Digital shooters, how are you backing up?

[Sebastian]

I think occassionally we need to be reminded of how important it is to back up our data, as well as keeping it organized. Technology changes quickly, and therefore I believe that this is something that should be touched on regularly.

Every setup and situation will find different backup/organizational methods to work best. Share how you have things set up to help those that may be trying to figure it out, or are unhappy with their current setup.

I am using an internal 120 gig drive to store images on, this is my "on-line" drive because it is always ready. Once a week I back up to an external 250 gig drive and shut it down after the backup completes to prevent user error/virus damage. Right now I have 45 gigs of images, roughly 20% of my external backup. This is after a little over a year of shooting, so space shouldn't be an issue for a while, even if taking into account an increase in images shot.

For organizing the images I use Adobe Photoshop Album 2. I like its method of referencing the images most compatible with my visual way of working. I am currntly evaluating ACDSee 6, it has similar database functions as Album, but much faster image browsing and a really cool renaming utility. Its "Find Duplicates" function also made consolidating images from three different computers a simple, if time-consuming, task. The problems I have with ACDSee are that it still doesn't suppot NEF files and some minor gripes about the picture bin.

I am currently using ZoomBrowser's download utility to transfer images to my computer because it's the only program I have that downloads the images into folders named by shooting date, not by download date. I prefer that to the other programs that I have. If there is a way to do that with ACDSee or Album, it eludes me. Having them in folders by shoot date gives me an alternate method of finding images not dependant on software. Sort of a plan B.

I also use a mirrored RAID array in my on-site machine to keep us up and running in the event of a hardware failure while on location. Cheap insurance against having to pack up and go home if the hard drive craps out.

I use an external 20gb drive/MP3 player to move large stores of images between computers. When on the road I use it to play music as well as store images in case my laptop were stolen or damaged.

The key is redundancy, have it stored in more than one location in case of hardware failure. And hardware WILL fail.

Sometimes it seems like the real work begins once the picture has been taken...

[Photo-John]

Hey Sebastian-
Can you either repost this or post it again on whatever digital forum you think is appropriate? I know that ViewFinder is our real community forum, but it would be nice to have this type of content under a heading where people might actually think to look for it.

Thanks, and good post. I actually have an article on archiving to post but I haven't had time to set it up.

[Sebastian]

Hey Sebastian-
Can you either repost this or post it again on whatever digital forum you think is appropriate? I know that ViewFinder is our real community forum, but it would be nice to have this type of content under a heading where people might actually think to look for it.

Thanks, and good post. I actually have an article on archiving to post but I haven't had time to set it up.

Done.

I posted it in each forum I think would benefit, hope that's what you meant.

[Dave E.]

I know a lot of people that simply store their images on their hard drives. Yikes! I learned that lesson several years ago when I lost a ton of images when our hard drive crashed. Fortunately the images were only from scanned prints.

Currently, I am burning images on CDs. Its simple and it seems to work well for me.

Good topic!

-Dave-

[Ultra Magnus]

We burn CD's too. also, our data hard drive is seperate from our the hard drive our OS is on, so if the c drive needs formatting for a fresh install we won't lose any data - again. I was wondering though, how do you name your photos? All you pro's have to take thousands more pics than I do, and as far as the names the camera gives them, that's fine. But when I start editting, how do you name them? flower1, flower2, fower3, etc??? Seems a little retarded...

[Sebastian]

We burn CD's too. also, our data hard drive is seperate from our the hard drive our OS is on, so if the c drive needs formatting for a fresh install we won't lose any data - again. I was wondering though, how do you name your photos? All you pro's have to take thousands more pics than I do, and as far as the names the camera gives them, that's fine. But when I start editting, how do you name them? flower1, flower2, fower3, etc??? Seems a little retarded...

File naming depends on the needs. I have not been renaming my files with one exception, when I do work for a car dealership I rename the files of the cars to the stock number of the car.

I think I will start renaming the files to the date, and the name of the event. Who know, if this grows enough maybe even the name of the shooter.

Right now I depend on catalog software and folder names.

