Best ways to backup
- Thread starter Tengu
- Start date
I had to pick a hosting site, Photobucket was recommended.
Opened a free account> set up a library of folders.
Pretty much everything had been resized "Internet Large" (with Windows Picture Manager.) Full 1+MB files take forever.
In several marathon sessions, copied all but most recent into PB.
Plan B = I have a Seagate 1TB stand alone memory. Should get it going.
My SIL #2 is using FlickR and doesn't like it but has so much in there, he sticks with it. Agreed that PB was good.
My SIL #1 is an IT guy in Silicon Valley, CA. He advised me to stay out of the Cloud = lost control.
Opened a free account> set up a library of folders.
Pretty much everything had been resized "Internet Large" (with Windows Picture Manager.) Full 1+MB files take forever.
In several marathon sessions, copied all but most recent into PB.
Plan B = I have a Seagate 1TB stand alone memory. Should get it going.
My SIL #2 is using FlickR and doesn't like it but has so much in there, he sticks with it. Agreed that PB was good.
My SIL #1 is an IT guy in Silicon Valley, CA. He advised me to stay out of the Cloud = lost control.
Copy to as many devices as possible and hope they don't all get fried. 
Nothing is safe!!
With that in mind ...
1) the cloud is just someone else's hard drive, they probably have redundancy and backups at their end, but what if they go bust, and are their datacenters earthquake/asteroid proof?
2) copying from one hard drive to another, unless you keep them in different venues one is just as vulnerable as the other, a fire/flood will wipe out everything
3) DVD's & CD's are not as indestructible as you would like, I've lost count of the number of disks I've written to that can't be read back for no apparent reason, and they have the same venue based problems
So....Make lots of copies, on as many different formats as you can, and don't keep them all together
I remember years ago my dad used to back everything up on a tape drive, dat type tapes I think. Computer fried, bought a new one, went to reinstall from the tapes...got an error message, turned out you could only reinstall onto the same computer you backed up from, security measure apparently
Nothing is safe!!
With that in mind ...
1) the cloud is just someone else's hard drive, they probably have redundancy and backups at their end, but what if they go bust, and are their datacenters earthquake/asteroid proof?
2) copying from one hard drive to another, unless you keep them in different venues one is just as vulnerable as the other, a fire/flood will wipe out everything
3) DVD's & CD's are not as indestructible as you would like, I've lost count of the number of disks I've written to that can't be read back for no apparent reason, and they have the same venue based problems
So....Make lots of copies, on as many different formats as you can, and don't keep them all together
I remember years ago my dad used to back everything up on a tape drive, dat type tapes I think. Computer fried, bought a new one, went to reinstall from the tapes...got an error message, turned out you could only reinstall onto the same computer you backed up from, security measure apparently
nitrambur, you sure are a bag of optimism! I agree totally, as discouraging as it seems.
I've been told for important stuff, store in at least 3 different places and do not forget where those are.
I'm of two minds:
a) work hard to save and archive everything
b) who cares? Only me. Mostly meaningless pictures to everyone else.
I've been told for important stuff, store in at least 3 different places and do not forget where those are.
I'm of two minds:
a) work hard to save and archive everything
b) who cares? Only me. Mostly meaningless pictures to everyone else.
Two main reasons for back up, loss/theft and disaster.
Depending on how likely those are and how important your data is should inform back up needs.
If you're only worried about your device failing then a single back up could do.
If you're worried about a device failing or being lost/ stolen then maybe again 1-2 copies.
If you're worried about fire, flood, Armageddon etc. Then maybe a third (or more) copy at a different location.
I've had issues with CDs and DVDs so stick to portable hard drives and USB drives.
I tend to just back up data. Some people choose to back up their entire system.
If the only data you are worried about are photos I would save them all to a portable hard drive and 1 or more USB drives.
Literally plug in the new device and copy the files over. You might also find it a good time to go through your photos.
I
Depending on how likely those are and how important your data is should inform back up needs.
If you're only worried about your device failing then a single back up could do.
