How do we store pictures files now?

<p>Hello Guys</p>

<p>Having shot digital for a while, I have a problem about how to store my picture files. I use to burn CD and DVD for keeping those files, or store them in hard disk drives. However, for several years the CD/DVD turn bad and a reader cannot read them anymore, this same thing happen to the hard disk too. Actually, I've planned to buy a new 1 tetrabite hard disk for picture files storage, but I not quite sure about it reliability and afraid that it will corrupt. So I would like to ask for suggestion about the best way that we can use for store pictures file now.<br>

Thanks</p>

<p>"this same thing happen to the hard disk too" - Is this what you have heard, or has this actually happened to you? I've never lost a picture file on a HD were the HD it self did not go bad. They way I get around that is to do a once a month off-site back up to another HD.</p>

<p>Dear Sheldon<br>

I am actually have problem with hard disks for several times since I start using computer. they were just crash, and I lost all my data and work. Around 7-8 years ago storage price was very high but I decided to buy an external hard drive for my back up, it such a burden to do so though.<br>

But the hard disk was broken again. I estimate that its life is about 5 years, just about the same as period of warranty of most hard disk manufacturers. Now, I heard about online storage but I'm not sure about this too. So I still try to find the best way available for storage my Data and valuable pictures files. ( In the past we just keep our slides or negative well)</p>

 

<p>I use external hard disk WD Passport to store all my photos and videos. You can get a 500gb WD Passport external hard drive for $99 today. The HD is more reliable than the DVD disc. I had few DVD disc cannot be read after a couple years. </p>

<p>I dump all my files on an external 1TB hard disk, and have a 1:1 mirror of it each time there's an addition. No problems so far. Test your backups.<br>

Yes, drives die after a few years, which is why you always have a 1:1 backup, always. Make sure your backup drive is from a different manufacturer, or at least a different batch.</p>

<p>I use an external hard drive, DVD's with files saved as DNG, and online hosting of clients files.</p>

<p>I put an internal HD in my PC and use a shadow back up programme to instantly save picture and work files to it, duplicating what is stored on the PC. Cost for an 1TB eSATA drive and cable was low. This same drive contains an entire system back up so I can restore the PC if the existing drives fail. I also have a MacBook connected to the PC netwrok via a Time Capsule. This has all the data and picture files I need stored on it too; there are NO files on the Mac. If my highly used and portable Mac gets lost, broken or stolen I only loose anything I was working on at the time. I never format a CF card until I have saved the pictures on it to at least 2 locations. </p>

<p>When I'm on the road. I carry 2 different usb external drives (WD Passports). I copy from the camera to one of the drives, the copy it from there to another usb drive.</p>

<p>When I get home, I have them stored on two different raid 5 storage devices AND I write them to DVDs.</p>

<p>I also back them up to an external USB drive, once I fill that up, I store it at a friends house.</p>

<p>Sounds like alot, I know, however, in the past....</p>

<ul>

<li>I had scanned 5000 slides, 5000 negatives only to lose all that work to hard drive that died, forcing me to re-do all that work. Not fun.</li>

<li>I had a computer that died and when it did, it managed to "scribble" all over a drive, I lost nearly 3 months worth of digital photos</li>

</ul>

 

<p>I use an internal HD and an external HD.<br>

All my files are on both HD's.</p>

<p>Until now I´ve never lost a picture.</p>

<p>(I shoot digital for 5 years now but only 2 years moderately intense. All in all about 25.000 pics. This is in no way a large amount. For that "ask the professional".)</p>

<p>I store them on hard drives, but I keep multiple versions of all files and at least one set off site. Files are stored as follows:<br>

1. Original Photoshop files stored on an internal computer hard drive. Original RAW files stored on an external drive attached to the same computer.</p>

<p>2. One backup set of all files (both entire drives, actually) on backup volume attached to another computer on my local network using on backup application that updates the backup set automatically every hour and which holds old versions of files for at least the past month.</p>

