Photo Backup

[fenrisx]

What's everyones favorite method of backing up photos?

I tend to just keep all my photos in the 'My Pictures' area of my Windows machine..and try to burn to DVDr or copy to a flash drive ever so often. The problem is keeping track of what's already backed up. At one point I was adding a 'backed up to dvd-r' tag to the photos I've backed up, but after one session of forgetting to do that.. that got derailed. Also, that I can't tag the movies from the camera in the same fashion.

I've been pondering the idea of using something like Dropbox, paying for extra space, and just let it keep my Pictures folder synced.. but that relies on a monthly payment which would exceed the cost of me doing DVDr or flash drive backups. It has the advantage of being off site, but has the disadvantage that if my account ever got hacked then all that stuff could go bye-bye.

I'm thinking about starting from scratch. Find a system (method) that works, and start burning to DVDr again so that I can accurately and consistently name the DVDr's for ease of cataloging.. and finding a method of doing the same on my PC so I know what's already on disc. I was just curious if you guys have a favorite software for helping with this?

[Robinhood4x4]

I'd like to hear what other people do too. Currently, I manually back things up but would like to find out more about auto backup.

All my photos are cataloged according to year, then within each "Year" folder are folders titled according to the event and date. For example, "Nephew's graduation 5-1-12" or "Rim Camping 5-20-12", etc.

This way, all I have to do is find the last folder that was copied to my backup and start from there.

Everything gets backed up to 2 external hard drives. One lives in my fireproof office safe which is inside a larger fireproof gun safe. The other lives on my desk and is sometimes plugged into the computer and sometimes not.

[4x4mike]

I use Picasa. Not really for back up but just to store pictures. I've got an Android app that makes it really easy to add or make new albums. This makes it really easy to "back up" images. My Picasa account has about 12 gb of images but it uses some type of compression so I don't know the number of images.

Currently I pay very little for the Picasa and it allows me to upload full size images and I can buy, download or share any picture or album I want even from my phone or while away from home.

I used to take most of my pictures with one of 3 digital cameras. Downloading to the PC was a chore and didn't get done all the time. Now most of my pictures are taken with my phone so it's easy. I still put stuff on the computer and burn to a cd but it's not as often as I feel good with what I've got. Like Robinhood, CD's go in the fireproof safe in the gun safe.

FWIW I don't use thumbdrives or external hard drives for back up photo storage. Actually I'd don't really use my PC for it either.

[paddlenbike]

I name all of my folders similar to Steve, only with the date first so it puts the most recent pictures at the top of the list. (Ex: 2012-09 - Pismo Trip).

I backup my pictures to an external hard drive about twice a year and I'm currently looking for a better method. I have enough monthly expenses so I will probably avoid paying for storage and instead put the 2 hard-disk NAS that was loaned to me into action. Then perhaps once a year I will sync it with an external hard drive and keep it at a friend's house in case I burn my house down.

[fenrisx]

I was also considering some time of NAS solution. Part of my wanting to do that is just my nerdy side though.

I think for the time being I'm going to give Picasa another shot. I've, briefly, used it in the past just as a picture manager, but didn't give enough time to really get a feel for it. It has a backup feature that keeps track of which files have been backed up: http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=11068 Just found that via a Google search.

[4x4mike]

(Ex: 2012-09 - Pismo Trip).

Then perhaps once a year I will sync it with an external hard drive and keep it at a friend's house in case I burn my house down.


2012-09 - Pismo Trip? Does this mean you're going to Pismo?

As for the friends house if you're looking at me you might as well ask someone else. I'm too likely to accidentally burn my junk down.

[Robinhood4x4]

As for the friends house if you're looking at me you might as well ask someone else. I'm too likely to accidentally burn my junk down.


But he'll still have his NAS and you guys probably won't burn your houses down at the same time...probably.

[L33T35T Tacoma]

In this thread (http://www.ultimateyota.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=8809.0) we went over a little bit about backing up data. I'll reiterate here.

I recommend SyncToy from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155). It's free, and works wonders for me. The basic idea here is you setup "left" and "right" folders, these being your primary (left) and backup (right). You can use the "Synchronize" method, where when you change a file on either side, it effects the other side. Or you can use the "Echo" method; this is primarily for a backup. Basically anything you do on the primary will be mirrored on the backup. SyncToy is schduleable too, although I personally have never set this up. The how-to for scheduling is in the help files.

Once you run SyncToy, it scans both designated drives/folders and looks for changes. It presents you with a list of pending changes, and once you give it the OK, it will do it's thing.

I use this in several ways:
1. I backup my entire user folder (C:\users\Jason) with some exclusions like the hidden "AppData" folder and all "dat" files (these always cause an error, it's a system file which can't be copied). This backup goes from my primary hard drive to a 2TB WD external HD.

2. iTunes backup. My primary folder for my iTunes media is on the aforementioned 2TB external HD. I back that folder up to a second 160GB WD Passport drive.

3. Parent's pictures backup. This one is tricky. I setup a shared folder on my parent's computer and mapped it as a network drive on my PC. Over the network I backup their pictures folder on to my 2TB external.

