how often do you backup?

[John Jovic]

I only ever switch off my computers when I go away for days, or more, otherwise they are left on 24/7. When I returned from a recent holiday I returned to a crashed boot disk on my main image processing/business PC. I am very careful to protect jobs/images, but much less so with the stuff I had on this boot disk, ie family snaps and business records.

I don't know that I've lost the data just yet as I'’m waiting on a quote to recover the data from the drive. If I do get the dat of the faulty drive then it's likely to cost hundreds at best, thousands at worst.

Just a reminder for those, like myself, who have become complacent. My most recent backup was way too old to be of any use.

Have you backed up recently? What routine or software do you use to make the job easier?

JJ

[John Thawley]

You've probably just put a lump in the throat of 90% of the users on this board. :)

[Bob Chapman]

My track routine:

1) Shoot
2) Download to computer
3) Backup image files to external hard drive
4) Reformat memory card(s)

Notes: During race weekends, my external hard drive is kept physically separated from my computer. That way, if one or the other is stolen, both aren't lost. Memory cards are not reformatted until the images on the cards are backed up to the external hard drive. That way, from the moment the cards are downloaded, there are always two copies (minimum) of each file.

My office routine:

1) Organize event images by car number.
2) Burn 2 sets of DVDs for each event
3) Re-backup to external hard drive (the images previously backed up to the external hard drive were not yet organized by car number).
4) Backup business files to external hard drive weekly (e-mail, accounting/invoicing, contracts, etc.)

Notes: When an external hard drive is full, it is archived. I use a Sharpie and write the year/races on it. No files are ever deleted from it. That way, I have three backup copies of every image file (2 on DVD, one on external hard drive). The part of my program that has not yet been implemented is to store one of the DVD copies from each event off-site (i.e. in a temperature-controlled storage facility).

[Jim Sykes]

My routine is similar to Bob's.

At the track, download to computer, backup to external drive, then erase cards.

At home, I have a boot disk and I have a data disk. All the data and anything important is on the data disk such as all photos from recent events, all my business records and invoices and things like that, so if I lose a boot disk, I only lose the programs and stuff like that which can be re-loaded without problem.

I then have an external that exacly mirrors the data disk and also has a few extra races on it so that if I need to go back more than a few for an image I also have easy access to them.

All images on the data and mirror disk are also backed up onto seperate externals that are only turned on when I need to backup to them. These are the storage and archive disks which never have anything deleted from them and are also turned off most of the time in order to protect them from the possible virus should something happen.

Lastly, all events are also backed up to DVD just for a last resort.

I also have DVDs of all images sent to clients so that in the case they lose something or misplace it, I can get them another fairly easily and quickly.

[Todd Corzett]

I work similar to Bob and Jimmy at the track. Sometimes I get lazy about the back-up to the external drive or if my laptop starts to get full I don't have two copies any more. I do tend not to re-use the CF cards that have not been backed-up if possible. I also have a few DVDs around incase I need a backup and the drives are full.

I then have my desktop in the office with a boot drive, and my archive. The archive is a 2.1TB RAID5 and houses all of my photography/business related items. The boot drive of the computer does get my personal documents, but it is backed-up nightly using Retrospect to my 1TB RAID0. I also have a 480GB RAID0 for misc stuff (mp3's, movies, etc.) which is backed-up to the backup RAID. One thing that is nice about building the system for a Mac is that I have a lower risk of viri issues.

When I get home from a race every photo that I took gets put onto the archive. I then make a copy of them, either on the archive or the boot, to do my processing (I do a similar thing if I'm working at the track). Since both drives are backed-up automatically I'm not really concerned which they are actually on. Periodically, and I need to do it more often, I will burn all of my photos from the archive onto DVDs for off-site storage.

I think the biggest things for me are:
1) Don't reuse a CF card until you have a back-up of it (recovering from CF is easier than a HD)
2) Backup your unedited images, all of them, and keep them like a digital negative
3) Process and work on a copy of images so there is no risk of "goofing-up" the original
4) Backup your unedited AND edited images and other documents (basically, everything)
5) Have a physical back-up (DVD, etc.) that can be stored off-site incase of fire/theift
6) Don't be lazy... backup, or take the time to setup software that does it for you.

-Todd...

[Daniel Buck]

I backup to another harddrive, and then to a DVD or CD after shooting (unless it's not worth saving). As many storage mediums as possible. As soon as new mediums come out, I'll be backing up to them. Images are my life (literally, for work and play) so I do all I can to save them.

[Michael Chu]

Recently purchased a DVD burner so I'll be backing everything up on DVDs

[Jeff Boerio]

I only ever switch off my computers when I go away for days, or more, otherwise they are left on 24/7. When I returned from a recent holiday I returned to a crashed boot disk on my main image processing/business PC. I am very careful to protect jobs/images, but much less so with the stuff I had on this boot disk, ie family snaps and business records.

