Backing up Images

I am relatively new to this field, so please bear with me. I have been hearing and reading different opinions about how to back up images to get them off my computer's hard drive. Currently, I download to windows folders using HP Image Zone which came with the computer. Then, I go to "My Pictures" and name them, then I use the right mouse key to "send them to CD." I save to a CD-R, usually about 100-110 images per disc. My camera is a Pentax K10D and I shoot several hundred images a month. Since I've started selling prints, I've become concerned that I might not be saving my images the best way. Any advice or suggestions??

Allen,
I save my RAW files on the desktop until I have time to process them, Once that's done, the RAW files go to DVD, which in my case with the K10D, hold about 5-6 files folders of RAW images, up to 4.5 GB worth of files. I also backup all my processed TIFF files to both the DVD and an extra hard drive and do the same for edited Jpegs.

I only go by image numbers with the RAW files and label each DVD as such, plus the date, but the processed Tiff files go into separate file folders, one for each subject such as Flora, Avian, etc.

I believe in redundancy. A hard drive will fail - it's just a question of when. My primary hard drive is mirrored in a RAID system.

After culling the day's shoot, I copy the RAW files to a second internal hard drive. I also copy any TIFF files after processing and any JPEGs I might have created for emailing or web viewing. A daily automatic backup to an external hard drive saves all new files. Finally, I periodically copy image files to DVD.

Buck's comment reminded me that my Tiff files are on a backup internal HD (not on my C drive at all), along with the external HD!

This is a tough one because everyone has different ways of going about it. Theres a be careful message here as well. I do a lot of family research photos (for my wife) as well as all the other photo work. All saved to 3 different computers and an external hard drive. I run a free sync program called " Allway sync" , not always sync, allway sync. That automatically sees any changes in the folders and updates all folders and drives at the same time.

The Be Careful Message : Its a simple one. Keep a copy or a hard drive off site with all images. Back that up maybe once a month. I keep one at my sisters place and images are transferred from a small external usb drive to that each month.

There is absolutely no point in having a ton of backups, if they are all under the same roof. Keep one set off site.

Danny.

I have learned from experience. While I have not lost images I have had to rebuild my computer system a few times over the last 5 years or so. Here is what I do.

My tower computer has 2 HDs on it - both 500 Gig. I use one as a main drive with the OS, all the software, and images as I upload them. I use Acronis to make a back up and incremental backups on to the second drive. I like this better than RAID 1 as if a glitch gets onto the main drive the glitch is not copied to the second drive. I only copy a BU to the second drive when I am sure all is OK. I then have a complete backup of the OS and all programs that can be booted and run seamlessly if the main drive fails.

I also periodically copy all the images to an external drive and back up the external to an additional drive. Any processed TIFF images are copied to DVDs.

So I have the original on the tower twice and 2 backups on external drives with the TIFFS on DVDs. I get almost a year's worth of images on the tower. Each January I ensure the images are truly backed up with the above system and eliminate the images from the tower and start again.

BTW, the redundant external HD is stored at my office and only brought home to make the backups.

For image access I try to daisy chain the external drives with firewire connections and use Adobe Bridge to search and access.

Eventually this system will result in several "local" external Hd's with the tower HDs as well. I will end up with a few off site HDs; although now the 1 Terabyte drive I keep off site is only about 1/2 full.

I think HDs should also be run now and then to ensure the mechanical stuff gets a periodic work out. Where will it all end? Who knows? Hopefully some day a new system with even greater and more reliable storage will come up.

Is all this too compulsive? Perhaps? Unless of course you find yourself with a crashed system and all your software and images at risk.

I have mirrored external USB 2.0 drives at home. So there are two copies of each image there (RAW and derivivative TIFFs and JPGs). I also have a third external drive in a safety deposit box. I also have two sets of DVDs for RAW and derivative (and I also back up my iView catalogs)
I would recommend backing up to multiple external drives for a couple of reasons. Big external drives are dirt cheap these days and we do not yet know the true longevity of cds and dvds.
Also, hard drives are a lot quicker to access than cds and dvds. The only reason I also back up to dvd is for another layer of redundancy. They're just cheap insurance.

for other strategies for backing up, pick up a copy of The DAM Book by Peter Krogh and also visit the forums on his website.

