Like many people, I used to think that data losses only happened to others. I also used to find backing up data very boring (ok, I still find it boring) and practically useless. Well, I don't anymore.
Just before leaving for my last trip, I finally caught up with my backups (hadn't done any since last july, and that included photos I consider my very best) and burned 14dvds. And of course, ten days later, my main hard drive started failing. I managed to salvage most of my new US photos and probably haven't lost any data (still restoring it at the moment) but I really felt the wind on that one.

So please, don't be as stupid as me, and back up all of your photo data right now if you haven't done so in a while...

www.mozy.com

Backing up is what I do once a month :-)

Western Digital has a USB drive you can get for around $220 that can be configured as 1 terabyte as Raid 1 or as 2 terabytes as Raid 0. The advantage of Raid 1 is that it actually has two physical drives in it and all the data can be recovered if either one fails. The backup software that comes with it is not so great but there is lots of good backup software around. You could either use it as a backup device in Raid 0 or as a self-backing primary working drive in Raid 1 that would be backed up automatically short of fire or theft. I got mine here: http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=WDH2U20000N

I have two external harddrives as backup. One is at my place and the other at my parents, I swap them whenever I visit. In the case of theft or fire at my place I always have most of my data at the other location.

I use a "sled" drive system with removable HD's as backups. Have not done the 2 location thing, but doesn't sound like a bad idea. Idle hard drives are not the best backup idea either. It is always possible that one will not spin-up after a long period on the shelf. The best system is of course data tape backup, but also expensive.I used to use DLT's at work and even bought a used drive off eBay years ago. Used it for a while, but gave up, way too slow in the modern age. The new generation of backup tapes I believe include SDLT and LTO, pretty much $700 and up to $3000 for the drives and then the tape cost. But this is really the best approach. I would do it if I could afford it.

Have you heard of Time Machine?
Get a mac and forget about wasting your time backing up etc. It is done in real time for you, and it is amazingly easy to retrieve any file or restore your computer completely. II had two recent HD disasters, and did not lose a single little file (probably even some useless ones).

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html

Tell me about it... a couple of years ago i lost a lot of pictures including shots from Berlin and Paris. Fortunately it was before my pictures was worth looking at, but still annoying.
Since then i have been really paranoid when it comes to backup. I have all my pictures on dvd's and 3 separate harddisks.

Yes! I love time machine.
A back-up every hour. If you don't like the one hour interval you can use 'Time machine scheduler' http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html

www.mozy.com

Ernie - raid is not a backup. It is just a tool to enable continuation of operation in the event of a failure. If you backup your main drive to another drive - be it raid or not - and turn it off - then that is backup.

Backup needs to be able to go "offline" and be protected against acts of human stupidity. If your main drive is RAID1 and you do something stupid - then the RAID is not going to help.

I run a nation wide storage fabric for clients - that is disk, san and data centre redundant. However what do we do most of the time...?

"Hello Support, I seem to have deleted XXXXXXXX, can I get the files back from yesterday?"

"Hello Support, I have not used XXXX for 5 weeks and it seems to be missing some files, I am not sure what I did, can I get the files back from 5 weeks ago?"

:-s

The failures that RAID, Redundant SAN and redundant IDC's protect against hardly ever happen. But we don't have the luxury of taking risks. Selling RAID boxes to consumers is the biggest con in a long time. You'd be MUCH better served having two independent disks and then alternating backups to each one every other week and leaving them off in the meantime (or the alternate one off).

Then you can always "Go back in time" and recover from some act of stupidity.

Plus if you take one to the office or use something like Mozy - then a fire is also protected against.

For all users, www.mozy.com. It does all the things that enterprises do for backups, is cheap and is automatic.

In three separate locations? Or all sitting on one drawer waiting for the same thief or fire? ;-)

We have a robot that feeds tapes into an array of drives. Unfortunately that is the smallest size of any sense because digital assets are so large - that even buy a 1000 USD single LTO2 or 3 drive + tapes for your home - you need to swap tapes all the time. This is not good as it adds humans to the equation and humans are forgetful or lazy.

But the robots aren't cheap either. But still cheaper than the opportunity cost of NOT doing it. ;-)

I use this setup:
- I keep 2 "hot" backups of all important stuff on large hard disks that are kept in sync (linux rsync) with a script every night.
- Another copy is sync'ed to an external (750 GB) usb hard disk which I take to my family every few weeks to have a remote backup.

Backups for digital stuff is easy, but how do people backup film negatives, slides, photo albums,...?

Thank you , Richard. You solved a big problem for me. I am relieved for finding a solution that makes sense and is very convenient. :)
You made my day. :)

You wait impatiently for your Nikon Coolscan to arrive...... :-s

I try to make everyone's day. However I seldom succeed. I did manage to push in front of a queue of queue jumpers this morning and hold a taxi for a young lady who was clearly there first to come along and grab it.

Why do I do all these things AFTER I am married! ? The inner playboy in me is lamented being asleep at the wheel during my 20's. :-(

May be being a gentlemen wasn't so cool those days. You must be pretty busy now, while trying to make everyones day. ;)
(Are we off topic now?)

