E

[bernhardas]

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[kds315*]

Thanks for sharing. Indeed this is a big issue and I haven't really solved that for myself...

How about cloud backup ?? I tried this for a few months, but wasn't happy with the performance of the upload.

[calvin83]

Raid(redundant array of independent disks) is not designed for data backup. Always keep at least one offline backup. Consider put an extra backup in safe locations outside your home if the data is very important. Cloud storage can be used as an extra protection but may not suitable for private/sensitive files.

[ckrook]

Dropbox and external hard drives. They are so cheap nowadays!

[bernhardas]

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[SonicScot]

[Basilisk]

If only I could find a way of transferring them onto strips of transparent acetate coated with silver halide crystals. Those would be good for a few decades, and might survive the electromagnetic pulse caused by nuclear conflict.

[SonicScot]

[fermy]

Well, I keep my pictures on two external USB drives. One of them is for daily use, one is for backup purpose only. Older stuff is also scattered across various CDs and DVDs. I don't want to use cloud storage for privacy reasons.

[fuzzywuzzy]

I was a computer nerd long before a camera nerd, and the rule of thumb for backups is to have software automatically make copies with minimal human intervention.

I think Time Machine works well in the Mac world, not sure what the Windows equivalent is.

[visualopsins]

[hoanpham]

I am using linux as base OS, then VirtualBox and Desktop on my main pc, which is 4T enterprise storage with 1.5 million hrs lifetime.
This is where i put files from cameras as first step storage. One partition is reserved for the virtual images of the desktops, also served as backup of the working pc.
My secondary is double NAS drives, not Raid, but just lot of disk, also here is the backup of virtual images of desktops and other workstations.
And third backup is several usb3 external harddrive. These external drives will be stored at other location from time to time.

A safe rule to secure the medium/backups is 'less than half lifetime'
Example: CD rw, DVD has approximate 3-4 years as lifetime. Then 'safe' storage time is less than half, which is about 1.5 years.
Old tape backup has a lifetime of 10-14 years. Golden plate 100 years but very expensive to maintain.
Hard drives can be checked/scanned daily for hardware failure, cheap to replace or increase. Just remember to swap them out after half of their life. I treat digital storage as 'un-trustworthy' and prepare for the worst.

Also i can tell from experience that same harddrive model have approx same lifetime. They are about few months apart. A Raid setup often needs identical drive model to easily swap. That implies single failure may cause both drives to fail at the same time. I found to use different disk makers, different models, redundant backup, is my best solution. Harddrives should be independent and could be easily backup, i do not split the files, nor encript, nor format as 'spanning across multiple drives as single logical unit' (jbod).

If you are running a Raid, did you ever run a 'rebuild' test? Not all raid can easily rebuild. It could be a nightmare.

[bernhardas]

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[Attila]

select best ones and print them

[calvin83]

[buerokratiehasser]

Aint got no silver halide in color films after development...

Whatever TO does, he should not "backup" on DVD. DVD burners have been plagued not only by the standards war, the technology seems to be broken from the start. I had DVDs come out of the burner, never used, never aged - read errors. If they can be read at all due to standards war.

Personally I do not even try. Hard disks seem to be the only way, and with these, the somewhat-lower-capacity models, TB range has so incredibly high data density that they don't degrade gracefully. Also, the read error rate goes up, times insane capacity it seriously comes into "0.whatever errors per RAID rebuild" range

People have reported good results with MO drives but they are uncommon, expensive and can't hold candles to harddisks in capacity department.

[paulhofseth]

Cibachrome

p.

[bernhardas]

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[RSalles]

Bernhardas,

Apart printing the best set, few months ago I had the Idea to follow the steps as the ex- Magnum Agency photographer Sebastiao Salgado, which is:
Print the raw files in a film acetate in 4x5 inches, using the higher resolution printer available, and store in dry cabinet/controlled environment.
If some shit happens with cloud storage or spare HD's, I'll have these printed sheet films to scan and recover.


Cheers,

Renato

[bernhardas]

edited

[hifisapi]

[beomagi]

[zelda_n64]

I saved all my scanned photo's to floppy disc and then technology moved forward - file size grew and now I only use floppy discs for midi data and people still find it funny that I have put a floppy disc in my latest I7 computer.

I store anything important on CD/DVD (CD-RW, CD-R and DVD-R, never DVD+R as these are crap), I record at a speed that is acceptable to me, always slower than the best speed but faster than the slowest speed the recorder can record at. All CD/DVD media I create is stored in a cool, dark and dry place vertically. I try and keep the temperature around 10 degrees Celsius and always move the blacked out box if temperatures rise (summer) to a cooler area.

Once a year I check for data integrity, if anything looks odd I create another copy (always keeping the original as well) - and I always date the copy when it was created, so I might have 3 or 4 different aged discs of the same content but to me that is safety. I only ever mark the casing and I never label or write on the CD/DVD.

I also have a SATA drive caddy in my computer and have 3 backup hard disc drives that I keep in a drawer, these are also purely for back up, and again all 3 drives contain the same information as what I have on CD/DVD. I do not mind putting the 3 drives into the computer and waiting for the data to transfer and I have data on these drives that was originally stored on floppy disc in 1993 (and I still have the original floppy discs from 1993 that also still work - best media ever).

It may be an excessive amount of backups, but I have seen too many people suffer complete data loss due to the fact they did not have more than one backup and they trusted the media they stored the information on.

If a new storage technology comes out, that I can connect to my PC then I will invest (when it becomes cheaper) and have within the last 3 years invested in a Blu-ray burner, which I also have used as a data backup media.

As for trusting the cloud or offsite data storage, I would not trust my data with them, they could go bust, just shut up shop or disappear with my data.

A great resource for optical data storage: http://www.bl.uk/blpac/pdf/cd.pdf

Anyway, I hope my little bit of input has helped - CD/DVD are cheap and at present the best form of data storage - IMHO and always make sure you have spare working floppy drives, optical drives and hard drives in case of failure.

[bernhardas]

edited

[Lightshow]

I don't use cd or DVD any more, I'm using a Drobo NAS as my main storage(all media), I like that I can swap HDDs with any size(that's supported)or brand, current images(raw)are first saved to a seep rat drive in my PC, which are backed up to the Drobo and then to a 2nd NAS, and I'm planning a 3rd level.

Sony and another company is working on archive level optical storage for video broadcasters, might see something for us in a year or two.