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How do you back up your work???
Just read a couple of posts where people can't show past works due to failed hard drives. This brings me to the question, how do you back up your work??? Myself.... Raw files on hard drive, Edited Tif's on hard drive DVD Burn of Raw files DVD Burn of edited files Three places and I still am freaked out about digital archival systems.... Oct 25 06 08:53 pm Link In binders... Oct 25 06 08:56 pm Link raw files on hard drive raw files on cd, 2 locations raw files on external hard drive, different location than hard drive retouched files on hard drive retouched files on cd, 2 locations retouched files on external hard drive, different location than hard drive ocd, sure:) Oct 25 06 08:57 pm Link Everything to 2nd computer Best stuff to external drive - different circuit. Oct 25 06 09:07 pm Link External hard drive and DVD and online photo storage site Oct 25 06 09:10 pm Link Most stuff stays on the system drive in the computer until the end of the month when I back it up to another internal drive as well as an external drive. Two DVD copies are made as well. One of the DVD's is immediately taken to the studio I work at for safe keeping. When I fill up the extra internal and external drives the external stays attached and the internal is taken to work for storage. Unless my house and my job burns down at the same time I'll only loose a months worth of work at worst, though large shoots are usually backed up immediately so I don't loose anything too important. Oct 25 06 10:00 pm Link Lucky Bastard wrote: You got it exactly right. DO NOT STORE originals and backups in the same location. If your place catches fire, floods, or otherwise damaged what good are backups if they are damaged with your originals? NONE! Make backup copies of your work. Make backup copies of your software master CD's. If you are technically adept enough, use Norton Ghost or something similiar to make images of your entire computer hard drive and store that somewhere offsite as well. Oct 25 06 10:19 pm Link first of all, GREAT thread topic. i was wondering, as for the "second location incase your house completely burns down", i know a lot of photographers DON'T use, say, a safety deposit box. so, where should the 2 location be where you store your backup cds, dvds, and external harddrives??? Oct 25 06 10:26 pm Link Just out of curiosity how much data are you guys generally fitting on DVD and does it vary by flavor? What program do you use to get it on the disc? I've got some DVD+R discs here that I'd like to make use of. Is there a best flavor of DVD for data? Oct 25 06 10:26 pm Link Krisha wrote: If my house was on fire I would not be worried about some photos of Lamonica's butt. Oct 25 06 10:28 pm Link Camera originals copied to computer Contact sheet TIF and Jpeg proofs generated for entire session Contact sheets Jpeg copies on hard drive for month and client folders 3 DVDs made of camera originals and contact sheets, 2 in studio 1 to archive 1 DVD set dropped at friend's house across town - local backup 1 DVD set sent to friend's house in Idaho - out of town backup Edit originals Finals TIFs copied to client folders 3 DVDs made of finals, 2 in studio 1 to archive 1 finals DVD dropped at friend's house across town 1 finals DVD sent to friend's house in Idaho Finals and TIF contact sheets copied to external HD Delete camera originals and TIF contact sheets from computer Contact sheet Jpeg proofs are about 1MB each and are much quicker to search and smaller to keep. From them I know which DVD to pull. The TIF proofs on DVD are for format security sake and used for printing if necessary. Oct 25 06 10:45 pm Link I file my negatives by subject and year. Oct 25 06 10:53 pm Link Three hard drives in two locations. Load images from reader onto archive HD. Open Lightroom and import images from archive HD, automagically making second copy. Use iPod to transport files to the backup HD at another location. DVD's and CD's are notorious for becoming unreadable in five years or less. The biggest danger for HD's is crashing, which won't happen if they're not in use. And the odds of all three HD's going at once are pretty low. Oct 25 06 10:55 pm Link I hire a sketch artist to draw the pictures  Seriously though I have pics saved on the editing computer and on DVD and the websized images on my laptop. Going to save the photoshop files to DVD soon. Computer got weird on me the other night... the date was December 31, 1969  Oct 25 06 10:57 pm Link I strongly