We all have a bit of 007 in us.....

I do my back-up manually, but would like a system taking care of it automatically for me. Problem is, too many drives used on several computers.
When away I use a laptop with several external drives. I copy to the laptop, then make another copy on an external drive before I format the card. Then I copy it to the main computer when home. I also try to back that up to an external drive that I normally keep disconnected/off. Pretty safe, but a lot of work.
Any idea how to save some time by using software?

Back-up via internet seems heavy, as I don't care much about anything else than raw files (and some PSD's with lots of work done). And raw files at 20Mb would probably load my connection too much.

An idea would probably be to make a selection of shots, then back up only the best to a server. Not all shots are worth keeping.

I should have read it more earlier. My drive does not spin anymore. External one:-(

www.mozy.com ;-)

at my slow broadband speeds, online backup is pointless so I guess external drives are the way to go. thanks for the link anyway Richard.

I just saved the files from the drive from my wifes laptop. That one was actually spinning, but not reading. Tried first to run it in one of my external drives. No result. Then I got hold of a usb/SATA/IDE.. cable with its own powersupply (Hiyatek USB 2.0 til IDE/SATA Adapter). Worked!
This will of course not work if the disk is not willing to spin. But definitely worth a try, as there are other things in connection with the HD that can fail. And this adaptor is a cheap little thing, approx 40-50 US$

@JBA the first backup takes a long time -but subsequent ones are quick as it uses DELTA technology and only the differences INSIDE a file are transferred. You can also be selective about what to backup. No one solution is the answer.

backup archives to DVD's and keep at separate locations. Keep mozy to backup the current stuff that you are working on and haven't put to DVD or CD. Keep copies on USB drives too. I do all three - plus I have access to a DAT drive that I use too.....

Just don't put all your eggs in one basket as that is just a recipe for data omelette...

For local backup-storage, software I can recommend is ShadowProtectDesktop. Have trialed a few other apps, but bought this one, It is easy to use, runs very fast, and has responsive customer service. One cool feature is that you can mount a backup volume and work with files in the normal way, then dismount the backup, saving changes you made in an additional backup volume. I use four XHDs (Seagate) along with my computer's HD.

Online backup is dependent on the 'health' of the service provider (how many businesses can guarantee they will be functioning in the medium to long term?) and the 'health' of the internet (natural disasters, hacking, attacks and cyber war all make the internet a medium of communication which can evaporate without a moment's notice, your media along with it!).

My thinking is to use a stepped approach:

save photo files as RAW on your computer HD for editing but keep the originals on your memory cards/disks until you have finished editing;

as you edit an image/s, save all versions to XHD A;

when you finish editing an image/images, save the RAW/s and your final edited version/s (with layers and channels) in TIFF and JPEG to XHD B;

enter files on XHD B into your media organiser;

conduct 'business' with the data on XHD B;

regularly and frequently backup (basic then incremental) XHD B to XHD C and XHD D (located in two different places) using something like ShadowProtectDesktop;

delete the RAW and working files on HD and XHD A, and eventually wipe your memory cards/disks, and start on your new shots;

further edits can be done from and saved incrementallyto XHD C and D using ShadowProtectDesktop, without adding to XHD B.

That way, you have multiple copies on different storage entities in different places until your images can be finally put to rest (RAW and final-edit formated in TIFF and JPEG) on XHD C & D.

And I though I would never write an epic! ;)

brose

When i saw the title i thought it's from the crew and got panic!!

I cannot reiterate how important it is to backup all your imprtant files.

I have just found out that the external hard drive I used to store most of my photos has been corrupted beyond repair and nothing on it is recoverable.
I sent it to a data recovery specialist and they have tried everything.

I have lost all of my RAW digital images I have ever taken up to a two months ago (three years worth) and worse, all my family photos of the last four years.
I have hard copies of the good ones up to a year ago but have lost a lot from the last year, forever.

I have also lost a lot of my scanned files from transparencies but I can do those again.

I usually kept these files in two places but was in the process of changing the way I backed up and only had the files on the external hard drive when it decided to commit suicide.

So, BACK UP NOW so you don't end up like me.

VERY SORRY to hear that Mark!! Coming from a professional computer user, he is right!! I just updated my backups this weekend. Most of my photo stuff is on at least 2 drives, most of the more recent stuff is also on a very large raid too.

A very "dumb" question ... but, what is a "very large raid"?

7 TB RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
It's actually a NAS, network attached storage. Level 5 or 6 raid. Means a disk or two can fail but you don't loose any data...

Mark,
I cannot send enough condolences.

Have you tried more than one company? I had a friend who had to go to more than one place but was persistent because the external hard drive contained the only copies of wedding photos he had just shot. You can imagine going to a bride with that news. Eventually, he did find a company and they retrieved a lot if not all of the data. The cost was $2700.00. It was a small Western Digital - I think 500 Gigabytes. If you decide to try more than one company let me know I will get the info for you - from him. You never know you might get lucky.

