Two years ago I bought two 4tb GRaid external drives.  I back up all my pics to both of them.  Now they are getting full.  I want access to the files on either of them, but I need a new hard drive or two it seems because I want to continue to back up my pics to two drives.  Is there a good 8tb drive?  Or would you suggest staying with two more 4tbs?  Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Tom�s

you have 8 TB full? that�s like 160k files thinking of raw/tiff/jpg (50mb)

Probably these are not for you, but might be helpful to anyone with lower end needs who is unsure what to buy.  I have three Western Digital 'My Book' 2TB external drives.  They just plug into your USB port. Two back-ups on-site and one off-site.

I've found them fantastically reliable.  Although remembering to back up is another issue altogether

1. One copy on a NAS always online.
2. One copy on an external usb drive.
3. One copy on DVD (not necessarily safer, but at least I cannot delete files accidentally)
4. One copy on a second usb drive off site (at my grandparents' home)
5. One copy on MostPhotos

Regarding 1., I have a question: I currently have a Lacie Networkspace - which is working but extremely slow when browsing a folder with many files through the LAN; quite slower than USB.
Any suggestion for a fast NAS? Thanks

I have a Thecus 4100pro.
Connected via Gigabit LAN. That's fast enough.

I can see from this thread that my back-up system is somewhat under-par.  I'll have to get my techy partner to upgrade it all in the new year.

Mind you, we've only just replaced our old 90's TV today, so I shouldn't be surprised really... 

One disk to work, other with a recent backup ( only RAW files )

Storagecraft Backup Software to external RDX drive. When necessary do a incremental backup.  Anytime I can full restore OS ( HIR ), or easily mount a backup and search a specific file.  

There's a free online storage site called mostphotos.

Quote from: Microstock Posts on November 24, 2011, 14:11

There's a free online storage site called mostphotos.

Not only mostphotos. And where i store RAW files?

I was kidding. I thought you already had a solution.

1. One copy on a NAS always online.
2. One copy on an external usb drive.
3. One copy on DVD (not necessarily safer, but at least I cannot delete files accidentally)
4. One copy on a second usb drive off site (at my grandparents' home)
5. One copy on MostPhotos

I see my recent crack about negatives being better than digital for storage was a considerable understatement.

I try to back everything up twice but keeping track of it all is difficult and knowing what was on the latest hard drive that got mashed (and therefore needs recopying) is almost impossible, until I find that a complete series of shots is missing.

I keep stuff that I've actually uploaded on Photoshelter, together with some of the shots that I consider my best work. But I've more or less come to terms with the fact that most of my work is eventually going to vanish when drives have an accident or maybe get too old and die.

Except, of course, for my negatives.

Quote from: dirkr on November 24, 2011, 09:00

1. One copy on a NAS always online.
2. One copy on an external usb drive.
3. One copy on DVD (not necessarily safer, but at least I cannot delete files accidentally)
4. One copy on a second usb drive off site (at my grandparents' home)
5. One copy on MostPhotos

I see my recent crack about negatives being better than digital for storage was a considerable understatement.

I try to back everything up twice but keeping track of it all is difficult and knowing what was on the latest hard drive that got mashed (and therefore needs recopying) is almost impossible, until I find that a complete series of shots is missing.

I keep stuff that I've actually uploaded on Photoshelter, together with some of the shots that I consider my best work. But I've more or less come to terms with the fact that most of my work is eventually going to vanish when drives have an accident or maybe get too old and die.

Except, of course, for my negatives.

Your negatives will turn colors, get scratches, lose contrast, maybe get fungus, if you clean a slide it can be a disaster. Water, humidity, fire, dry, heat and just plain age, will wipe out your images in negatives.

What's actually going to happen to my photographs is when I die, someone will say, hmm, external hard drives, and either throw them away because they are obsolete and tiny or say, hmm a bunch of photos, and store them away in a box, after which they will be thrown away. But more than likely if you are making DVD and CD backups, you'll have to find someone with a legacy computer to read them! Those little laser discs are obsolete. Have any MFM drives? I do, a nice backup for everything on my big 486. No way to really read anything? OK well my first dual processor Pentium 200 computer, great for photos, used SCSI drives. They are in a box. Have some IDE drives? Almost obsolete...

What anyone needs to do isn't just make backups. They need to make modern backups on new technology media. Otherwise some day, you'll have you nice backup and nothing to read it.

Negatives and paper prints are NOT better than electronic in any way. Just the mythology and imagination of some people makes them better. Do you have all your negatives stored in a climate controlled, fireproof vault? If not, your digital images are far safer and will last in their original form, prefect quality, for much longer.

Go back and look at slides you took 30 years ago. Have a print made or scan one of them. What do they look like? Now load the oldest digital picture you own. Hey look, the digital is identical to the day you stored it. And the big question at the end of all of this. Where are your backups of the prints and negatives? 

Digital and electronic storage is infinity better than tintypes, glass, celluloid, Mylar or anything else with an emulsion on it. That goes for old paper prints too.

In the case of EMF blasts, paper and negatives may survive better? 

Im not sure its worth while to back up at all.
I have noticed that I rarely look at my old photos and I have noticed that I rarely connect the old harddrives with old backups.

I have about 2000 active (means selling) photos, they are backed up, but the rest, the 100 of thousands of photos from trips and from studioshoots, I rarely look at, and Im sure that they eventually become obsolete and die when I disconnect the drives.
As it is, its easier for me to take a new picture, than to find an old one.

I friend of mine, who takes a lot of photographs, just throws out his disks when they run full, he doesnt even care to format them.

That might be wise enough, for maybe we photographers are actually more providing state of the art digital material in an ever changing environment than  providing photos. I mean a photo is useles unless its online and visible, and its nothing more than another digital mass of zeros and ones, and might actually be a burden and a waste of time because every photo you store adds to the information entropy in the system you run.

So let me ask you this: What would happen if you deleted the mass of photos from your shootings and only kept the remaining few, that you actually process and keyword and put up for sale?

You wouldn't want to lose something like this would you? (1979 with friends at a road rally) And yes that is my VW Thing...

and you are??

Except, of course, for my negatives.

My ex-wife burnt all my negatives and slides I kept since I was 14, included the color slides of my dad of post-war Germany and the building of the Brussels Atomium. I wish I had backed up her on a drive and then thrown that drive from the Atomium. Remember, there are only two things in life that are sure.