[berrywise]

I have a 120 gig hard drive on my machine and another 40 gig as well. For stuff that is more important to me I have that stored on both drives and then every once in awhile I will back everything up to DVD-RW.

So far so good (knock on wood) that I have not lost any images. As for organzing them that is a little more messy and I still haven't gotten my stuff in as good of order I as I would like. I had been using Canto Cumulous but find that to be way to in depth for what I need. I wish I took the time to add file info to all my edited images that way I could seach by that instead of just file name.

A friend of mine also uses Adobe Album and I was thinking of switching to that. The though of getting everything in order really makes me yawn ;o)

scott

[EOSThree]

>I am currently using ZoomBrowser's download utility to transfer images to my computer >because it's the only program I have that downloads the images into folders named by >shooting date, not by download date. I prefer that to the other programs that I have. If >there is a way to do that with ACDSee or Album, it eludes me. Having them in folders >by shoot date gives me an alternate method of finding images not dependant on >software. Sort of a plan B.

Chris Breeze has written some programs that work quite nicely with Canon stuff. Breezebrowser is a Browser and RAW converter. A big plus is it will browse RAW files at a decent size without converting them. It doesn't allow the level of precision that Capture one does for RAW conversion, but it doesn't cost nearly as much either. Another program of Chris's that I have recently started playing with is Downloader. It allows you to tag your photos in numerous ways for downloading. Main folder by year, etc., download folder by date(shoot date, download date, year/day/month, month, day, etc.) It will also tag with a job name, the choice is yours, you set up a string and the program downloads the photos according to the string. It will also bring up your organizing program for you when the download is complete. Pretty cool overall. Chris has free download demos on his site. The downloads are fully operational, although I believe Breezebrowser is limited to 5 RAW files in the trial version.
I was an avid user of ACDsee 5, I tried the trial version of 6 and found it so buggy I stopped using it. I hear they have released a 6.1 or so that has fixed some of the bugginess. I too used to use Zoom Browser for my downloading for the same reasons you did, folder tags, Zoom Browsers gets annoying having to convert every RAW file you want to veiw in larger size. I have also tried Jasc's Photo Album, but it won't browse RAW files. Breezebrowser may not be as fancy as ACDsee or Jasc, but it does it's job quite nicely. Allowing for browsing of RAW files and RAW conversion, along with integration with Downloader, the Breeze programs are becoming my favorites.
http://www.breezesys.com/

[another view]

Two words: Not enough.

I'm re-naming files with the date first, then location/subject. Those files are burned to CD's, then the originals are turned into thumbnails (400px on the long side) kept on my hard drive. It didn't take too long to figure out about the thumbnails - loading image files from a CD can take a long time! With the thumbnail, I already know which file and image I'm looking for.

Next stop is a 250gb external drive. Seb's idea of turning off that drive when not in use is a good idea, I'll probably do that. I'll probably want to run that drive off of Firewire 800 - anything I need to consider with that? Just a matter of plugging in a card?

With the external drive, I'll probably keep up the CD's though - extra protection.

[ThoughtfulPirate]

I read this and then I burned a cd to back them up. Thats the only way I know how to do it, other than cameras and bikes, I am largely technologically illiterate.

[Norman]

Do you think CD's are good enough to archive, I hear after time they can corrupt files due to light humidity...... I reburn CD's from time to time, is this a waste of time?

Secondly Seb, is your external hard drive an old computer, or is a stand alone hard drive unit, I'm not very good with computers & was thinking of getting a refurb computer to use as storage only is this a viable option, as I'm not a pro.

Thanks

[Trevor Ash]

I wrote a couple articles not too long ago that cover this topic a little less specifically. There's tons of info on the web when you start searching around. It was meant to be a three part article but I've yet to write the final part which was supposed to include my current setup. If you haven't already read them they might help get you all going in the right direction.