My final recommendation would be to find an offsite storage solution. Finding one with enough space can be tricky, but Picasa may be a good route, or even 4Shared offers 15 free gigs. If you go the 4Shared route, you could probably sign up for multiple accounts, and make zip files of each folder you have (Pismo 2012, Pismo 2011, etc) and upload those until you hit 15 gigs on each.

I hope this helps! If you do go with this route, make sure you download the correct SyncToy for your version of windows... 32 bit (x86) or 64 bit (x64).

[fenrisx]

SyncToy sounds like the same type of thing as WinMerge. I used WinMerge yesterday to do exactly that... compare my cameras SD card contents with that of what I'd already copied over to the PC. We also use a program called 'Beyond Compare' at work, which sounds like both of these as well (I haven't personally used it).

I think CrashPlan is in my future. 12$/month for unlimited backup for up to 10 devices. My friend at work uses it, and loves it. He had Carbonite before, but didn't like it very much. I still need to double check to see if it counts cell phones as those devices, or if it only backs up files on PC. I know youcan access your files from a phone, I just don't know that it will backup your phone FROM the phone.

[slomatt]

I keep a set of recent photos on my laptop, these are automatically backed up daily at my office using Time Machine. Because my laptop only has 250gb of space (SSD) the majority of my photos are on an external drive at my office. For backup I burn them on to DVDs and keep those copies at my house, this way if either location burns down or if I loose a drive I still have a backup copy.

It would be great if I could back them up online, but when hundreds of Gb of images are involved it gets pretty expensive. For people on PCs you might want to look into Jungle Disk, it will sync your files to either Rackspace's cloud or Amazon S3.

- Matt

[mastacox]

I currently have about 250GB of family pictures, and another 300GB of family video, stored on a pair of 1TB hard drives in a Raid 1 (mirrored) array in my computer. It's a nice way to go for accessibility, but the hard drives are starting to get a little full after some of the other random stuff on those drives like backed up movies and music. I've also done a few backups on Blu-Rays, but at only 25GB a piece for single-layer it takes quite a lot for a full backup...

My next plan is a premium (and admittedly expensive) solution: a large network attached storage (NAS) box for backups and media streaming across the network. I plan to get one something like this set up with 2TB drives in a Raid 5 array:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122062
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/22-122-062-TS?$S300W$

I have been looking into a cloud-based solution like Amazon Glacier which isn't too bad (around $10/mo for 1TB, $.01 per GB per mo) and access speed is a serious problem (upload and download). I think uploading my entire setup would take weeks!

[fenrisx]

Yeah, it definitely takes a while. If I went with an online solution like Crash Plan, I would take advantage of my jobs fast guest Wi-Fi. I can get about 2MB/s upload speeds off that.

[Robinhood4x4]

I plan to get one something like this set up with 2TB drives in a Raid 5 array:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122062



That's what we have at work.

[Robinhood4x4]

As luck would have it, this topic just came up on the photography forums:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1223563

[mastacox]

That's a good thread on the issue. I really like the look of Crashplan+ Unlimited which would provide Unlimited sotrage for one computer for only $3/mo, but I have the same problem with any online storage solution- upload speed!

My internet here in Arlington is 20 Mbps down but only 2Mbps up... So figure a sustained upload speed of about 0.25 MBps (MegaByte per second vs. Megabit per second). If we assume it's able to sustain that speed about 75% of the time and I'm uploading 800GB (GigaByte) of data the first time around, it will take about 4.3 million seconds or about 50 days! A full download of the archive could also be a bit of work, about 5 days at 20 Mbps (assuming of course it can maintain full speed for most of the time as well, which I doubt unless their servers are really fast).

It all points back to a redundant NAS box for me I think!

[fenrisx]

I agree already having such a large amount of data to backup is the downside to online solutions like CrashPlan and Carbonite. I know with CrashPlan you have the option of having them send you HD's to put your data on, which you then send back to them to seed onto their servers. It's $100+ to do that though I believe, which is pricey. For me, at that price, it's a deal breaker.

Like I said.. luckily I could borrow my works wifi where I could get a sustained 2MB/s (megabytes) upload speed.

I like the redundant NAS idea for more than just backup. Just having that storage easily accessible to all devices on your network would be nice. Especially for media streaming. I'd like to the NAS route one day because of that... once I get the $$.

[04 Rocko Taco]

When I worked for the state of Ga Superior Court system, I was managing a program that we simply called "The Archive Project" but its basically a local network black box that pulls new files everyday from certain directories on their network, and saves a copy their locally as well as transmits to our secure data facility in downtown ATL. (same center Google's servers are in)

We used 1TB HDD's for initial setup and back up of files, and then the network black box would take care of updates from there. WE did a couple of small counties entirely over the internet, but it was a slooow process.

I use a similar black box at home, although it doesn't back up offsite.

[Robinhood4x4]

As long as you have a redundant HD in a different location or somewhere that a fire or thieves can't get to.