use an online commercial printing service actually. I use the service for all my most important and treasured photos and I leave the files stored in 'private' albums on their servers. It means the most precious pictures are printed and sent to me by post - and it also means I can allow trusted friends and relatives to view the albums and order copies if they wish. http://www.photobox.co.uk/

No doubt there are sinilar services in Germany - well worth investigating as it means you'd be able to have high standard prints that you can store at home or for sending printed copies to other people.

BTW - commercial print services usually have their printers calibrated for sRGB - so be sure to keep your screen regularly calibrated and send sRGB saved files to the printing service .... then the prints should come back near enough the same colours as you see on your screen.

I use Spyder2 for calibrating my own screen - but there are other calibration gadgets and software that can do it jusr as easily and just as well. I calibrate the PC (CRT screen) approx every fornight and the laptop gets calibrated maybe once a month (as recommended). Heres a link - they're easy to use and they do a good job. My prints are returned almost exactly as I see the pictures on the screen.

Polly

Polly Wrote:

NT73 Wrote:I have a 250GB WD External hard drive..

Was it from Maplins? I've been noticing them on their site, currently at about £70 and I'm tempted.
would it fit into your pocket or near enough?

Polly

Hi Polly, I think it came through Amazon, but I can't find the receipt. It is called 'Western Digital Essential External USB Hard Drive'
Size approx. 8"long x 6"high x 1.3/4" thick. Has two little plastic feet which slide on or off depending on which way you have it.
Can be used flat or horizontal
Mains (transformer) powered Supplied with drive.
Will run with USB1 or 2. Faster with 2.
So I suppose it is not designed for a pocket, Mine stands upright between wall and PC in a 4" gap.
Should be on (westerndigital .com)

When it is switched on (press button at front) It shows in 'My Computer ' window.

Polly Wrote:but I do use personal webspace and a subaccount for storing vital text info. I mean the sort of stuff that might be needed after a major crash and reformat. For example - emails carrying plugin receipts and download links, plugin serial numbers etc. email addys of occasional but nevertheless important contacts.

Hey that's a great idea Pol, thanks for the tip. I should do that too....

NT73 Wrote:Size approx. 8"long x 6"high x 1.3/4" thick. Has two little plastic feet which slide on or off depending on which way you have it.
Can be used flat or horizontal
Mains (transformer) powered Supplied with drive.
Will run with USB1 or 2. Faster with 2.
So I suppose it is not designed for a pocket, Mine stands upright between wall and PC in a 4" gap.
Should be on (westerndigital .com)

Thanks for that. It's pretty much the same as Gert's Seagate - same sort of dimensions and weight etc. I'm probably better sticking with the FireLites for the moment as I just don't have a spare socket and I really prefer something portable. I'd been hoping you were gonna tell me it was approximately pocket sized but hey, I'll get over it.

One other benefit of the portable FireLite is that I can carry it wih me so I'm also carrying anything sensitive on me - rather than leaving stuff on the lappy when w're away from home. Sure I'd be upset if the lappy got nicked from the camper - but 'd be a lot more upset if certain data was stored on the lappy when it got nicked .... which is why I carry it on the portable ext drive.

Well I did say I was neurotic about certain things. Heaven help any twerp who is bold enough to try to mug me on the street and tries to grab my Firelite.

Polly

I installed a USB2 card in to the PC with 4 USB2 slots outside (unfortunately at the back) and one inside. (PCWorld)How I am supposed to get at that I have no idea. Drill a hole in the case, and have a wire hanging out? The Firelight seems expensive but if it's mobility you require then it's probably OK.
I suppose the price will come down eventually when the novelty wears off.

NT73 Wrote:I installed a USB2 card in to the PC with 4 USB2 slots outside (unfortunately at the back) and one inside. (PCWorld)How I am supposed to get at that I have no idea.

Actually it's not quite as crazy as it sounds... I recently put together a media centre PC, and the VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) dot matrix panel at the front of the case were controlled by an internal USB connection...