I don't know that I've lost the data just yet as I'’m waiting on a quote to recover the data from the drive. If I do get the dat of the faulty drive then it's likely to cost hundreds at best, thousands at worst.

Just a reminder for those, like myself, who have become complacent. My most recent backup was way too old to be of any use.

Have you backed up recently? What routine or software do you use to make the job easier?

JJ

In my other life (the one that allows me to be a weekend photographer), I'm a computer geek. Used to be a systems administrator before moving on to computer/information security.

Sadly, like starting a car, the worst thing you can do to your computer is turn it on. So leaving it running is not a bad idea. Some periodic reboots should be necessary to help clean up memory leaks and the like (my only experience being with Intel processor-based machines). Power outages can create a terrible situation for a comuter, because when power comes on, there may be intermittent "brown-outs" where the power will bounce on and off a couple times before stablizing.

Even more sadly, I have been bitten by hard drive failures and virus infections that have resulted in data losses (2 years of QuickBooks was the most damaging). Now, I make periodic updated CD/DVD images of the important files on my computer. I haven't yet purchased any software to manage data backups, however.

Prices for RAID storage systems are really coming down. Something like this might be a reasonable benefit if you have a home network setup: http://www.intel.com/design/servers/storage/ss4000-E/index.htm And if you want to get tricky about it, you might even be able to configure your home firewall to allow sharing of these types of systems to the internet so that you can remotely access the drives from whatever location you're working from.

Another comment. If you can get away with it, I recommend keeping your "operating system" and your "data" on different drives. I don't know if any of you have ever dismantled a hard drive, but they're essentially like a record player. An arm writes data onto platters. If that arm scribbles on the platter, you're in deep doggie doo. Having your data on a separate drive will insulate yourself from the operating system. The OS will frequently use the hard disk to manage applications, memory, etc. If your data is on a separate drive, the access to that drive will only happen when an application requests the data, meaning fewer chances of this type of action.

Some excellent suggestions from the other guys for event data backup!

- Jeff

[Todd Corzett]

Prices for RAID storage systems are really coming down. Something like this might be a reasonable benefit if you have a home network setup: http://www.intel.com/design/servers/storage/ss4000-E/index.htm
That's a nifty little box. About 5 times the price of an empty 4-bay case for SATA, but not bad if you don't have a system that can accept SATA drives (ie a laptop with no PCI card). Only problem for me is the windows atmosphere... I'd rather keep my stuff in OSX. Also, too bad it' sonly 4 drives... but for some it's a very nice option.

-Todd...

[Kevin Whipps]

Hey all, new guy, first post.

I'm super paranoid about backing up my pics after my last pc gave up the ghost, so here's what I do;

After I shoot a truck, I'll download everything to my main computer. I'll go through and edit what I need to, write my story, etc, until I have a folder and a subfolder within; The name of the article, and subfolder "Final." Then I'll send off a CD with the final info on it to my editor, and make a copy of the entire folder onto as many CD's as it takes, which is usually 2. Then those CD's get filed into a loose leaf binder separated by content.

I really feel that the best kind of backup that you can do is offsite, because if there's a fire, or a flood, or anything that goes crazy in your main storage location, you're still covered. My parents run a software corporation in Scottsdale, and a few years ago they had a toilet bust open and flood the office about a foot high with water. Computers were destroyed, and it was fortunate that my Dad had backed up everything in 4 different places, because in some cases at his office, 3 out of the 4 were screwed up.

Anyways, I have a website that I run that has all of my pics and stories backed up onto it. This way, if I'm ever out of town and I need a story, I can just get online and download what I need. It's saved me on more than one occasion.

[Erik Anderson]

I have a similarly redundant system. The cards are downloaded to my laptop during events and then put away. Since I've done a certain amount of sorting on the laptop, I copy the sorted images over the desktop's working drive. They are then copied to an external drive with a day or two after I get them all sorted and a few edited. Every few weeks, I'll burn DVDs with the previous events on them and put them into the safe deposit box so that I have an offsite backup.

[Phil Royle]

Work images:
I dump the CF card onto a laptop and double check the images actually copied (I check the data sizes, number of files, and then randomly open several of the images to check they aren't corrupt). I later burn two copies on CDs of the original images -- I take one copy home and keep the other at the office. I then delete the images from the laptop, making my only copies on CD.

Personal images:
I dump the images onto my laptop and then backup to an external hard drive, leaving a copy on both the laptop and external drive. It's very improbable that both drives would fail at the same time, and should one fail I'd quickly replace the failed drive and copy the info over.