I am trying to find reliable software for my Vista 64 PC. I have all my images on a 1TB internal drive and I also have an external drive that contains a complete copy of that internal drive. I am looking for software that will automatically keep the external drive synchronized with the internal drive while I work. I'm unfamiliar with the software available and would like to find a product that I can trust. Any suggestions you can offer would be much appreciated!
(P.S. This is not my only backup solution. I also have all of the data on other hard drives stored elsewhere and archival DVDs of everything stored off site.)
Here is another vote for Acronis. I use it to clone my HD so I have a bootable copy of my main drive with all software and operating system. In case of disaster you can just change the boot order in your bios and you are up and running as if nothing happened - that is of course that your clone is up to date.
I do not consider this a complete image back up system however. My complete back up process is to have all the current years images on my C drive and a clone of C onto a D drive. The images are independently copied onto 2 additional external drives. One I keep with my workstation, but not powered on unless I am backing up and one at my office.
All my images from 2003 - 2007 are on another external with back ups on the previously mentioned 2 external drives.
So, I have 3 copies of each image - 2 at home and one at work for safety. Right now the large back ups can be contained on 1 TB drives. As I get more images and larger image files I will add additional drives. When the 2 TB drives are proven to be long term reliable I may upgrade to them.
FWIW, I use Light Room to catalogue all my images. I like this as I can search thumbs of my entire library even if the drive is not turned on. LR tells me what drive the images resides on so finding images is easy.
EDIT - I do not trust syncro back up software. To me, there is too much chance of the software missing something - like an image I re edited but did not change the name of. So, I just recopy files I have worked with tot he back up drives. This takes more time and effort, but I am in control and I sleep better that way.
Posted by David Bostedo on March 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM
Erik - It sounds to me like you simply want something that will mirror your current drive throughout the day or while you work so you can recover quickly should something go down. If a more major failure were to happen, you'd have bootable media, and could restore everything (maybe only losing a few days work?)
If that's the case, then maybe a RAID configuration, type 0 or 5, would be what you're looking for. It uses redundant drives to mirror/split data, and if one drive fails, you simply swap it out, wait for a while, and everything is humming again. (It's NOT a backup strategy in the event of major events, but simply lets you recover from drive failure quickly.) I don't know a lot about them other than that, having never had a setup like that, but they're pretty popular for quick recovery purposes.
David, I'd like to clarify your comments about RAID arrays, if I may.
A RAID 0 configuration uses two identical drives. The RAID controller splits data into two parts called 'stripes'. One stripe writes to one drive and the other stripe writes to the second drive. The up-side is that this config provides very fast disk performance. The down-side is that, because the data is 'striped', if one drive fails your data is lost. (I have a RAID 0 on my machine, and use another computer on my network for backup)
Raid 5 uses two drives. When data is written to the first drive, it is also written to the second drive. This array is the 'mirror'. As you said, if one drive fails, the other drive will still contain all the data.
There are various RAID arrays, but the most common are RAID 5 and RAID 0. In Erik's case, RAID 0 will not be a solution due to its lack of redundancy. RAID 5 would work, but he already has the external drive. So, from a cost effectiveness and hassle standpoint, a software solution is best, I think.
You might want to check out Syncback from Two Bright Sparks -
http://www.2brightsparks.com/
They have three versions - free, $20, and $50. All you probably need is the freeware. When used in combination with a Carbonite subscription ($50/yr), you can do a complete mirror to a backed up off premises server, and also a scheduled backup to a local external device. Carbonite cannot backup an external drive but it will back up your internal drives.
This is some very helpful input guys! I'll wait a few more days to see if anyone else has something to contribute before I make a purchase.
Posted by Paul Wegemann on March 30, 2009 at 4:53 PM
RAID0 (striping) is not really raid. There is no redundancy at all! I'm not even sure why it was ever included as a RAID method. It's purpose is for performance. RAID5 (striping with parity) requires at least 3 drives. RAID5 is used more in commercial server environments. Ignore both of these. Based on what you're describing Erik, RAID1 (disk mirroring) would suit you just fine, but you'd have to have a motherboard or add in card that supports RAID1. My system is setup with RAID1, and along with it I use a slick piece of inexpensive software called Folderclone. Several times a day, it completely copies any folders I've specified to 2 external drives. The first time you set this up, it will take awhile to sync, but after that, the process is quick and painless. There are many packages out there like Folderclone, but this has worked for me. Shoot me an email if you'd like more info Erik.
Posted by David Bostedo on March 30, 2009 at 6:14 PM
I couldn't figure out why any of these responses mentioned RAID 0, since, as Paul points out, it's only for speed, not redundancy. Then I realized it was ME who brought it up! I meant to type RAID 1 or RAID 5, not 0. Oh well, thanks for correcting that everyone....
I guess I was confused when I stated that RAID 5 uses two drives for mirroring. Sorry 'bout that. As Paul says, RAID 1 is mirroring, and uses two drives.
-Preston
Posted by Paul Beiser on March 30, 2009 at 10:15 PM
I use the same software (Acronis) that Preston uses, and it works well for me.
