Storing Files - Carbonite or Not?

[rfader]

<p>Was just hoping to get up-to-date opinions on whether to back-up photos to Carbonite or not. For $54.95 a year with unlimited storage space and remote access to backed-up files, it seems like a great solution and a no-brainer. This seems like a perfect solution for photographers. Am I wrong?</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>This is not an archiving option. Several on-line backup services have gone out of business with little or no warning, with their clients' files lost in the process. At best, a service like Carbonite is used for short term back and restoration. Secondly, it can take several hours, even on a fast connection (e.g., DSL) to upload 4G of files - the contents of a single CF card (considered on the small side these days).</p>

<p>Put your money into external disc storage, which is a cheap, fast and effective for short-term backup. It is fairly easy to set up an automatic synchronization scheme for selected directories, whole disks or the operating system itself. Hard drive files require maintenance, both for content and quality. The magnetic domains are continually refreshed when the drive is running, but fade and print through when idle, with significant losses in a few months or years. Drives also fail, with a MTBF of about 20,000 hours. I have over 20 drives, which means I can expect about two drives a year to fail.</p>

<p>Long-term storage or archiving requires something else. My choice is to use CDs and DVDs, which are long-lasting and cannot be accidently overwritten nor erased. Because the process is slow, it is best done on an ongoing basis. Perhaps the best archival medium for photos is prints, which require no special technology to read.</p>

[acedigital]

<p>Here is a great review of online backup services, alas they may not provide enough storage for many serious photographers with over 50gb of storage, but if you only back up critical stuff, may be good combined with offline storage. I just got a 2TB Maxtor external drive for $99 so do both<br>

. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp</p>

[WJT]

<p>On-line storage only makes sense as a second or third tier solution to protect your data from a catastrophic local incident, as in your house burning down. As Mr. Ingold suggests, some of these companies evaporate without warning. Also, if you need the data and your internet connection is down what do you do?. Even at my office with dedicated lines we lose the internet occasionally.<br /><br />As I shoot film, I archivally store my chromes and negatives in good PAT compliant binders. I scan what I deem worthy and keep a copy on an external drive for ready retrieval. I also have CD and DVD copies for permanent storage (well, as permanent as they can be). Regards.</p>

[garrison_k.]

<blockquote>

<p>My choice is to use CDs and DVDs, which are long-lasting and cannot be accidently overwritten nor erased.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, me too. Or flood. And home-made discs are less likely to be stolen than hard ware. It's so easy to burn a $0.20 dvd.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>On-line storage only makes sense as a second or third tier solution to protect your data from a catastrophic local incident.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agree 100%. Sadly though, many don't even burn dvd's for archiving and seem to feel just mechanical drives covers their arse. A cloud alternative might help them save data.</p>

<p>I'd still upload as we're moving to cloud computing so we should get used to the idea. Adobe wants Indesign CS6 cloud based beta and hopefully CS7 Photoshop for us.</p>

<p>An alternative to a paid service like Carbonite, and with a company that I don't think is going anywhere soon, is with Google and Google Docs. There's a couple ways you can go. You can either get a gmail address and buy extra storage for cheap, or you can open an account if you have your own domain. Most of us do have our own domains, but it not, it's $8/yr with godaddy and the likes. For free, you are allowed 50 users with a Google Account and each user gets 7 gig if i remember right. When you run out space, you just create another user and give that user sharing rights to the master user. The paid service is $50/yr I think, but it allows 25 gig per user. That's like 1.2TB</p>

<p> </p>

[mariosforsos]

<p>Hmm...the cloud. Sounds wonderful. A question though: does ANYONE here have any idea how long it would take me to upload (and I do have a 21MBps DSL connection with a VERY decent upload ratio) 750GB of images? At my current sustainable rates, I estimate it at around 400 days of CONTINUOUS uploading or something (WITHOUT any other internet activity at the same time!) And that assumes the on-line storage solution I choose WILL give me 750GB of storage for a normal price (i.e. LESS than my 2TB Firewire drives) AND that my connection will not drop even once!</p>

<p>Oh, the above numbers assume that for the next 400 days I do NOT shoot a single image, because if I do (and I usually produce around 16-20GB of images per job), the number goes up exponentially...</p>

<p>But that's only the UPLOAD. Say a client wants to sit with you and edit images (which can happen in large commercial projects)! This means you have to DOWNLOAD 5-10GB of his data, work on them and THEN upload them back up! More time...</p>