Here's are links to the articles:
Quick Lessons in Computer Maintenance, Disaster Recovery, and Data Backup: Part 1
Quick Lessons in Computer Maintenance, Disaster Recovery, and Data Backup: Part 2

In a nutshell, all my images are available via hard drive all the time (on a 120G drive that's partitioned separately OS and Data). But the data is mirrored to another hard drive (another 120G drive) in the same computer. Every night my system automatically reboots and makes an image of itself for emergency recovery. That image is also stored on the backup 120G drive. I store 7 images total, one for each day of the week. This means I can fix many problems by restoring from the day before. Keeping OS and data on separate partitions helps with the backup process.

I used to use nothing but swappable drives (IDE drives installed in a swappable module ) but recently I replaced all my off-site backup with DVD's. I used to just plug in a hard drive to copy my backups to and then I'd take that drive to work and leave it there. Now I replaced that by burning DVD's. So I basically have three copies of all my data with one, less frequently updated copy, being off-site.

With the exception of burning the DVD's and remembering to take them to work my system is fairly well automated (I use Second Copy 2000 and the now obselete DriveImage ) and so I never have to REMEMBER to initiate a backup process.....it's done without me thinking. I just take an off-site copy off to work whenever I feel I need to. Depending on if I've been taking a lot of photos or not that could be as often as weekly or as little as once every two months. DVD's make this step a little more difficult because it takes about 15 DVD's (~60G) to backup my system. It's cheaper though than the hard drive. Hopefully I won't outgrow myself too quickly and be forced to choose something else.

For file naming, I shoot 100% digital and leave the names as they are (autonumbered). I use Breezesys Downloader Pro for downloading the images and they just end up in a folder based on the date they were shot. The folders are named things like "2003-12-06". Inside the folder are the raw or jpeg images including .thm files. For sorting and categorization I use a program called IMatch .

[Sebastian]

EosThree,

I downloaded Downloader Pro a few days ago, planning on trying it out.

Norman,

I use an external hard drive, click here to see the specific model.

Trevor,

iMatch looks very interesting, I will have to try it out. I am trying to simplify my workflow, and everything does something that some other software doesn't, but none of them do everything well...

[gjhsu]

I use an external 200GB Western Digital, that I finally swapped into a new external casing that hopefully won't have power supply issues. Right now, I don't really have a "back up" plan, but hopefully will get another hard drive dedicated to be backup only, and stored in a good place away from the elements.

I just don't trust CDs that much.

[Franglais]

I'm about 1/3 through scanning my entire collection of 3500 films. I have 55GB of data already, and it's really fun, my whole life is passing in front of my eyes. My workflow:

1. Scan the images and keep them in a "Working on" folder on my main disk, with a subfolder for each subject + date
2. When I have about 650MB of data in "Working on", burn 2 identical CD's
3. Note the content of the CD's in a database (in My Documents)
4. Copy the content of one of the CDs back onto a second 120GB hard drive on my system containing my image archives
5. Use ACDSee to move the images to the right folder in my archives
6. Add Metadata with ACDSee (date, keywords, worthiness of the photo, etc)
7. Delete the images in the "Working on" folder
8. Keep one CD locally and the second copy off-site
9. Back up the ACDSee Metadata database regularly (as XML in My Documents)
10. Do automatic daily, weekly and monthly backups of My Documents to an on-disk container file
11. Do a Quarterly archive of My Documents to CD
And lastly - do a periodic copy of my image archive to DVD - just bought the hardware - haven't figured out the medium or the planning yet.

To sum up my approach:

- large internal hard disk is the most available, reliable medium for storage
- CD's are fine for archiving as long as you never touch them
- take two copies of your archive and keep a disaster recovery copy off-site
- read back your archive after creation to ensure it's good
- use a dominant market tool to maintain your Metadata (you don't want to have the supplier go out of business)
- keep a copy of your Metadata and ensure that you have a copy of your image data that's in line with the copy

Any comments?

Charles

[Norman]

EosThree,

I downloaded Downloader Pro a few days ago, planning on trying it out.

Norman,

I use an external hard drive, click here to see the specific model.

Trevor,

iMatch looks very interesting, I will have to try it out. I am trying to simplify my workflow, and everything does something that some other software doesn't, but none of them do everything well...