If you're worried about a device failing or being lost/ stolen then maybe again 1-2 copies.
If you're worried about fire, flood, Armageddon etc. Then maybe a third (or more) copy at a different location.
I've had issues with CDs and DVDs so stick to portable hard drives and USB drives.
I tend to just back up data. Some people choose to back up their entire system.
If the only data you are worried about are photos I would save them all to a portable hard drive and 1 or more USB drives.
Literally plug in the new device and copy the files over. You might also find it a good time to go through your photos.
I
google drive/photo sync is nice and easy to use for photos backup, on tablet/phone the photos app is quite nice
My advice, given you are experiencing problems with your broadband coverage, and I suspect that you want to keep things as simple as possible, would be to get an external hard drive. A terabyte is probably more than enough, but there is no price advantage to going smaller. Expect to pay something in the £55 range. That way you have control over the process and your pictures.
Other Thoughts:
Photobucket is awful. Do not use it. You will go mad(der) trying to fight through all the bandwidth sucking adverts. I used to use it, but no more. The problem with many of the on-line photo hosting sites is that (at least the free ones) do not store all pictures at full size, so you may find that something that was big is now shrunk. The online storage sites don't have that problem.
Cloud services can offer some free storage, but if you start talking about a lot of room for pictures, they may not have enough in your allocation. For pictures it is probably the most secure since their backups have backups, but unless you have a fast, reliable, connection I think it could cause frustration. I have good fibre broad band and found that uploading large blocks of pictures to Photobucket and Flikr could get stalled when one image wouldn't travel. I could come back to my machine after an hour or two, thinking it had been busy uploading, to find it had done just 15 minutes worth and then thrown an error which halted the process.
I assume you have a laptop rather than a desktop computer. I have a medium tower case, so have room for more than one hard drive in there. I have found that having my data (photos etc) on a different HDD from my Windows and programs keeps my data intact better. I have had to do several full format re-installs of Windows, which wiped everything on that drive, but all my data was safe on its own drive. Doesn't protect from theft, electrical surge or my home being struck by an asteroid but I am mainly interested in protecting against data corruption and hardware failure.
DVDs aren't bad for back up, its what I used before portable hard drives became available at reasonable prices. They work better for storing lots of small files, like photos and documents, than for software. They do degrade over time (there was something on the news about this years ago) so its best to have a rolling schedule of back up if using DVDs, re-back up before the old copy gets too old, not just burning to disk and forgetting about it. There are a lot of sites that discuss how long data will last on a DVD. My own experience has been that I have been fine out to 5 years for photos. They might last longer, but I haven't needed to go back further than that.
Best of luck!
Other Thoughts:
Photobucket is awful. Do not use it. You will go mad(der) trying to fight through all the bandwidth sucking adverts. I used to use it, but no more. The problem with many of the on-line photo hosting sites is that (at least the free ones) do not store all pictures at full size, so you may find that something that was big is now shrunk. The online storage sites don't have that problem.
Cloud services can offer some free storage, but if you start talking about a lot of room for pictures, they may not have enough in your allocation. For pictures it is probably the most secure since their backups have backups, but unless you have a fast, reliable, connection I think it could cause frustration. I have good fibre broad band and found that uploading large blocks of pictures to Photobucket and Flikr could get stalled when one image wouldn't travel. I could come back to my machine after an hour or two, thinking it had been busy uploading, to find it had done just 15 minutes worth and then thrown an error which halted the process.
I assume you have a laptop rather than a desktop computer. I have a medium tower case, so have room for more than one hard drive in there. I have found that having my data (photos etc) on a different HDD from my Windows and programs keeps my data intact better. I have had to do several full format re-installs of Windows, which wiped everything on that drive, but all my data was safe on its own drive. Doesn't protect from theft, electrical surge or my home being struck by an asteroid
but I am mainly interested in protecting against data corruption and hardware failure.DVDs aren't bad for back up, its what I used before portable hard drives became available at reasonable prices. They work better for storing lots of small files, like photos and documents, than for software. They do degrade over time (there was something on the news about this years ago) so its best to have a rolling schedule of back up if using DVDs, re-back up before the old copy gets too old, not just burning to disk and forgetting about it. There are a lot of sites that discuss how long data will last on a DVD. My own experience has been that I have been fine out to 5 years for photos. They might last longer, but I haven't needed to go back further than that.
