[guerito]

Finally, I got myself a system for backup: A NSLU2 with 4 500Gb disks (WD MyBook Essential). The NSLU2 is a NAS storage system, so Irma and I can both work with it over the network. I can connect two disks to the NSLU2 at the same time. The plan is that Irma and I each use one disk as an archive, and another disk as a backup for the archive. I'm planning to a) move all the older pictures to the archive and b) copy the more current pictures to the archive from time to time. Every time I change something in the archive, I'll make a backup.

Of course, when I make a backup, Irma can't work with her archive and vice versa. But I think this doesn't matter too much.

Do you think this is a reasonable approach?

Here is what it looks like:

[matthew]

Of course, when I make a backup, Irma can't work with her archive and vice versa. But I think this doesn't matter too much.

So you have the NAS as an interface for the 4x500 WD units. Each WD unit reads as two drives, so only one can be hooked up at a time, giving you a live disk and an off-line mirror, with each of you having a dedicated drive in each physical unit. If I'm following, it sounds like a good system. My only concern is human nature: if I have to switch disks, I'm less likely to do the backup. But the system you have does have the redundancy going for it, and keeping one drive disconnected and powered down sounds safer than having two on-line.

I recently bought a 2x500 WD Mybook unit myself, but it turned out that I can't defeat the RAID controller to use it as two drives. My computer has a 320GB drive that's big enough for everything, so my plan is to move the LR libraries onto the RAID drive (mirrored as 1x500) and also use it for my nightly desktop backup. That way my OS, applications, and non-photo data (including the vital LR catalog data) are backed up every night, while my LR .DNG are always being cloned on the raid array. The problem is that my old system involved LR writing the original raw file to an external drive, and it's filling up. I don't want to stop doing that, I either need to clean and consolidate some "stuff" on my two older drives, or buy a new one. Neither option is a lot of fun.

A Lightroom tip: I keep my images sorted into a folder for each day, and then have each month in its own folder. LR has the ability to automatically burn multi-disk CDs and DVDs. At the start of each month, I select the previous month's folder, sort by star rating for 1+, and then export them as .DNG to DVDs. The DNG keeps the lightroom changes, and I'm not bothering to burn the zero-starred images. They're still on the backup HDDs, and it keeps the costs and time for optical storage down. I also do a CD of 100% jpegs for two-star and above to ensure that I have a universally readable file with all of my changes locked in.

[Toad]

This sounds like a reasonable approach for backup - but I still worry about the theft or fire angle where the whole setup is destroyed or stolen. I still need a system like this, but I also need an offsite storage plan.

[guerito]

Each WD unit reads as two drives, so only one can be hooked up at a time, giving you a live disk and an off-line mirror, with each of you having a dedicated drive in each physical unit.

Hm, my WD units don't read as two drives, one unit seems to be one disk of appr. 470Gb. I don't know what the "pro" version is capable of, but the "essential" doesn't do anything fancy, you can just hook it up via USB 2.0 and you have a large disk.

I have yet to figure out the best settings, at the moment I'm experimenting with the ext2 file system, as this is the only one supported for the backup function of the NAS. What I really don't know (shame on me) is if the disk has an ext2 file system and is available to my Windows XP via Samba, can I then write and read to it? Even if I can, the drawback is that I can't use the disk directly on my computer, so if the NAS fails it's goodbye to data...

OTOH, I'm installing a knoppix in a virtual machine, so I might still be able to access ext2 directly - just Lightroom wouldn't work with it.

What I want to achieve is that the backup works inside the NAS, I don't want to send hundreds of gigabytes through the network...

About backup on cd/dvd, I don't know... I don't want to end up with a collection of hundreds of dvds. They are not as reliable as commonly thought, I've heard. CDs are more reliable (probably), but out of the question because of the low data volume they can hold.

So far, I'm not doing any business with my pictures. If I did, I'd have to rethink my strategy for even more risk reduction. I'd probably buy a streamer tape then...

Thanks for your input!

[guerito]

Update: Some time has passed and the frustration level is high. Obviously, my original idea wasn't too bright. The main difficulty is that Lightroom refuses to open a catalog on a network drive (although it exported it there). So I have to have at least one drive on the USB port to make it work with LR.

The other problem is that this NSLU2 is not really what you call sophisticated technology. When I start a backup (Windows XP backup) on my computer with a NAS drive as target, there is a write error soon after. In the NAS itself one can configure a backup job from a network share, except that I can't, I keep getting messages about a "wrong path". So this won't work either. Also, my catalog from 2006 has 100Gb, it would take very long to copy this over the network (backup estimated 13 hours before it crashed).

In the end, I will have both my drives just on the USB hub, and everything should work fine. I think the NAS will go back to Amazon first thing tomorrow morning.

Now I'm making a backup from one USB disk to the other, and the time estimate is 3 and a half hours, which is clearly better than 13. I also reformatted my backup drive to NTFS, and I will do the same to the archive. I don't trust the FAT32 file system.

[matthew]

That sounds like an extremely frustrating day. I hope you got it all working alright.

If you have a 2x500 unit that's showing as 1x470, it sounds like they're configured as a mirror raid. If you each take one, then you and Irma can each have your own archive and automatic backup disk...

Do the WD and your computers have a firewire port? I find it's quite a bit faster than the USB2 connection. My WD unit also has both FW400 and FW800, but the FW800 connection has failed, so either my computer or drive enclosure is faulty. They're both under warranty, but without another FW800 device, I don't know which one's the problem.

By doing a monthly optical backup, I probably won't produce more than 1-2 DVDs and 1CD per month, which I can live with. Part two of my diabolical plan is to send these monthly disks off to live with my brother, who lives about 150km away.

[shuttertalk]

Hmm interesting discussions! G, I feel your pain - definitely as the file and catalog sizes start to become large and unwieldy, it becomes harder and harder to keep backups up to date. Especially over the network.

Read the comments in this article for some interesting network backup solutions...
http://lifehacker.com/software/hardware/...300224.php

[shuttertalk]

Hey this looks quite cool - hot pluggable SATA hard disks...
http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news_det...p?id=15140

[EddieZ]

I am torn between direct and NAS. I have used direct attached forever, I recently picked up a Drobo with 3x500GB drives. I moved my library onto it and dropped some video I have started playing around with and quickly filled it up. I just purchased a Seagate 750GB drive on a deal and dropped it into the Drobo (took about 1 min). So far very happy with it, and the few times I needed to share storage, I just shared it from my workstation, which seemed fine.

- Eddie

[matthew]

Hi Eddie, welcome to Shuttertalk. I've heard some really interesting things about the Drobo, it sounds like an excellent no-fuss system. If they had a FW800 interface available I probably would have gone with that instead of my WD raid. I'm glad to hear that it's working well for you.