<p>I agree that IN THEORY, online backup is safe. That however is based on a number of assumptions which simply do not hold to any serious scrutiny: first, it assumes the company you're working with will NOT go belly-up. Sure, Google might not, but who's to guarantee that in a couple of years, Google does not decide to simply close down the storage facility or reduce it? Nobody. And where are you left then? Having to UPLOAD everything somewhere else! Not very funny... Second, it assumes that your internet connection will be up and running (AND at the required speeds) all the time you need it - again, something which you cannot guarantee and really, you cannot use the "your images are online and my internet is down so I cannot provide you with this or that" defence with a client. Not if you expect to get paid or get another job in the future. Third, who's to say the remote company does not not suffer a failure and some of your files do not get damaged? It has happened and will happen again in the future as more and more companies jump into the bandwagon, often without the necessary infrastructure.</p>

<p>DVDs are not safe either - UNLESS you take EXTREME precautions in preparing and storing them, in temperature and humidity controlled areas, away from ALL possible detrimental factors and that, every couple of years or so, you re-read each disc and a good sampling of the files contained therein for data accuracy. Hell, even the sheer pressure of a few dozen or hundred discs on top of each other can cause failures!</p>

<p>The hard drive solution is, at the moment, by far the most secure and long-lived solution. As long as you do it properly. You don't store all your images on one drive - you store them in three, with one of them being rotated off-site every few days or a week. You test each and every disc once a month for bad sectors and you defragment them. You connect them onto your UPS and keep them away from direct sunlight and water (don't laugh, if I had a penny for every time someone told me his drive died because he spilled liquid on it, I'd have enough to buy me another 2TB drive!) And, whenever those discs approach 90% capacity, you SWAP them with bigger ones OR, if you have Firewire or Ethernet drives, you can daisy-chain more of them on.</p>

<p>After all, there MUST be a reason both NG and Conde Nast and MANY other publications store images on drives and not in the cloud...</p>

[mattb1]

Before getting one of the on-line back ups, check to see what your ISP has your monthly transfer limits. Not all

unlimited plans are actually unlimited, most are like 5 gigs per month the last time I checked.

 

Also, I stay far a way from any optical disks. Too fragile: scratches, warping, dirt, laser alignment and manufacture

tollerances. To me these all point to a significant amount of unreadable disks sooner than I would want in a back up.

[garrison_k.]

<blockquote>

<p>This means you have to DOWNLOAD 5-10GB of his data, work on them and THEN upload them back up! More time...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You'll be working on them in the cloud, Marios. Once your files are up there, it will be the fastest computer you have ever used. File size wont matter as everything will behave as fast as your browser. In theory, anyways.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The hard drive solution is, at the moment, by far the most secure and long-lived solution.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I disagree that there is a "solution" in one medium. You're not covered until you have dvd and hard drive copies. One more copy "in the cloud" is a benefit, imo.</p>

[garrison_k.]

<blockquote>

<p>Also, I stay far a way from any optical disks. Too fragile: scratches, warping, dirt, laser alignment and manufacture tollerances. To me these all point to a significant amount of unreadable disks sooner than I would want in a back up.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It takes very little to screw up a mechanical hard drive. Hurricane Katrina victims for instance, were able to rinse off and use their dvd's. Those with mechanical hard drives in computers lost data.</p>

<p>It's easy to burn a $0.25 dvd as you make data. You just get in the habit of doing it.</p>

[Mike D]

<p>I looked into Carbonite but would outgrew the space allowed very quickly. Instead, I rotate external hard drives on my home computer on a quarterly basis. The quarterly backups I'm not in the process of using for backups are stored at work, about 20 miles away. The one thing I really like about external hard drives is that when I copy all my FrontPage files to them, I can actually operate FrontPage from the backed up files. You can't do that from CD's and DVDs. I've tried. There might be other programs and files that experience the same problem.</p>

[alan_goldhammer]

<p>I just backed up 49 GB to Mozy last week. I do have two redundant hard drives with my data on them but since retirement, don't have an offsite storage location any longer. I was looking at cloud storage as an emergency system in the case of a major catastrophe (primarily house burning down as where I live flooding is not an issue). Uploading is on the slow side and it took about 5 work 15 hour days to get the back up done (computer was turned off overnight). The one thing to be ware of if you are using Lightroom is that you have to manually instruct Mozy to back up the XMP files that contain all your development settings. That file extension is NOT in the default instruction set!</p>

<p>The price is $54 a year for this peace of mind.</p>

[kmahler]

<p>I had Carbonite for about a year. In short, it's a nice solution for backups however, there are some serious issues with their software for the Mac. Their client would go into a state where it was locked up but also consuming about 90% of my CPU cycles. The only remedy was a reboot.</p>

<p>Also, their claim of unlimited storage is a bit of a lie. Carbonite will only backup drives directly installed in your computer, not USB drives or Network Drives. So if you are able to keep everything you want backup on your installed HD's, it will work for you. I don't, so it was not very useful for me. </p>

<p>my .02 cents, and it's worth exactly what you paid for it. ;)</p>