Best of luck!
Nice and easy option from me...
Portable hard drive
I think if Armageddon was happening the last thing on my mind would be my photos 😂
Thanks,
Allan
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Portable hard drive
I think if Armageddon was happening the last thing on my mind would be my photos 😂
Thanks,
Allan
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Back when I was on a photography degree a few years ago it was advised our work was backed up twice in at least 2 places. That usually meant on 2 separate hard drives.
Hard drives have a limited life and they will eventually pack up. This system means if one dies, there is still another with everything on it, then you can replace the dead one, and continue cycling these two hard drives.
If you just had one and it packed up, that would be the end. I know this sounds extreme but when you consider that a hard rives life is usually between 2 and 5 years, and it is basically guaranteed to stop working at one point, it makes sense.
We were advised against online storage because the company could go bust or have a web problem and you could lose it all.
Obviously this was advice for professional photographers where the files are their livelihood, but if you take backing up files seriously its good advice to follow.
I have lost hundreds of photos at a time in computer switchovers. Luckily The best photos were scans from film so I still have originals.
The other, more important concern is future proofing your photographs. In 15 years the computer systems we use to read image files might be totally different and not back compatible with old fashioned JPEG images. Then, whether you have the files backed up or not, the images have been lost.
The best advice I have, then, for 'backing up' your photos, is to make physical copies of them. Print the photos out. Like in the old days of film. Choose the best ones and just print those if you need to. Ultimately, digital storage is an unreliable, temperamental and ever changing technology and it is one of the worst places to store things that you want to be permanent.
Print out your photos. Physical media cant corrupt. They can be scanned in the future if you lose the original files.
I guarantee you'll look at them more often that way too.
Hard drives have a limited life and they will eventually pack up. This system means if one dies, there is still another with everything on it, then you can replace the dead one, and continue cycling these two hard drives.
If you just had one and it packed up, that would be the end. I know this sounds extreme but when you consider that a hard rives life is usually between 2 and 5 years, and it is basically guaranteed to stop working at one point, it makes sense.
We were advised against online storage because the company could go bust or have a web problem and you could lose it all.
Obviously this was advice for professional photographers where the files are their livelihood, but if you take backing up files seriously its good advice to follow.
I have lost hundreds of photos at a time in computer switchovers. Luckily The best photos were scans from film so I still have originals.
The other, more important concern is future proofing your photographs. In 15 years the computer systems we use to read image files might be totally different and not back compatible with old fashioned JPEG images. Then, whether you have the files backed up or not, the images have been lost.
The best advice I have, then, for 'backing up' your photos, is to make physical copies of them. Print the photos out. Like in the old days of film. Choose the best ones and just print those if you need to. Ultimately, digital storage is an unreliable, temperamental and ever changing technology and it is one of the worst places to store things that you want to be permanent.
Print out your photos. Physical media cant corrupt. They can be scanned in the future if you lose the original files.
I guarantee you'll look at them more often that way too.
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Just stick them on a portable hard drive, and maybe a usb stick as well, stick it in a draw, and be done with it. People have been doing it for years without any issue. You can resort to cloud storage as an additional layer of security, but naturally you would probably want to refrain from uploading anything sensitive.
A hard drives life span really isn't something you should be worrying about if it is just going to sit in a drawer doing nothing.
I tend to find people get far too worked up when it comes to backing things up. Suggesting fancy RAID arrays, NAS units etc, it really isn't necessary.
A hard drives life span really isn't something you should be worrying about if it is just going to sit in a drawer doing nothing.
I tend to find people get far too worked up when it comes to backing things up. Suggesting fancy RAID arrays, NAS units etc, it really isn't necessary.
