Best method to store huge amounts of photos?

[v15ben]

Folks,

I want to back up my photo and music collection. Turns out I have about 17,000 shots from the past 6 years on my laptop!

What is the best method to back them all up? External HDD? Put them online with Flickr (have a pro account already) or another provider? Something else?

Answers on a postcard would be greatly appreciated

[threespires]

I do both, Flickr & HDD's - more than one 'coz they fail.

[crmcatee]

onto two HDD drives and then take one into the office for safe keeping and rotate on an as and when basis e.g. once a month or so.

[v15ben]

Thanks for the replies so far
I'm looking at 2 HDDs (one at my apartment, one at the missus' apartment) and have put plenty on Flickr today!

[Whitefly Swatter]

What about one of these?



http://www.dabs.com/products/netgear-stora-2-bay-d...

add a couple of big disc's

[14-7]

Whitefly Swatter said:

What about one of these?



http://www.dabs.com/products/netgear-stora-2-bay-d...

add a couple of big disc's

I have one and I'd avoid it if I bought another network drive.

The interface software isn't exactly what I would describe as good and you have to create an account with the third party developer (who developed the software) on t'interweb in order to access some functions.

[davidd]

I have the raws and jogs on a machine at home, backed up to a separate disk, with a copy in the office and I upload all the jpgs to smugmug....

[Diabolik]

Would Flickr actually allow 17k photo's or do they have a backup service?

I would go for 2 HDDs personally. Could also pop some onto a few DVD discs cheaply too.

[tinman0]

v15ben said:

Folks,

I want to back up my photo and music collection. Turns out I have about 17,000 shots from the past 6 years on my laptop!

What is the best method to back them all up? External HDD? Put them online with Flickr (have a pro account already) or another provider? Something else?

Most cost effective way - external drive and stick it in a draw. Do the occasional back up, and stick it back in the draw. That's what I do.

(75,000 pictures in 5-6 years lol)

[Skodaku]

Or you could use an Apple Time Capsule.............wireless router and back-up combined. After initial back up it will run back-ups wirelessly on a routine basis. Comes in 1TB and 2TB sizes; which I'm guessing is more than a few piccys.

Review here :

www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/networking-and-wi...

[RobDickinson]

Does that work with windows machines?

With a windows machine for basics I'd (and have for now) slap on a USB hdd and use windows backup schedule it once a week.

If you want to get more complex wioth a NAS then get a raid one and again use windows backup to it or store your stuff on there from the start.

[cottonfoo]

Just remember external hard drives can fail just as easily (ofter more easily) than an internal.

RAID, 1 at a minimum, is storage, not a backup. Make physical copies and/or store online using some online backup service. It all comes down to how important the data is to you. If you're not that bothered, stick it on an external drive and put it in a drawer.

[tinman0]

cottonfoo said:

Just remember external hard drives can fail just as easily (ofter more easily) than an internal.

Don't forget that with an external you still have 2 copies in existence.

[RobDickinson]

Studies (google etc) seem to sugest that storing data on multiple hard drives is enough for redundancy.

RAID is pretty much all about uptime, but if your going to store stuff in 1 place and you realy want to keep it make sure its raid.

If you cant live without it kepe it in more than 1 physical location.

[v15ben]

Thanks for the ideas everyone.
Definitely more research to do into the different types of storage, but current thoughts are to use an online back-up alongside an external HDD and the HDD on my laptop. Should cover most bases as much as possible I guess.

[crmcatee]

RobDickinson said:

Studies (google etc) seem to sugest that storing data on multiple hard drives is enough for redundancy.

RAID is pretty much all about uptime, but if your going to store stuff in 1 place and you realy want to keep it make sure its raid.

I'd never store everything in one place. A break in, a fire, a flood - all of these could make your RAID useless.

[xrrr]

I use backblaze.com to backup over the internet plus a cheap NAS box. My post processed images go onto one or more of Flickr, Photoshelter or a stock site.

If it is a one off backup then consider a couple of DVDs that you ask a friend or family to look after an extra copy of.

[GlenMH]

Dropbox and a Raid 1 NAS for me, + the hard drive in my PC for working copies.

[wolves_wanderer]

I used to archive onto 2 HDs by month and job number and then transfer to DVDs

[daveake]

xrrr said:

I use backblaze.com to backup over the internet

That one looks interesting - unlimited for a good price, and gets good reviews. Might give that a try.

At present I keep all my photos in 2 separate locations (main PC and a file server in the garage) with an automated daily copy from one to the other, plus I take copies manually onto a third drive that normally sits in a cupboard. Having an online backup too makes a lot of sense.

Dave