<p>3. Second backup on separate volumes attached to the other computer on the network using a separate backup application (saves the backup in a somewhat different format) that backups up each volume every other day. The redundancy protects against a problem with the backup application/method.</p>

<p>4. Third backup using yet another backup application to an external hard drive that is stored at an off-site location. This backup contains only photo files (Photoshop version and all RAW files) and is updated every week or two.</p>

<p>To some this may seem obsessive and overdone. Anyone who has ever lost critical files will probably spot a thing or two that I could do to make this more secure/redundant.</p>

<p>My PC has 2 hard drives. The first for the operating system and programs, and the second for data only. Thus the second drive will last much longer (I have Windows adjusted to turn off idle hard drives after 10 minutes). Once a week I back up my photos to two separate Western Digital passport portable hard drives (two complete backups). I only add the new or modified files so this process takes less than 10 minutes. Once a year I copy all my photos to DVD. I keep the previous years DVD backup as well plus obviously the brand new backup and throw away the backup from two years ago. I therefore always have two full DVD copies of my photos. Since recordable DVD's are fairly cheap this isn't too bad a price to pay for my peace of mind. I have over 20,000 stored photos, some are of scans from film of relatives that are over 120 years old.</p>

<p >This is a problem that keeps us all awake at night (well me anyway!).</p>

<p > </p>

<p >There is no perfect solution. However some practices are just asking for trouble.</p>

<p >- Never put data on the same HD as your OS</p>

<p >- CDs or DVDs are not suited to archival storage (far too fragile!)</p>

<p >- Always store your data in more than 1 location </p>

<p > </p>

<p >There are other obvious things to do/not do but the above should do for now.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Things to consider:</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Storage is cheap! Replacing lost data is: impossible, expensive or time consuming!</p>

<p > </p>

<p ></p>

<p >Consider potential threats to your files and have a solution eg:</p>

<p >- HD failure (very likely)</p>

<p >- Human error (what if you delete the wrong folder then don’t notice for 3 months)</p>

<p >- Other computer failure (eg virus)</p>

<p >- Power spike (can blow all powered up equipment)</p>

<p >- Fire, flood, earthquake etc. </p>

 

<p>No matter what "at home" solution you use (a set of two inexpensive 2T drives, each configured as RAID, is fine and should last a while...) make sure that your infrastructure (electricity and network) has GOOD surge protectors and that you keep at least one set of current backups in a different physical location: all your backups are for nought if your house burns down and I have seen many hard drives and computers fried by electrical surges coming both from electrical system and from network/telephone cables. A good solution is an off-line storage company such as Mozy. Just shell out some $$ for a subscription-based service (much faster) and perform your backups often.</p>

<p>I have 2 internal hard drives used exclusively for image files (there's actually a total of 4 drives in there). I put all my image files into the first, and regularly copy to the second, using a utility that syncronizes content, ie: if a file is deleted on the first, it deletes it on the second.</p>

<p>The main danger with hard drives is simple failure. With 2 drives, your odds of simutaenious (sic, as needed) failure are near zero.</p>

<p>There is also the lesser but still real possibilty of something catastrophic, ie: your computer is stolen, burns up due to an electrical short, you house burns down, etc. For that, I rely on double DVD burns, with one off-site.</p>

<p>I have a partition on internal hard-drive just for photos and a folder on an external drive. I use the internal drive for working because the external is connected through USB which is slow. Running a couple of drives in raid is probably the most reliable home backup solution, but I figure the chance of both of my drives taking a dump at the same time is minimal.<br /> <br /> Offsite solutions are nice, but if you were going to backup every photo the uploads would take forever.<br /> <br /> DVDs are also a pain in my opinion. You have to burn them, catalog them, protect them from the elements, etc. I've went to pull files off of old ones before and the DVD or CD was unreadable/gone bad. Probably not an ideal backup solution.</p>

