Backing Up My Photos

[Tracey McGovern]

Hi All

I need some advice. I currently use an external hard drive to store ALL my photos, I save and edit from there and they remain there forever - or so I hope. I've had this drive now for about 3 years and whilst I have not had any problems with it, I've been conscious over the last few weeks that I should probably be backing the data on there up. But my questions is, where is the best place to back up. I did a back up about a year ago onto my computer, but I'd prefer not to put my photos there, mainly because it takes up space but also, to re-back up, would this not take forever, would it back up every single image again or could it just back up any changes?

Would it be better to:
a) Buy another external hard drive and back everything up there so that I have two of everything - if so what would you recommend
b) Use an on line back up service - which one is the best and easiest to use? Would it be free?
c) Are there any other options that I'm not aware of

Ideally, I would like a system that would know automatically if I have made any changes ie added more photos, edited photos, deleted photos and back up automatically and only back up any changes that had been made rather than backing up all 3 million photos that I have saved. Could I set the back up to run automatically, say, at the end of each day or week so that I don't have to remember to do it, but I don't know if such a system exists, am I asking too much?

I look forward to any suggestions/ideas you may have.

Thanks
Tracey

[Stu B]

I think it will be option a)...Second drive..Internal or external. For the cheapest outcome. As far as online storage goes, I've only come across BT Vault. Which still only offers 50GB of storage, and charges 4.99 a month. Though it will auto update your photos.

[John]

Another drive is the answer. At the moment if you have all your images in one place, there's eventually going to be a failure that will possibly lose all of them at once. DVDs and CDs become unreadable in time, so another duplicated drive seems the answer. Whichever way, backing up takes time.

[PhilipHowe]

Tracey, I use a 2TB external hard disk (USB) and I also have a network NAS box (spot the bloke who works in a computing environment).
A NAS is the best storage idea, but they cost money. BAsically, the NAS (Network Attached Storage) has two hard disks in it and stores the same data on both disks. If one of your backup disks goes, then you can swap out the faulty one with a good one and it will all sync up nicely.

I have Windows 7 on my laptop, so basically tell it to copy all photos (I'm up to about 60Gb) to the NAS and my external hard disk. It then only copies the files that have changed or new ones (merges directories), but I leave it going when I go to bed, so don't know how long exactly it takes.

Tesco had an offer on the other day for a 2TB external disk @ £49.99, but the shelf edge label says £77. They are selling loads of computing stock off at the moment.

A cheap NAS will cost around £62 from Scan, then add two 2TB hard disks @ £56.57 each = approx £175.
For a solid NAS, you're looking at the best part of £500 (I just ordered one at work that is £1550).

My NAS also connects via HDMI to my TV so I can watch hidef movies and play music etc etc, so is multi use.
You can also map a drive from every PC in your house, so you can think of it as an external hard drive for general use.

Whenever I do a shoot, I copy from memory card to PC, PC to external hard disk and hard disk to NAS, then I start editting. Once I've finished editting a set, I copy the editted photos to the external and NAS, then delete the raw files from the PC.

(Is there anybody still awake?)

[Theo Dibbits]

I use 2 external hard drives
One is my immediate backup the second one is updated about every month.
The second one normally lives with my "out-laws"

My idea is that if the house burns down the insurance will pay for just about every thing but
they can not replace my pictures.

By the way external hard drives are just about the easiest thing for "Billy the burglar" to nick and sell.

Theo

[Peaton]

I have all my data files on a second internal drive D: I don’t store anything except program files and windows related files on drive C:. I then have a cloned copy of drive C: kept “off site” away from the main system in the office. If ( or more realistic, WHEN) Drive C: goes down for whatever reason, (or gets so clogged up with windows self installed rubbish, that it slows everything down), I can swop to the clean, cloned system disc, in less than 10 minutes, and I’m up and running again, as if nothing had happened. Windows update will automatically install all recent updates.

As for data backup, I use a free program called “sync back”, I’ve been using this for years and it’s always been reliable. Link below.

I have another external drive, and all I do periodically, depending on how much work I have done, is start “sync back” and run one of the profiles I have previously set up ( easy to do ), and copy any CHANGES that have been made to drive D: to the external drive. The program checks for changes automatically when it starts and only copies the changes. If you keep your data on drive C:, (that makes me cringe), you can point “sync back” to where the data is stored, and do a copy backup of this area.

If windows fails to start, which is a regular occurrence, accessing your data, stored on drive C:, is a hell of a job, whereas if it’s stored, in copy mode, on a separate drive entirely, (easier still if the drive is external), the data can be accessed dead easy from a laptop or any other pc via a USB lead.

The program will do a lot more useful things, when you get used to it. I wouldn’t be without it, and for the price of an external drive nowadays, I have backups, and backups of backups.

I’ve had sycback running on both XP and windows 7

http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncback.html

[Dave Hutchinson]

I just bought a 2Tb Seagate Network drive from Scan for £108, it is easy to set up and you can make it so that you can access your files from not only any computer on your own network, but from any computer in the world, and it works, unlike the Western Digital Worldbook that I had originally. Although in fairness it could have had more to do with setting that up on a Vista machine, I finished up with several folders that I couldn't even access myself and never managed to access it remotely.

[Tracey McGovern]

Hi All

Thanks you all so much for your comments and advice. Based on what you have said, I've ordered an external hard drive (Samsung S2 - 1TB USB-Powered 2.5 Portable Hard Drive) from Amazon, just over £60, it has good reviews. This will be used as a back up, infact, I may use this as my main external hard drive and use my old Western Digital as the back up. I'll also look further the Sync Back that Peter advised, I'll have a chat with him about that tomorrow.

But either way, I can now start relaxing a bit and hopefully will stop worrying about losing all my piccies.

Thanks again everyone.

Tracey x