recommend Kevin Ames' book "Adobe Photoshop CS, The art of photographing women" as a general reference on many things... obviously photographing women, and photoshop... not stated in the title, an awesome outline of a bulletproof workflow from shooting to burning cd's, making web sets, and storage of final images... Very good all around book. If you also get a few great tips on photoshop, all that much better. Possibly the best book I have in my library. I always burn a CD before I touch anything. Then I make a copy of the CD. Then I put images from the copied CD onto my hard drive for editing. If they work... I know both CD's are good. I have three external CD's (also serve as additional scratch disks for photoshop). They are named Pre-Production, Production, and Finished. The entire shoot folder is kept on Pre-Production for creating proof sets, adding copyright, etc. I then move the best of shoot files to the Production Drive and do all my editing, etc. I then put them on the Finished Drive. At this point I have 2 CD's of untouched RAW files, plus all the files on a hard drive, and all the best of set on two hard drives. Once everybody has the final work product I burn another set of CD's, test the files on both, and clear the oldest sets off of the hard drives as I need space. I hate redoing work, but I have been glad I had an untouched set on CD or an earlier version on another hard drive many times. Hope that helps. Oct 25 06 10:58 pm Link All active Jobs are on an 5120GB array of sixteen 320GB drives on the primary Powermac G5 workstation I usually have around 2000GB of live jobs at any one time. Jobs are backed up daily to another 5120GB array on a separate backup G5 server on the network via the Retrospect automated syncronize scripts. This system is the Archive server and is used to burn CDs, DVDs, and DAT tapes for both short term and long term storage. Most jobs are burned to archive DVDs as they are finished. All jobs are backed up to 4mm DAT tape monthly. A set of the most important tapes and DVDs are in a safety deposit box off site. Under this system, the entire primary workstation can fail, and I'm still safe and in business with everything on the backup server... Oct 25 06 11:01 pm Link capturecharacter wrote: Approximately 4400 MB will fit on a single layer DVD, this does not vary. I use Roxio Toast on the Mac platform. Generally, Taiyo Yuden has the reputation for the most reliable DVD media. Oct 25 06 11:04 pm Link As an IT Professional my suggestion is pretty similar to most of the opinions in here but with some extra stuff for extra security. 1. Have an external hard drive. Prices have dropped and you can get a 200GB for few bucks. Use the supplied software to do a full backup of your photos on your PC. This backup is incremental, so everytime you do the backup, it will update the changes (new files, erased files, etc.) just like a Palm device, so try to do it as often as you can. Due it can be removed, try to place it in a safe place. Remember, a hard drive data can be recovered on the worst case scenario and it's safier than anything else. 2. Have a DVD writter. Use one DVD per client or proyect and always label the inlay of the jewel case with the complete data content (backup date, client /project, directory content). Even tough there are markers for these media, I don't suggest it, cause some of them are pretty aggressive with the sustrate and can damage it through time. If you have a CD friendly printer, then use it instead. Remember to buy printable DVDs. 3. Store your DVDs in the protective case or specially designed protection gear that is sold in photo stores. 4. If possible, invest in backup and recovery software like Symantec's Norton Save & Restore http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice … r&pvid=nsr wich the price is just pretty the same as the one you would spend on a Hooters restaurant. 