<p>Apart from photography which I always did as a second job, I worked in IT for 22 years. Here are a few home truths which no one told you when you went digital.<br>

Hard drives fail and you lose data unless you have access to specialists in data extraction and that's expensive. External drives are vulnerable to head bounce, no matter what the manufacturers say. And being magnetic media, one that head touches the drive surface it's goodbye data. Optical drives can get scratched but offer more tolerance to being moved around. But by far the biggest problem is operating system and utility software version incompatibility. And this one won't go away. When you see that little window pop up on your Windows computer called auto updates, you are in Apache territory. Always click to see what is being updated.<br>

The versions of the computer operating systems change, and when you move from one computer to another new one, it usually changes. Unless you can ensure that you also keep upgrading the systems utilities that created the data for your backup as well, you may face compatibility problems in the future. Hard drives that are five years old don't go bad, its just that the later operating systems can't read the formats anymore.<br>

For instance, Microsoft now does not officially support XP (here come the screams!). This means that future versions of Windows from 7 onwards are not guaranteed to support data structures and file systems created with XP and earlier. Did the salesman tell you that when you opted not to go Vista. And with MS, upgrading to a whole new version of Windows can mean an HDD format. Applications are another example. Office Word 2007 onwards saves documents by default as .docx. This format cannot be read by earlier versions of word. Its MS's effort to make word documents readable in a browser. Its an XML format. MS is good enough to allow you to save in earlier versions as .doc....for the moment, but not forever. Its the same with data storage, but I do not know of any storage software that has a similar utility. MS is bad at forwards compatibility. The Apple OS is better at that...see below.<br>

NEVER use CD's or DVD's that are REWRITABLE for long term storage. They are dye based. They do go off. Use only "write once" media for this or for giving to clients, and always tell them the version of the operating system and what utility software you used so they can also keep transferring their beloved photos in sync with upgrades to their own operating systems or utility software.<br>

About the only PC based operating system that offers a degree of long backwards compatibility and to a degree, forwards compatibility in file storage, is Unix and its derivatives Linux and Apple's OS. IBM's mainframe OS, MVS, also does, but you won't have that, will you? But even MVS has issues. Its the one reason why banks etc are having a hell of a time migrating off their legacy systems to real time processing. The upgrading of archived data is very expensive. Our biggest bank here, CBA, is spending $600m just on this task alone.<br>

Today, here in 2009, the only medium for long term storage that is guaranteed to last, is film. Funny about that.</p>

<p>Hands up those of you out there who worked in the era before PC's, mobile phones and pagers? Life was so much simpler wasn't it? You wrote everyting down, like the Egyptians, and that data doesn't go off.</p>

<p><a href="http://carbonite.com/">Carbonite</a>.com Unlimited storage space. $50 a year. Use it along side your own drives at home.</p>

<p>Man, you guys make it sound bleak. How about using online backups somewhere? Granted, it'll take forever to back up the gigs of photos, but aside from leaving leaving the computer on for a few days, the only downside I can think of is if someone grabs your data. In that case...encrypted archives/disk images?</p>

<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with old fashioned LTO4 or DLT tape drives. since going to the Canon 5d Mark II 21 MP and HD Video, I have standardized on Seagate Free Agent 1.5 TB ESATA external drives. Best deal for the money on th emarket. I backup all my stuff to LTO4 1.5 TB tape drives. More expensive than disks, but I can store over 800 GB per small tape and they have a 100+ years certified life span. By the way these tapes are actually faster than disks when backing up data disk to disk.</p>

 

<p>I always tell friends that they really should look into NAS-based RAIDs. D-Link sells one which I use and I like it quite a bit - has two slots for drives, costs less than $200, and can be configured as a RAID or JBOD. And since it resides away from the PC, you're not vulnerable to PC-based failures as well. While its going to be somewhat slower than having it in PC, if your network is gigabit level, the difference in speed is not drastic.</p>

