I suffered a hard drive failure yesterday. I’ve been meaning to write a long post explaining my storage and backup methods, and I suppose this would be a great time to do so, since my methods were put to the test (and passed). My system isn’t overly complicated, and probably could be enhanced, but here it is:
Primary Storage: Internal Hard Drive
My primary photo storage is on the internal hard drive of my PC. This is where images are transferred from the card reader, this is where they are cataloged, and this is where I make all edits.
First Backup: External Hard Drive
My first backup location is an external hard drive. The external drive is a copy of the photos stored on my PC. When I download images from the card reader, I also make a copy to the external hard drive.
Secondary Backup: Offsite DVDs
My secondary backup method is burning DVDs which are then stored offsite. This is the “last resort” backup, intended for use if something were to happen to my home (fire, major theft, etc). I burn DVDs after photos have been processed and cataloged, and store the DVDs in a relatively secure offsite location.
Yesterday I got back into town from vacation. As I was preparing to shoot a wedding last night, I noticed my external hard drive wasn’t available and the lights were dark. Further troubleshooting indicated a drive failure. I’d purchased the drive about two months ago at Costco. I probably could’ve gotten it a few dollars cheaper online, but one of the reasons I shop at Costco is their awesome returns/exchange policy. Today I drove to Costco, told them what happened, and they promptly gave me a refund for the full price of the drive. I picked up a new drive and was on my way in about 10 minutes.
My files? They’re now happily copied over to the new backup drive. With my backup system of two copies onsite and one copy offsite, a single drive failure will never mean data loss.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Very nice.
I use a Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo NAS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165075) device for my primary storage. Mine has 2 500GB hard drives that I have mirrored for additional protection. You have the option of striping them instead and taking advantage of the 1TB of storage, but in my case I preferred the peace of mind having them RAID-1′d.
It’s connected to my network and accessible from any of the three machines, and the 500 GB is more than enough for the family’s needs. I thought the $300 price tag was pretty reasonable considering the nature of the data (four years of baby pictures, anyone?).
After that, I have an Iomega REV drive for my occasional off-site backups (kept in either a safe deposit box or in the fire-proof safe at my parents’ place). I have the low-end one that “only” stores about 35GB of data per disc, but it looks like you can find them in a 90GB flavor now.
The only downside of this setup (aside from the upfront cost) is that I can’t backup directly from the Buffalo NAS to the Iomega REV. Instead, I have to copy all the data across the wire to my workstation first, then to the Iomega drive via a USB cable.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Aaron-
Just saw a review from Thomas Hawk re the newest Drobo2 that is getting ready to be released.
Looks like a possible solution for backups.
http://thomashawk.com/2008/07/welcome-to-drobo-20-two-times-faster.html