5. If you are serious for security, consider buying a fireproof security box in SAMS Club, with can be very useful to store your negatives, film, dvd, external hard drive and even personal papers that are valuable to you. ANTONIO Oct 25 06 11:14 pm Link Gee.. looking at everyone else here i feel like a sloutch, lol.. I've got a 300gb Pictures only hard drive attached to my main system (which also has x2/80gig drives for anything else) and a 200gb external drive which currently has everything the 300gb drive has.. every 2 / 4 weeks pending photographing activity i do a copy over, but if its only been a couple days since my last back up and i've done a big shoot, i'll burn that shoot on to a cd or dvd (pending shots taken) as a hold off back up till the standard backup can be done. (i'd do dvd back ups for everything, all the time as well but i keep having this issue where i get 0 byte file listings so i can't depend on them.. but thats an issue for another thread..) Oct 25 06 11:25 pm Link If you execute a disciplined backup plan, data recovery will never be needed. Oct 25 06 11:32 pm Link BCNDigitalFx wrote: Note of caution: Oct 26 06 01:03 am Link My RAW files go on two external hard drives immediately (using Photo Mechanic). I back those up on DVDs once in a while. Older full hard drives and DVDs are in different locations in the US, Holland and here in Cyprus. My negatives are all in one location in the US... Oct 26 06 03:41 am Link My negatives are stored in the darkroom. I don't know how to back them up. When I create digital images, I immediately store the original digital images in three locations: -- My hard drive (for editing) -- My external hard drive (for quick backup) -- DVD, which is stored in another location, in case the house burns down. When I complete editing images from a sitting, I back up again to the external hard drive. (That includes the digital scans of the prints from film). When I update my web site, I back up again to the external hard drive & to DVD. Just last week, my second hard drive (which contains my photos & web files) died. I lost just a half a day's worth of work on editing, but I had all the originals. I am very happy that I am disciplined in backing up my work. But I am most concerned about losing the negatives. Oct 26 06 08:59 am Link the key is at least two locations and at least two copies of everything. my system: one copy on computer hard drive one copy on dvd or cd or both, stored in a different location one copy on a jump drive plus on shoots with models, i send them a copy of all shots, so they too have one. as for storage capacity of different dvd's, i have found no difference at all. i do think remote, on-line storage is a good idea, but have not done it (yet). Oct 26 06 11:19 am Link Just got a new PC with 2 HDs, so I set up the integrated RAID-0 for backup. I also have a personal media drive that I copy everything to. Occasionally, after enough shoots, I also burn everythign to DVD. I already lost an entire set of pics from a trip years ago that I only burned to CD and the disc went bad, so I now make 2 CD/DVD copies whenever I make a disc. If my house burned down, I'd be screwed. I suppose I could upload eveything to my web site server as a remote backup. Probably not a bad idea anyway--it would just take forever. Oct 26 06 11:21 am Link I'm not real big on backing stuff up. I make prints, do shows and sell them to collectors. Then I start over and shoot new stuff. With negs I file them and hope the house doesn't burn down, With digital they sit on the hard drive and wait for me to find the time to burn the final project images to an archival disk. Which I rarely if ever get around to. My early (1995-99) digital files are already pretty much lost on a hard drive in the attic that I doubt I will ever turn on again. I'm ok with it; the new stuff is always better than the old anyway. And I only want people to see the final product anyway. Come to think of it I should go back and burn 90% of my negs to prevent my estate from printing the things I never intended the public to see. Oct 26 06 12:07 pm Link i have a terabyte raid drive on a network. but all raw files get burned to dvd x2. one filed here, the other....goes to moms. i have a closet there with a ton of dvds/cds. thats it. Oct 26 06 12:16 pm Link Chris Macan wrote: you do real nice work...why not just send them to me! haha. Oct 26 06 12:19 pm Link pretty simple for me, download to comp, copy to an external hard drive, and after edits copy both on my secondary computer here by my TV (I have an HTPC), and using logmein.com I also send a copy to a family computer way the hell out of town, in case L.A. falls into the ocean during "the big one" Oct 26 06 02:17 pm Link i just bought my 5th hard drive. 500GB! i'm soon going to need a new mother board. Oct 27 06 06:18 am Link OK the guilt has set in....I have 2 External HDs and CDs all in the same freaking house...so yes if the house caught fire..Im screwed...ahhh...gotta run...have some more CDs to burn and drop off one of my HD's to a friends house....lol.... Oct 27 06 05:06 pm Link with words, thats what makes me a big mouth, how do you back up your work Oct 27 06 05:40 pm Link |
