I run a Network Attached Storage with 2 terabyte drives on it. Backup every time that I add new photos. I've got a Linksys/Cicso NAS200 which is VERY slow, but it keeps my data safe. There are other, more expensive options out there, but I couldn't see spending the extra money to save a few seconds...

I use the Amazon S3 storage service via the JungleDisc backup client.  Once set up, it's a no-brainer.  Once a day it uploads anything new to my 'mirror' on S3.

Professional Photographer Magazine has some excellent advice on a series of articles:  the bottom line is to have several backups, on HD, NAS and optical drives.

Hi all:

Wanted to get your thoughts on how you usually store your photography images. My external hard drive  (seagate to be precise) decided to call it quit on me less than a year of purchase. Needless to say, I have to weigh the loss of my images versus the cost of recovering the data.

For you professional photographers out there, what is your advice on image storage option? Would love to hear your thoughts so no one, including myself, will not have to go through this nightmare.

Thank you,

In what way has it "decided to call it quits"?

If it's still spinning and can be recognised by the BIOS there's a good chance the data is recoverable without great expense...

One backup drive is not enough.  You should have every image stored on at least two different drives, that way when one fails or needs to be replaced you have everything on another drive to xfer to the new one.

I had tried a couple of different solutions including a DROBO, which I had heard really good things about.  In my case the DROBO died a couple of hours after being hooked up and nothing their support team tried could get it working again.  I probably just got a lemon, but was very glad it didn't die after I spent time loading all my data on it.

In the end, a few people recommended the Western Digital Mybook Mirror Raid external drive and I have had it for nearly a year with no problems.  I did end up configuring it for the full 2tb instead of two 1tb redundant units.  Because I am paranoid I have to have everything backed up on a separate unit anyway (2tb Lacie) so no reason not to use my full 2tb.

I admit, my solution isn't pretty.  I have currently 6 external drives lined up on my desk area, but at least there is no way I am losing anything

I have 14 WD myBooks of varying size on my bookshelf, and archives of those away from my house.

To the people using only NAS, RAID and multiple drives attached, ultimately, to a single power source: an electrical failure, power surge or lightening strike could take it all out. Surge protection is not a guarantee especially if something fails upstream.

The multiple backup drives should not be connected simultaneously.

I understand the appeal of managing your own backup hardware. You're in control and you know what you have.  But Amazon S3 relieves me of al that effort and expense for a few dollars a month. 

It looks like quite a few $'s per month to me unless I'm misunderstanding things. Just 1TB of storage (about what I'd need) would be over $100 per month before any data transfer fees, etc. I could almost buy a new 500GB drive per month for that sort of money.

To be honest it wouldn't be the end of the world for me if all my existing data disappeared one day __ inconvenient but it probably wouldn't really cost me much money as most of the value within it has already been exported to the agencies. The really valuable stuff, my 3000-odd processed stock images, are effectively backed up on several servers at several agencies.

This is such a fast-moving game nowdays that last month's shoot is becoming like last month's newspapers. Process/upload the images from one shoot, move on and do another shoot having hopefully learned a little from the mistakes of the previous one. It amazes me how quickly I am almost forgetting the work I did just a few weeks ago.

Quote from: stockastic on September 21, 2009, 14:06

I understand the appeal of managing your own backup hardware. You're in control and you know what you have.  But Amazon S3 relieves me of al that effort and expense for a few dollars a month.  

It looks like quite a few $'s per month to me unless I'm misunderstanding things. Just 1TB of storage (about what I'd need) would be over $100 per month before any data transfer fees, etc. I could almost buy a new 500GB drive per month for that sort of money.

Yes, very expensive indeed.  I calculated roughly how much storage I would need and it would be several hundred dollars a month.  

@ alias - why should multiple hard drives not be connected simultaneously?  I have been doing it this way for five years with no problems.  

FWIW my husband is a master electrician so we have serious surge protection installed at our breaker panel.  

I would still be open to online storage, but not at the current prices I have been able to find.  I doubt I could pass as a "personal account" holder with the volume I shoot, and the business prices are just too high. 

My plan is to back up to my Acer WHS which gets backed up to an online backup.

I looked into S3 and for me it would be almost $100 per month.

I'm currently evaluating Fabrik which is Hitachi's online backup. $5 per month unlimited storage. Also am looking into Carbonite. One problem is that it looks like the initial data load of almost 1TB for online backups could take a long time. Days? Weeks?

I have two external HDs. I know I should be keeping one outside home, but I never do it - there is much more I would lose if a fire destroyed our ap (knock on wood).

Also in special situations, like a trip, I burn two sets of DVDs.

That's good to know!

I have 3 backups on external drives :

A drive with backup of the raw files;
A drive with backup of the tiff files;
A drive with backup of the finished Jpg file.

1 working drive, also external that is being used while working on files, it also contains all unfinished shooting sessions.

Complementary an extra external drive with all finished files uploaded and waiting to be uploaded with a folder system for the stock sites.... from this drive an update is being made on a monthly basis and is stored in a bank safe.

Patrick H.

I am mainly worried about my wedding photos. After a wedding they are either stored on the CF-Cards and one computer OR when I need the CF-Cards on two computers. When I am done with editing they get uploaded to Smugmug. Having them on one harddrive and Smugmug is save enough for me. I never had a failure with my harddrive and both smugmug and harddrive failing at once is pretty unlikely.
Smugmug is reasonable cheap and has unlimited storage. At the same time my smugmug account is also a backup for my clients. They can access their high res photos on smugmug as long as my account exists.

@ alias - why should multiple hard drives not be connected simultaneously?  I have been doing it this way for five years with no problems.

Because what kills one drive may affect or ITWCS kill all of them if they are all connected simultaneously. Eg a power surge, spike or strike.

Even if you have surge protection. Because surge protection may not always protect you against a surge and probably won't protect you against a strike.

And because all the bits of equipment on the safe(r) side of the surge protection are vulnerable to each other causing the problem.

eg if you use USB backup drives then they should be completely disconnected when not in use. All the cables discounted Not just powered off.

Some dvds and cds I burned a few years ago and never used were unreadable when I went back to them.

The unreliablity of the media is another reason I don't want to do my own backup.

As a software developer I've done a lot of work with systems that record CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.  The drives sold to consumers are as cheap and flimsy as the manufacturers can make them.   The situation with Blue-Ray drives is particularly bad. I have them on hand, for projects I've worked on, but have found them so flaky and unreliable I'd never use them for anything important.   Because of the low market uptake of Blu-Ray in general, and the fact that few consumers will record on them, I question whether the quality problems will ever really be solved.

With CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray, blank media (discs) are a totally price-driven commodity and buying a "brand name" guarantees nothing except a nice logo printed on top. You can never be sure of success when recording, or confident that you'll be able to read the discs later on another drive. These products are aimed at kids burning MP3s and recording movies; they're not industrial strength and never will be.

So you guys managing your backups on DVDs may find yourselves hitting a wall eventually. When you have more data than you can manage by burning DVDs,  you may not be able to just move up to Blu-Ray.    I think the future is on-line storage but I agree the price has to come way down.

Just got an email announcing the Mac version of a product we use in the intranet: http://www.southrivertech.com/products/webdrive/mac/index.html

The PC version has Amazon S3 integration and works quite well.. hopefully the Mac version will followup with that feature soon.