This next suggestion is probably far fetched but I will mention it. I had an external that went bad. Once or twice it seemed to turn on slowly, and then had a sudden death. I ordered a new one but did not give up on the old one. I kept jiggling, pushing, the power wires and the off/on switches, and after about three weeks..it came back to life. Well, sort of..just long enough to copy all the data to my hard drive. And then - it died a final death.

I am so sorry.

Phyllis

Thanks Phyllis

It seems quite definite that it is completely dead.
This is the second place I have tried.

Life goes on and in the overall scheme of things it is a minor issue.
But it is certainly a lesson well learnt and will not be repeated again by me.

Mmmmm! Me thinks this guy works for the CIA and is trying to get hold of my whippet files ;^)

B

I'm really sorry to hear this. Data loss is what I fear very much. I've all my image files split on three drives (one external 1TB drive where all files are stored and which is used as the working drive, and two external 500 GB drives where all the files from the 1 TB drive were backuped in two parts). I ALWAYS make a backup after loading the RAW files to the external 1TB drive and after converting them to jpg or tiff. Also after having done postwork on "important" images a backup is done.

Besides that, once a week a system backup is also done (that includes not the image files).

So I can only second what you wrote:

Sorry to hear this Mark. I also learned the hard way... admittedly my loss was not as substantial as yours.

Clyde, how much does it cost at United States? Here in Portugal a Lacie 7,5 TB is almost 1800 euros.

Sorry about what happened to you Mark. At least keep your work on DVDs and not only on the computer.

I lost 113 gb material, because the external harddisk drive I had transferred my pictures onto, fell over and broke; these were the first photos I took, so Mark I'm totally with you! ... It will cost approximately 1000 euros to get it fixed... I'm still in agony. So don't just back up once, but many times!!

I don't know, I didn't buy it and it's not at my house.

Thanks anyway.

Do I understand this, Clyde ... this is not something you physically have in your place (like an external drive). It is on the, or a, net (like a service you buy to store files)?

You can have an office network or home network connected to that "external drive". That drive is where you keep your backups and data you want.

And yes, It's like an external hard drive. You can have it next to you.

You can have it in your place for example 4 TB BlackArmor® NAS 220 server from Seagate.Anyway Tape drives,NAS) & (SAN) are good solution for backup strategy but I think they are expensive for personal use & I prefer to use External hard drive instead.for more information about backup please read this article

The 3 Steps to Successful Data Backup

In case of data loose the good software for data recovery is GetDataBack

Sorry to hear that Marc. But maybe there is a solution, I don't know what solution, but we had a freak prof. at uni who said it's possible to recover discs even if they're burnt! It just costs too much and it's not easy to catch those people who can do it. Air crash experts, military and etc...BTW, two of my WD drivers gave up working exactly after 6 months, like a time bomb and I was almost killing myself. But I was lucky, the problem was solved after I changed the cases!

I backup on three external discs. Never use them permanently. And I backup on DVDs too. Recently I upload my files to google storage as ZIP with password. 80 GB storage costs only 20$ a year. 1 TB, 256$....

Sorry to hear about your problem, Mark!

Going forward there really isn't any need to spend a material amount of money or effort on backups. There are services like mozy.com or carbonite.com that automatically back up your hard drives to redundant data centers. The annual cost is about $50 for unlimited storage. All you have to do is check occasionally that the automatic backup actually worked. I use mozy, but they all work the same.

I recently broke one of my drives and restored about 500GB of photos to new hardware in just a couple of days. This isn't the first time that I used this service to recover data on failed drives. Mozy works like a netword drive. You can browse the archive, download several versions of the files, restore a whole drive, etc. I don't bother with any local backup. As far as I am concerned, mozy's data centers hold the main copy and the local version on my computer exists primarily to speed up access.

No, it's at work. We have 70 TB of NAS storage that's raid protected. Raid level 5 or 6 is the very best way to have "safe" data that's on spinning disks and readily available at your computer. I'm not necessarily recommend people use work based storage, but I have a pretty trusting relationship with my systems admin guy. And, it's my tertiary storage. I do it more for accessibility while at work than for safety. I usually only keep the current and past couple of months at work. When it starts to get older and bigger, I dump it off to a firewire drive and carry it back home. So in the end I have all my photo folders that are older than six months on 2 hard drives in a closet at my house and on a firewire drive in my desk drawer at work. Triple HD backup.

Read up on raid here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_levels

Thank you all for the information and links!

In case anyone was thinking about CDs and DVDs...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8711747.stm

Regarding Mozy.com

Robert can you tell me please if one can access his files from another computer. For example, backing up at home and next day leaving for another country and in order not to take hard drives with you, you access your file from another country through mozy account... Hope you got me. :)

Thanks.

I checked the website but couldn't see any info about it, but i pressume it should have this feature.
It says 5$ for each month and no space limitations and it also automatically back up your data every month.

Thanks, Uzay...

I also read and downloaded trial version, but what if you take your laptop, remove all ext. hard drives and go to another country or even another city or place, can one access the mozy account and get the data that was previously backedup without problems ?

Or, can one access his account from totally another computer ?

Thanks.