I have a master drive and two copies. Working files are imported to my internal drive. When the images have been prepared (raw adjustments, metadata applied, ratings and labels applied, etc), they go from the internal drive to the master drive. The master drive is sync'd to one of the copy drives on a regular basis. As someone else stated, hard drives will fail - it is just a matter of when. The second of my copy drives stays in the bank safety deposit box. I rotate the two copy drives periodically so that the bank drive is relatively fresh, and so that both drives continue to get exercised. I sometimes swap the master drive with one of the copy drives. This insures that all of the drives get some exercise and some rest periods.

So far, so good for me. I have had three drives fail since I started using this method and I have not lost a single file (knock on wood).

For Mac users, I recommend RsyncX to synchronize drives. For Windows users, I recommend RoboCopy from Microsoft. Both utilities are able to keep master and slave drives perfectly in sync including added files, deleted files, and changed files. I have employed both utilities without a problem, and both are free.

Hi Toni: I don't like to "tell others what to do" unless they ask. And I may not have read enough detail into your response. So, hopefully this doesn't come across that way. But, if I may make an observation based on my own experiences? I recently attended a John Shaw Seminar and once again, heard the caution about the longevity of CD/DVD media. I have always made it a practice to archive my RAW files. I back up the RAW files AND any processed TIFF (or other formats I want to keep) -- ALL redundantly (it sounded to me like you only back up the RAW files on CD, and back up only the processed files redundantly on other media). My point is, almost daily, I am learning new ways to use Photoshop (and occasionally other software) to bring things out of a digital image that perhaps 2 years ago, I didn't think could be done. And the software options just keep getting better and better. I have always kind of thought of my RAW files as a kind of "digital negative." So I want to be sure they are THERE in case I do want to go back. Also, while I have not currently sold any of my work, I wonder if at some point a buyer will insist on having a RAW file. Just a thought.

I agree that there are as many different (good) ways to do this as there are individuals and we all have our preferred workflow. I have changed my own backup workflow at least 3 times since I started shooting digital. I started with dual CD's only. I then went to an External HD, and redundant DVDs. More recently, partly after hearing JS's thoughts, to make my own workflow (slightly) less tedious, I have moved to a redundant external HD system only (two at home and one offsite).

WOW! I've learned a lot from your responses. Thank you.

I need to get more specific in my question. I am not technologically-photographically advanced yet.

Is the process I am using to back up my jpeg files good or will I loose images? I have an external hard drive but I would like to have a separate back-up and have been using CD-RW's.

Thanks for understanding my need to rewrite my question. I didn't intend my photography interests to go as far as it has so now I having to take a look at what I am doing to secure my best images.

Thanks again.

The only thing I'd change is your discs. We've had recent failures on some CD-RWs we burned a long time back. No similar problems with either CD-Rs or DVDs. I'm in the process now of going back through the CD-RW's in our files (thankfully, few of them) rescuing undamaged files. The picture is definitely not pretty, to coin a phrase.

You might bother to web research what brand of CD's or DVD's are currently considered safest for long term storage. There has always been a lot of difference between the low and high end quality. The first generation of data CDs years ago were particularly prone to go bad. Accodingly a few years ago I made a large purchase of Taiyo Yuden CDs and DVDs that I use only for backups. I make both incremental backups every couple months and yearly full backups. Once one has too much data to back up on a modest number of DVDs, it is time to consider using backup drives, especially since cost is so low today.

One very key need is in how one documents backups. Something that is rarely addressed in off the shelf consumer back up utilities. In fact, such utilities often tend to lull users into fully using their products to the extent that years later when they try to use some other application, they may find extracting information into a new system to be futile. Of course that is just what some applications want in order to force users to continue to buy just their application. One ought come up from the beginning, with a process to clearly mark backup CD/DVD media in a consistent way say with a permanent marker or label. And one needs to cross reference in an active spreadsheet file or file log details about what directories and files are backed up or otherwise finding old files may be very tedious. And one ought have a hierarchial folder structure for images out of cameras using meaningful and consistent names instead of lumping different trips and events all into common huge folders. Note most image organization applications already have tools to do these things if one bothers to read documentation. As a person long in computer engineering I would advise one always do so in plain txt text files because there are a large number of free tools that can search through such files easily. Useful is to run say an MS-Dos command as dir /o:n /s [target folder path] > filelist.txt . Actually once out of a MS-Dos command line prompt into Windows, change such a file name to a consistent format one will use for all backups. For example, bu__filelist_10-11-08_A.txt . Since one might use several DVD's for a given backup, the _A might be followed by _B, _C etc. And all these documentation files ought to be saved at least on one of the media disks used for a given backup session.