Backup Options!

[Zogger]

I know there have been similar threads in the past, but time moves on!

I came back from holiday last week. Apparently I took 3500 photos (at least 80GB worth!). I've been using a 500GB drive for my photos but it's now full, which is compounded by my upgrade from a 30D to a 60D at the end of last year..
I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to photos and I have been cutting out a lot of rubbish lately, but nevertheless that won't stop the problem and I've ordered a 3TB drive to replace this one.

I also have a 2TB drive for home videos from the camcorder.

Anyway, all this got me thinking about backups.
Currently my backup solution is just a 500GB portable hard disk for the pictures + a 2TB external hard drive for the videos, and I plug them in every so often and run manual backups using some software to mirror the disk. I feel quite vulnerable doing this (specially since the disks are very close to the computer...)

Basically, the point of this thread (we're talking about windows 7 here):

- What I'm considering is getting some kind of NAS system which will always be available for automatic backups. Any recommendations?
- I would also be interested in a cloud based backup for offline storage. Are there any reasonable priced ones that can handle this volume of data for maybe a few $ a month? as it's just archival it doesn't really need quick access, just reliability. Edit: thinking about it this might take a few months to upload - maybe this isn't practical for the videos and might need to convert all the pictures to jpegs or back up catalog + smart previews
- I'm not particularly interested in the RAID route because I don't really have enough SATA ports or the money to upgrade, I would rather have offsite backups than spend money on something that only protects against the failure of that one disk.
- I don't think it's practical for me to actually physically put a disk somewhere else all the time with a back up on it
- For backing up to a NAS - one of my concerns is that some virus or user error perhaps deletes everything on the main drive without me realising, then the automatic backup just mirrors that deletion and deletes everything for the backup as well. Is there any good backup software that protects against this kind of thing? (I'm thinking something like time machine on the mac might be like this as you have a history for all the files? Is the windows 7 backup any good / flexible enough for backing up 2 drives?)
- Same for the cloud...

As a bonus I'd quite like to make my lightroom catalog (all RAW files) browsable from the NAS in jpeg form, so that they can be viewed from android or pushed over DLNA etc., which I think is doable by adding everything in to a publish collection using jeffrey friedl's folder publisher plugin - anyone else done this? Thinking it might get slow with a xx,000 image catalog. Any other ideas?

Feel free to share your backup plan

Thanks

 

[Raymond Lin]

Step 1

iMac - Thunderbolt into Western Digital 2TB Duo running RAID 1 (mirror).

Photos at this stage being worked on. This is what LR sees.

The file structure is basically 2014 – Date – RAW/Jpeg for client/jpeg for facebook/etc

Step 2

When all done and processed, delete rejected photos, convert all to DNG

Step 3

Copy all to NAS

The NAS – I have a Drobo holding my photos, it runs BeyondRAID, similar to RAID 5.

I also have a Netgear 104 ReadyNAS that runs X-RAID, again, similar to RAID 5. I use that for my media.

I also run Crashplan which is pointed to my Drobo.

Finally, I also run Time Capsule, this copy my iMac's HDD to it. So the Time Capsule has a copy of the icrat. Which means at any one time, I have 2 copies of the library, and 2 copies of the RAW files.

The above is not cheap, a Time Capsule is about £200, a WD Duo is £400+. a Drobo with HDDs x 5 is about £1k. Crashplan is £8 a month. But if offers to most cover your backside approach every step of the way from working files to archive.

 

[An Exception]

2tb Internal Raid 1
2 more internal 4tb drives for time machine backups
4tb AC wifi time capsule

 

[JBuk]

I use a synology ds212 with 2 x2tb drives , raid set for one drive mirroring the other

I upload everything into there via Lightroom from the off

I try not to hoard files these days so I get rid of most the crap after a quick review

With 10yrs worth of photos I'm not even quarter way full yet, and at some point I can always convert them to jpg and keep for nostalgia

 

[An Exception]

^^^
Probably better to convert to compressed DNG than Jpg. You basically get almost standard raw quality/flexibility but even smaller than jpg.
The downside is that adobe control the file format, rather than it being an open standard.

 

[CGrieves]

I have three copies of all my photos- one in Google drive- £6 per month for 1TB, and Google sync keeps copies on my laptop at home and my PC at work. When I set up my home desktop again I'll store a copy there too.

Pics.io lets me view and edit RAWs stored in Google Drive in a browser without even needing the file locally, so I can pull out and process RAWs pretty much anywhere.

I used to have a 2TB RAID1 NAS and a VMware ESXi host at home running my own private cloud, with a Terminal Services server for remote working, but to be honest it still felt "eggs in one basket" compared to google drive.