<p>But nobody ever follows up on that. I think drive failure for a lot of people is like terrorism, floods, or any other stochastic phenomenon - they don't think it will happen and can't imagine the chaos of life if it does, and so they don't do anything to insure against it. Or put it another way, it doesn't happen until it does.</p>

<p>I use 3 Rosewell external closures. Each hold 2, 1 TB SATA drives. 6 TB just in my external drives. They are shared accross my network and 3 work stations access it all day lone. They have on-board fans that keep the drives cool. Even with all that storage, I STILL burn my pictures to Quality DVD-Rs. In 2005 I shot a wedding and last July (2009) the bride called me becuse she lost her CD during her recent move. I have lost plenty of hard drives but knock on wood I have not lost ONE DVD. v/r Buffdr</p>

<p>I work hard to always maintain 3 copies of each image. One on Western Digital Passport Drives (160-500 GB drives) which are portable and readily stored anywhere, one on Raid 5 2nd Gen Drobo drives ( I use these as my working files), and one on a 2 TB Western Digital drive that is used for archive purposes. My archive drives are stored off site as well. Except for my Drobo drives and my current archive drive (2009), all drives are periodically checked for functionality and stored at a site different than my primary source. <br>

Over the years, I have had to replace a failed drive, but not lost a primary picture file so far. That goes back to 2001... but I am knocking on wood as I speak.<br>

It requires diligence and capital. I decided a long time ago that DVD store would simply not work as a typical project ranges in the 2-7 GB.</p>

<p>Use blu ray. The ones that Deklin makes is rated to last 100 years. </p>

<p>Can I give a word of warning about DVDs. I'm an associate at an architects practice, we <em>used</em> to regularly archive projects to DVD (2 copies 1 off site) - architecural work is probably one of the few area where file sizes are even higher than photographic requirements - so this was running into the 100s of DVDs (x2).</p>

<p>We recently had to recall files from archive, and - you guessed it - the local DVD copy was bad, the back up was also bad. We then did a random trawl through various other DVDs and found - from a tested sample - the failure rate was probably at about 10%. We were actually tremendously lucky, I'm a bit paranoid, and have copies of files all over the place - every time a PC is decommissioned I fill the hard-drive up. We actually only lost 1 project - and that was a minor one that I hope we never have to retrieve.</p>

<p>Our regime is now:</p>

<ul>

<li>Server (RAID) - 2 hard drives mirrored</li>

<li>Daily Tape Backup (1/week off site) - this is our most used back-up device, and we find ourselves doing a file restore from tape probably 1 every 2 weeks to recover lost work deleted or changed in error, or simply to revert to a previous version of a file.</li>

<li>Live copying of saved files to local external drive (although this is not accessible in daily use to ensure people don't accidently start writing over backups)</li>

<li>Archived projects get copied to 2 other external drives (these are in effect a copy of everything the practice has ever done) - these are upgraded regularly as capacities increase. 1 of these is always off site (we rotate them monthly when we go through the archive process).</li>

</ul>

<p>The most likely failure is one a file becoming corrupted / overwritten, followed in ascending order of likelihood; hard-drive failure, hardware failure (requiring whole PC to be out of action for a period), damage, theft, fire or other catastrophic incident.</p>

<p>Martin</p>

<p>I heard a story recently of a couple who lost every single image of their children growing up. The had their house burgled and both their laptops went missing with their backup hard drives sitting beside them. The only solution is to have three hard drives at least - one in the computer your using, one in your home / office / workshop and one off site somewhere. I am a little nervous of using online backup due to a bad experience a few years ago.<br>

BT wiped 50 GB of pictures I had backed up with them because of direct debit problem at the bank. This was not my mistake but a bank mistake. I was working away and by the time I called them to deal with the problem they had removed my account and ditched all the information I had stored with them. The time between the failed payment and me contacting them was about a week. Not really an effective backup.<br>

I agree with KS that storage is cheap and if you use an apple computer then time machine makes backup so much easier.</p>