Hey, just need to vent right now. Need a little empathy - I'm already wagging my finger at myself and I know it's time to get organized and seriously fix my files. I have been shooting digital professionally for 6 years now, but this is only my second year full-time and my data files seem to be breeding behind my back. My old system seemed to work fine - having boxes of CDs according to year and project but this won't cut it anymore. Help!

When did you guys realize that it was time to professionalize your computer systems, get back-up terrabyte storage and a professional archival program? Arrghhh! I'm SO through with my tons of shoeboxes of DVDs and CDRs. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I was already taking the necessary steps to get my act together - I just got Adobe Lightroom and am in the midst of studying it, when one of my external Hard drive failed on me.

I'm using a Macbook pro, basically I make two DVD back-ups of all my files, have my current files on my hard drive. When the project is over, I make another DVD and then keep a duplicate of everything on an 250 gb Iomega hard drive (I'm on #3 now). Since I'm working on a new website, I've been looking at my old stuff in efforts to come up with a well-rounded portfolio - hence, the need to boot up the external hard drive. And it had a funny grindy noise. After various attempts with disk utility and disk warrior, it looks like hard drive failure. So, my poor iomega is off to fly with the angels in heaven.

Leaving me in back-up hell! Thank goodness I made those backup DVDs but now I have to sort thru them to find a handful of images. Whoa is me!

So here's the question: If I do decide to go all out and professionalize my archival storage, any suggestions and idea of how much I will be spending? Would it be safe to get a clone terrabyte storage? What is RAID storage and are there any benefits to it? How about those DVD Gold disks? Are they worth the extra money? I'm not a tech person, so tell it to me like a two-year-old please.

Makes me long for the good ol film days....


Auey

The best thing would be a tape drive system. There are several types, but DLT is fairly standard. As is Exabyte. Nice thing about Exabyte drives is that they take a standard videotape (Hi-8) so you can run to the drugstore and get one if you're in a bind. There are also DAT drives and Travan drives. The standard seems to be DLT, but they're pricey.

Tapes are fragile and you are going to outgrow any single solution you implement.

Photographers don't need huge amounts (terabytes) of data online at any one time (so you don't need a big raid system) - and they don't need to back up huge amounts at one time either (so you don't need a tape drive).

The best thing to do is what you are doing: use an external drive as backup - and when it gets filled, retire it and replace it with another one. And make DVD backups too.

Auey, everyone has stories about bad drives, but Iomega drives are considered by many to be close to the bottom of the barrel. That's why you're on your third already.

Maxtor/Seagate and Western Digital are probably a better way to go. Some people like LaCie, but they run hot and die early.

I can't recommend an elaborate RAID system because I'm not familiar with them, but I think you should do the following:

1. Determine approximately how many gigabytes per year you use. (I'm at about 150 GB per year.)

2. Buy two firewire drives slightly larger than your yearly gigabyte usage.

3. Label one drive as the primary drive and the other as the backup.

4. When you come back from a shoot, download your cards onto the primary drive.

5. When you feel it's time to backup your work (at LEAST nightly if you ask me), copy your data onto the backup drive. You can try to keep track of what has changed, or use software like Retrospect to reduce the time it takes to backup.

6. Keep the backup drive off-site as much as possible.

7. Consider getting a SECOND backup drive so that you always have one standing by for your nightly backups, but you ALSO have one backup drive off-site which you update weekly, perhaps.

8. Each year, put the backup drives in separate locations and start fresh with a new set of two (or three drives).

It's cumbersome, but it works. There have been recent threads about web storage, but connection speeds really limit the amount you can easily upload.

Personally, I don't do DVD backups, but I am diligent about keeping my firewire backup up to date. I have no patience for burning discs, and with about 10 years of using external drives behind me I feel it is unlikely that two hard drives would fail at the same time, especially if they are in different places.

I suppose I could take a power hit when both drives are hooked up, but I have a UPS (battery backup) for my drives and laptop.

Damon (and others) might stop by this thread with some wisdom.

We realized it was time to "professionalize" once we added a second drive to our Dell Dimension 2400 back in early 2004. That exercise was a comedy of errors in itself since I had to cannibalize the lower CD slot... but that's another story.

Don't throw away those DVDs and CDRs! Even though it's easier to keep everything on one or two hard drives it's better to have those images on a hard drive (or two) and have a physical disc with the same data!

Hard drive and storage technology has come so far there's no reason not to have something in place that will guard against failure on one side of your system.


Ok. Here's some quick hits and my recommendation for you:

My Google-based research has led me to believe that the difference in Gold DVDs and DVD+Rs (not the -Rs) is just price. The DVD+R burning technology is apparently a little more thorough than the DVD-R.

Don't go RAID. It's all about duplication and keeping things simple. Introducing more variables is a bad thing when all you want is a simple task done.

The Ingredients

1. First get a WD MyBook or the Seagate alternative from Costco or wherever. Do not buy a LaCie or other brand drive. I'll tell you what to do with this later.

2. Get a 5-Bay external SATA hard drive array with Port Multiplication. You can get one from MacGurus complete with 500 GB hard drives (5x500 GB = 2.5 TB) in it for ~$1400.



3. Since your machine is a MacBook Pro you'll need a Port Multiplier-compatible PC Express eSATA card to connect to the array.



4. Plug the card into the side of your MBP and connect to the SATA array.

5. Format and name the drives something like this:

Drive 1 -- Auey RAW & Originals
Drive 2 -- Auey Work in Progress
Drive 3 -- Auey Finished Weddings
Drive 4 -- Auey Archive
Drive 5 -- Auey RAW Archive

6. Hook up the WD MyBook and partition it into two drives -- one the size of your MBP hard drive (160 GB?) and leave the rest for copying your current in-process files and originals on to it. Name the MBP-sized partition "Auey MBP system"

7. Use SuperDuper! to copy the entire MBP hard drive to your MyBook.

This way you have a copy of your MBP file system in case your laptop's hard drive dies and Apple needs to replace/wipe your drive.

8. Stop and have a glass of wine.

The Pie

It's all about keeping your eggs in different baskets so all you have to do is come up with a file storage scheme that makes sense to you and has data in multiple places.

As you get back from shoots just make sure you copy images to multiple drives on different machines (read: different plugs!). That way if the MyBook fails you still have the SATA box to restore from.

We run a nightly backup using Retrospect, but there are other options out there.


Don't get too nostalgic. Could you pick up 100 weddings worth of film and fit it in the back seat of your car in case of an emergency? You certainly could with a Burly Box!

I hope this helps!

Good luck!

Matt...Damon,
Matt Damon...hehehe

Your replies are awesome!
Heads in a whirl


I'll digest both of your suggestions and see which system works best for me. (and my budget as well)

For now - having two separate hard drives in different locations seems to be the cheaper solution but in the long run, I would love to have the SATA hard drive tray.

Damon, your step-by-step tutorial is great (complete with photos!). I actually printed it out and will store it in my clear book of photo ideas. I hope you don't mind if I drop you a line again in case I need some troubleshooting!

Thanks so much! I love OSP to bits.

I'm glad to help. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have more questions.

Here's the external HD enclosure (port mult) I use. It's inexpensive and works great. I don't use DVD's. I use a different external hot swap drive bay for all my backup HDs. Even my system and scratch drives are in sata hot swap bays. Every drive can be removed from my system in about 5 seconds. They all get stored in a safe when I travel. The system drive is backed up so that if it should get corrumpted, I can swap and be editing in about 60 seconds.

cheers,
michael