Posted by Nat Coalson on March 31, 2009 at 12:26 AM
For digital photo libraries I don't recommend RAID. Read/write speeds aren't really an issue here, and the complexity and cost of a solid RAID system isn't worth it for photo (video is another story).
The simplest solution for a photo library is two identical disk drives (USB or FireWire) - one is the working master and the other is the mirror backup. Use software like Acronis etc. to synchronize them periodically. There's really no need to always be writing data to two disks simultaneously as with RAID; you can do your backups at key points when you've done a significant amount of work.
My main photo workstation is Mac, so sorry I can't vouch for Acronis specifically. On Mac, I use ChronoSync.
Nat, it was your book that got me thinking about this. It didn't have any PC solutions so I figured this might be a good place to get some input. I'm leaning towards Acronis after hearing how many others are using it with success.
Eric, I am a PC guy (from the IT world). If you want a cheap solution, you can use the robocopy program that is part of Vista to do the syncing. There is even a GUI interface that is available for download free. I use it for all of my backups (I have one internal drive that I mirror manually, one local Drobo, and one off-site Drobo). Shoot me an email if you want to pursue this route and I can help you out.
Eric, SyncbackSE has worked for me. I have it set to automatically back up to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) that is configured in a Raid 5 using 4 drives. It seems to work well and allowed a full recovery when one of the 4 drives went belly up a few months ago. When any one of the drives goes bad you just replace it and the system recovers the data but if a second drive goes bad before you replace the 1st bad drive you're in trouble. I was able to pick up a 2 terabyte NAS (Four 500 gig drives in the case) for a reasonable price from a local computer super store.
SyncbackSE also allows you to easily and quickly set up mirroring or syncing external drives or my laptop (and it better be simple for me to do it easily).
Discussion
14 replies(P.S. This is not my only backup solution. I also have all of the data on other hard drives stored elsewhere and archival DVDs of everything stored off site.)
True Image
-P
I do not consider this a complete image back up system however. My complete back up process is to have all the current years images on my C drive and a clone of C onto a D drive. The images are independently copied onto 2 additional external drives. One I keep with my workstation, but not powered on unless I am backing up and one at my office.
All my images from 2003 - 2007 are on another external with back ups on the previously mentioned 2 external drives.
So, I have 3 copies of each image - 2 at home and one at work for safety. Right now the large back ups can be contained on 1 TB drives. As I get more images and larger image files I will add additional drives. When the 2 TB drives are proven to be long term reliable I may upgrade to them.
FWIW, I use Light Room to catalogue all my images. I like this as I can search thumbs of my entire library even if the drive is not turned on. LR tells me what drive the images resides on so finding images is easy.
EDIT - I do not trust syncro back up software. To me, there is too much chance of the software missing something - like an image I re edited but did not change the name of. So, I just recopy files I have worked with tot he back up drives. This takes more time and effort, but I am in control and I sleep better that way.
If that's the case, then maybe a RAID configuration, type 0 or 5, would be what you're looking for. It uses redundant drives to mirror/split data, and if one drive fails, you simply swap it out, wait for a while, and everything is humming again. (It's NOT a backup strategy in the event of major events, but simply lets you recover from drive failure quickly.) I don't know a lot about them other than that, having never had a setup like that, but they're pretty popular for quick recovery purposes.
A RAID 0 configuration uses two identical drives. The RAID controller splits data into two parts called 'stripes'. One stripe writes to one drive and the other stripe writes to the second drive. The up-side is that this config provides very fast disk performance. The down-side is that, because the data is 'striped', if one drive fails your data is lost. (I have a RAID 0 on my machine, and use another computer on my network for backup)
Raid 5 uses two drives. When data is written to the first drive, it is also written to the second drive. This array is the 'mirror'. As you said, if one drive fails, the other drive will still contain all the data.
There are various RAID arrays, but the most common are RAID 5 and RAID 0. In Erik's case, RAID 0 will not be a solution due to its lack of redundancy. RAID 5 would work, but he already has the external drive. So, from a cost effectiveness and hassle standpoint, a software solution is best, I think.
-P
You might want to check out Syncback from Two Bright Sparks -
http://www.2brightsparks.com/
They have three versions - free, $20, and $50. All you probably need is the freeware. When used in combination with a Carbonite subscription ($50/yr), you can do a complete mirror to a backed up off premises server, and also a scheduled backup to a local external device. Carbonite cannot backup an external drive but it will back up your internal drives.
-Preston
The simplest solution for a photo library is two identical disk drives (USB or FireWire) - one is the working master and the other is the mirror backup. Use software like Acronis etc. to synchronize them periodically. There's really no need to always be writing data to two disks simultaneously as with RAID; you can do your backups at key points when you've done a significant amount of work.
My main photo workstation is Mac, so sorry I can't vouch for Acronis specifically. On Mac, I use ChronoSync.
Thanks for all the input!
Monte
SyncbackSE also allows you to easily and quickly set up mirroring or syncing external drives or my laptop (and it better be simple for me to do it easily).