Posted by Mitch Erwin on November 27, 2006 at 1:10 PM
I am sure this topic has been covered numerous times on here and in photo flow work conversations, but I have just started backing up pics taken in RAW format on external hard drives. I was wondering what others do on here: Do you back up the RAW photo only or RAW and your converted reworked photo? Thanks for all responses.
Posted by Steve Foss on November 27, 2006 at 4:23 PM
I back up the original captures I keep, as well as reworked images ready for printing, on a 280Gb Maxtor hard drive and on CD or DVD, keeping one set of CD/DVD in my office and a second set somewhere else. There's often a lot of time spent turning a RAW image into something special in pp, so I back that up when I'm done so I don't have recreate it if something crashes and burns.
I back up the Raw files and also my converted/completed master files which I save as 16bit psd files (unflattened).
Backed up to a Western Digital Premium external hard drive,also plan on making a further back-up copy to DVD.
I back up my RAW and reworked files onto 2 HD's. I use SyncNow Pro to do this. I plan to also DVD them, but there is a new format being discussed, so I am waiting for now.
Posted by Bill Langton on November 27, 2006 at 8:45 PM
Mitch...
With huge external hard drives being so cheap these days, I mirror ALL my image files on two separate external drives as well as my primary internal drive. I also back all original RAW files to DVD's and store off site. If you are using a PC, Microsoft has a free power toy called "Synch Toy" that allows for quick and dirty mirroring on several drives.
Good luck...
Bill
Posted by Dan Borzynski on November 27, 2006 at 9:40 PM
I pretty much save everything. The RAW/scan as a source file, in case if I ever decide to come back to a file and rework it. I've have done this on more than one occassion, especially with my earlier material, and with newer images as I learn. The worked up file which I am happy with, as a print source file. Finally, all print files for various sizes. The last is for print sales. I don't have to recrop and resharpen, just hit print. On some occasions, this means I have 6 or 7 different versions of the same file, but they are all clearly labelled.
Of course, the downside that hings need to be nicely sorted. I have been putting that off until recently, and with something like 10,000 files on the hard drive, it has been a non-trivial task. Part of the problem is that I had things archived in a couple of places, but a lot of the time has simply been in sorting. It is time well spent, though. Before, rather than after
Posted by Jim Goldstein on November 27, 2006 at 10:42 PM
Similar to other people here I have a mirrored drive setup that I store my RAW and PSD files on. I also am burning these files to DVD. I have a media safe for fire protection, but its not large enough to store every DVD so I'm going to have to work on an off site solution. If I move to an off site back up solution I'm likely going to store DVDs and rotate a harddrive on a regular basis. Ideally I'd like to set up a RAID 5 array for better redundancy in my HD backups.
Posted by Jack Graham on November 27, 2006 at 10:46 PM
Guys....this ain't complicated. Backup, backup and then .........guess what ...backup again!!!.
I predict that off site backup systems will become the norm in the next year or two. How cheap is a hard drive vs. the lost of the original image ---Raw or jpeg''d.
Another recommendation is to have 2 internal HD's===1 for your windows or OP system and program files and the other for pre- backuped images. That way if & when your op system crashed...guess what you have your 2nd HD to ( in most cases) to fall back on.
Western Digital and others ( I like LaCie HD's) is coming out soon, ( if not already) with a terabyte (sp) external!.
Didn't terabytes fly around in Jurrassic park?
JG
Posted by Mel Ladewig on November 28, 2006 at 12:30 AM
This is my system.
PC - 2 hard drives. 1 for OS and Apps, the other for data.
OS & Apps backed up with Acronis True Image. Cummulative backups are performed monthly through a scheduled process.
Data Backed up with SyncBackSE. Data is backed up nightly through a scheduled process.
Buffallo Terrastation NAS - 2X250 RAID 1 Arrays (1TB of total disk). OS backup and other stuff goes to one of the arrays. Photography gets sent to the other array. This is now on a UPS. I got tired of losing power then needing to deal with the 3 hour reboot/validate disks process. This is not a problem under a regular shutdown.
DVD-R or CD-R A backup of the image catalog is stored on optical media.
This was very simple to setup and is even easier to maintain. The system emails me if there was a problem during one of the nightly backups.
Posted by Tam Stuart on November 29, 2006 at 8:04 PM
I now use mirrored internal hard drives for real-time protection against a hard drive crash. I experienced my first mass storage failure in 25 years this June, and it was a real kick in the head. I also backup the entire My Documents directory to one of two external HDs. I keep one of the external HDs in my house for the weekly bakcups. Once a month, I exchange the external HDs, the second of which is kept off site. The external HDs are my theft/fire/disaster protection.
I have also been storing all my images (RAW and edited) on DVDs, but it would be a huge job to reorganize things from the DVDs They've been re-edited, moved, renamed, etc. since first being stored.
Discussion
9 repliesBacked up to a Western Digital Premium external hard drive,also plan on making a further back-up copy to DVD.
With huge external hard drives being so cheap these days, I mirror ALL my image files on two separate external drives as well as my primary internal drive. I also back all original RAW files to DVD's and store off site. If you are using a PC, Microsoft has a free power toy called "Synch Toy" that allows for quick and dirty mirroring on several drives.
Good luck...
Bill
Of course, the downside that hings need to be nicely sorted. I have been putting that off until recently, and with something like 10,000 files on the hard drive, it has been a non-trivial task. Part of the problem is that I had things archived in a couple of places, but a lot of the time has simply been in sorting. It is time well spent, though. Before, rather than after
I predict that off site backup systems will become the norm in the next year or two. How cheap is a hard drive vs. the lost of the original image ---Raw or jpeg''d.
Another recommendation is to have 2 internal HD's===1 for your windows or OP system and program files and the other for pre- backuped images. That way if & when your op system crashed...guess what you have your 2nd HD to ( in most cases) to fall back on.
Western Digital and others ( I like LaCie HD's) is coming out soon, ( if not already) with a terabyte (sp) external!.
Didn't terabytes fly around in Jurrassic park?
JG
PC - 2 hard drives. 1 for OS and Apps, the other for data.
OS & Apps backed up with Acronis True Image. Cummulative backups are performed monthly through a scheduled process.
Data Backed up with SyncBackSE. Data is backed up nightly through a scheduled process.
Buffallo Terrastation NAS - 2X250 RAID 1 Arrays (1TB of total disk). OS backup and other stuff goes to one of the arrays. Photography gets sent to the other array. This is now on a UPS. I got tired of losing power then needing to deal with the 3 hour reboot/validate disks process. This is not a problem under a regular shutdown.
DVD-R or CD-R A backup of the image catalog is stored on optical media.
This was very simple to setup and is even easier to maintain. The system emails me if there was a problem during one of the nightly backups.
I have also been storing all my images (RAW and edited) on DVDs, but it would be a huge job to reorganize things from the DVDs They've been re-edited, moved, renamed, etc. since first being stored.