Frank's First rule of backup...... Do not use cloud services. They "leak";
they cost; they are slow; they are unreliable; something WILL go wrong. It is
a single point failure mechanism. There is NO BACKUP to their services.
And if you decide to break Rule 1, then do the rest of this anyway, in which
case why did you break Rule 1?
Rule 2: You will backup to your choice of HDD. You can use a server, you can
use some funky, expensive and hard to use Raid array ( DROBO for example) or, a
plain external USB HDD. Simple is good. I use USB Drives.
You WILL buy 2-3 identical ( or not) HDD of the type you select because you
need redundancy. How big? REAL big... I bought my current 8GB Seagate USB3.0
HDD drives for $108 each. These things go on sale often. Decide the size you
want ( I say as big as you can afford for about $100) but certainly there is no
reason to go below 4TB per drive. Do NOT buy cheaper USB2.0 drives they are
too slow and not really much cheaper.
If, or when, a drive crashes, replace it for $100 and get on with life. You
have 3 backups..... if one goes down, you are down to 2 for maybe 24 hours. No
big deal.
You will purchase some form of Backup SW..... nothing sophisticated, I use
Acronis True Image. ( we may diverge here as I am a PC user. MAC folk need to
find something else). The key factor here is that the SW will do an
incremental backup... only files that have been changed or are new are actually
backed up.
You will use the SW to establish an AUTOMATIC and easy to use periodic backup
of your desired files. You can include your Image files exclusively or include
your Tax files and or personal correspondence files or whatever you want. Do
NOT use compression if asked.
How often? As often as you wish... Daily? Weekly? Monthly? On Demand?
However often you feel is right for you.
You will use the backup programming for EACH drive..... Monday for drive 1,
Tuesday for drive 2, etc... or Backup to all drives each day..... the best
solution......
YOU WILL USE and PLUG IN ALL YOUR DRIVES EACH DAY!!! Forget this step and you
are back to waiting for problems. A drive that is not online is a useless
drive.
Using this methodology will cost you about $500. You will have a massive
10-30TB of file space, forever, with triple redundancy, and your files will
always be immediately available for fast downloads.
If you are truly paranoid, and I have a former IT Executive who actually
carries around with him, at ALL times, a backup of his files, you can always
store one copy of the drives somewhere else... a friend's house ( do NOT use an
EX WIFE!!!) or in your car ( if you get a SSD, this will be ok.... If you buy
regular spinning disk HDD, this is another formula for disaster) or un your
Murse..... my buddy's approach.....or in a vault in some obscure location that
you will probably never bother to access because it is difficult and
inconvenient)
What you will not get is the access to your backups from your phone. Do you
really need that?
Frank Filippone
Red735i@xxxxxxxxxxx
Good morning to you all. With the news about MySpace digital loss of some 12
years worth of digital files and the other previous cloud companies losing
data, how are y’all backing up your image files? I know the subject was briefly
discussed a few weeks ago, but I’ve lost that email chain. After moving some
boxes of slides and negatives last night and hearing the MySpace news this
morning brought the subject to mind.
I recall David Young having a series of external hard drives, but I’d like to
hear about your process again David, if you’re up for repeating it. And if
anyone else has a process other than a “cloud-service” I sure would be
interested in hearing about it. Currently, I only have my few digital files on
my Mac’s HD with a slight "insurance policy” in the one external HD used for
Apple’s background application, Time Machine. I’ve been tasked by family
members with scanning our parents photos and documents, so a sound
straight-forward process for archiving would be very useful to me. Thank you.
I have to say that after moving the negatives and slides last night and hearing
this morning’s news, I think back to someone whom many of you knew probably
quite well, Tom Abrahammson, and his love for film. I never had the pleasure of
meeting him, but every time I use his Rapid Winder on my M6 I think fondly of
him, his designs, and his enthusiasm for Leica and 35mm. To his memory I say
“Thank you, Tom”.
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