Thanks for the link, I'll look into this more
I use ACDSEE as an image browser, I find it very fast for looking around my folders.

[cush]

I have a PowerBook G4 and a new G5. Pics are on both hard drives. I also have a LaCie 160Mb. I have also been backing up everything to CD and storing them in a fireproof/waterproof safe. Now that I have the G5, I'll be backing up on DVD as well. Just in case, I'll probably be sending a copy of each CD to my brother in case the safe is not as safe as advertised.

I will probably keep a copy of everything on my old PC that is not connected to the internet.

[danag42]

The method I find best is to have an external hard drive, with backup software that runs every day, and then every so often offload old stuff to DVD. Having two DVD's of each collection won't hurt your chances, either.

Sometimes it's a good idea not to reformat your memory cards until the daily backup takes place, after you've put the images you want on your hard drive.

[yaronsh]

Hey, Does PS Album read Digital Rebel RAW files? The Adobe web site doesn't mention the Digital Rebel specifically, but is it the same format as 10D, 1D, etc.? Thanks...

[Janie]

I have a dvd RW so I burn my images to DVDs and can add to them. I have a protective film that I got from a computer show that keeps my DVDs from being scratched. I also have back up DVDs for special images that I put in a safe place - too safe because I can't remember where they are! lol

I also have 3 hard drives on my computer. This is custom built and I have one drive that I put copies of all of my photos on. I catergorize tthem by the type of shot or by client's last name.

You know what really ticked me off? I had bought a telephoto lens and converter for it a few months ago. I really haven't had time to play with it and tried it out today - they gave me the wrong converter! So, now I need to hunt around to find a place with the correct converter for my camera (Nikon Coolpix 4300). I also want to pick up a wide angle lens for my visual tour shots.

[yaronsh]

Here's what I'm looking for - a program that provides:

1) A meaningful categorization system
2) Previews with histogram
3) Ability to view multiple folders at once
4) Ability to preview DReb RAW files
5) Versatile printing
6) Batch renaming and metadata editing

Does such an animal exist? If not, I'd settle for: One program that has (2), (3), and (4); one that has (1) and (5); and one that has (6). But then, since it's separate programs, they'd have to be cheaper.

- Yaron

[Janie]

I take a screen shot of the file i copied to DVD and print out the screen shot for the DVD sleeve. Of course this means I need to give my photos logical names. But the categories like Flowers, Beach Scenes, Fable Images, Pets, People, Rock People(singers, not actual rock people), and stuff like that helps.

I have a dvd RW so I burn my images to DVDs and can add to them. I have a protective film that I got from a computer show that keeps my DVDs from being scratched. I also have back up DVDs for special images that I put in a safe place - too safe because I can't remember where they are! lol

I also have 3 hard drives on my computer. This is custom built and I have one drive that I put copies of all of my photos on. I catergorize tthem by the type of shot or by client's last name.

You know what really ticked me off? I had bought a telephoto lens and converter for it a few months ago. I really haven't had time to play with it and tried it out today - they gave me the wrong converter! So, now I need to hunt around to find a place with the correct converter for my camera (Nikon Coolpix 4300). I also want to pick up a wide angle lens for my visual tour shots.

[mjm]

I have 2 120GB drives inside my system. I have a nightly script that backs up all important data from my primary drive to my secondary drive (included data is Photos, Email, Application Settings, Client Files, etc). I have a copy of Robocopy run at 4am to do the backup.

For external backup I have a Linux machine mounting the backup directory and running rdiffbackup every other day.

Losing data sucks.

[Melanie5566]

I use Google Drive to store my data. Also I always save my emails to my PC.

[Kaley]

I use Google Drive to store my data. Also I always save my emails to my PC.

I also do this way. Google Drive is great and I'm satisfied with it. But we never know what issues we will face, so it is better to backup emails to PC. I was lucky to find a good tool called Email in Detail https://emailindetail.com/archive-emails. It helps me to archive my email letters as PDF files. And it is convenient that I can use them without acess to the Internet. It allows me to work being on the move.