If you go down the external drive route you could consider a drive supporting RAID 1 with multiple disks. This type of drive has two disks in it so when you backup to the drive unit it makes two copies, one to each of the disks. So if your laptop drive fails, and one of the disks in the RAID drive also fails, there's a chance you may still have a copy of your photos on the remaining drive.
Some RAID 1 drives allow you to swap disks in and out so you could, in theory, have multiple backups.
And if you're worried about dodgy power supply (I think you accomodate yourself in a static caravan?) you could look at an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with surge protection to minimise the likelihood of frying your external drive(s) with power surges. Also if the mains power goes you've got a good few minutes then to close down the sensitive gear (computers, drives, etc). And if your router is plugged into the UPS it shouldn't fry if the phone line is hit by lightning elsewhere. (I fried my satellite broadband router that way - by not having it plugged into the surge protection during lightning strike!)
Some RAID 1 drives allow you to swap disks in and out so you could, in theory, have multiple backups.
And if you're worried about dodgy power supply (I think you accomodate yourself in a static caravan?) you could look at an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with surge protection to minimise the likelihood of frying your external drive(s) with power surges. Also if the mains power goes you've got a good few minutes then to close down the sensitive gear (computers, drives, etc). And if your router is plugged into the UPS it shouldn't fry if the phone line is hit by lightning elsewhere. (I fried my satellite broadband router that way - by not having it plugged into the surge protection during lightning strike!)
+1 for spider oak
Security , privacy , peace of mind.
Google drive is good too and it's not likely to fold anytime soon...
But I back up in external HDD too...
Belts and braces
Good advice all.
Except for printing them out. That might work for a professional using all professional gear where cost isn't an object, and the pictures to be kept are all high quality "special moments", but for Tengu, or most folk, it is poor and misleading advice with so many caveats attached that it could fill its own thread. It would certainly not be a good or workable option for anyone I know.
Except for printing them out. That might work for a professional using all professional gear where cost isn't an object, and the pictures to be kept are all high quality "special moments", but for Tengu, or most folk, it is poor and misleading advice with so many caveats attached that it could fill its own thread. It would certainly not be a good or workable option for anyone I know.
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I'd recommend the following approach.
1. Get an external hard drive that attaches to your home network. I'd recommend Western Digital.
They usually come with software that you set up on your computer that backs up folders of your choosing, on a schedule of your choosing.
You can then just set it up and forget about it. Anytime something is added or deleted from your machine, the back up will reflect it. I have mine set to back up hourly.
2. Use a cloud based back up storage system. I use BackBlaze. It's about £5 per month for unlimited storage.
Similarly to your hard drive - set it up to back up the folders you want on a schedule you want.
It takes a while to copy all of the data to their servers but you just set it up and forget it.
It has low utilisation on the computer itself, so just set it up and forget about it.
You can restore single files or whole bunches from it if needed.
3. Have Windows create a system image to your back up hard drive and back it up daily overnight.
If the laptop fails you can restore it without having to mess about with setting windows up all over again.
This way, you are covered for most conceivable scenarios.
Laptop fails - you have a copy locally.
House burns down - you have a copy somewhere else.
I chose BackBlaze because, apart from being well reviewed, in the event of a catastrophe, they will send you a hard drive with your data - and if you return their disk to them it's free!
No affiliation - just a happy customer.
The important thing is that you do back it up! The laptop will fail at some point - it's just a matter of when.
1. Get an external hard drive that attaches to your home network. I'd recommend Western Digital.
They usually come with software that you set up on your computer that backs up folders of your choosing, on a schedule of your choosing.
You can then just set it up and forget about it. Anytime something is added or deleted from your machine, the back up will reflect it. I have mine set to back up hourly.
2. Use a cloud based back up storage system. I use BackBlaze. It's about £5 per month for unlimited storage.
Similarly to your hard drive - set it up to back up the folders you want on a schedule you want.
It takes a while to copy all of the data to their servers but you just set it up and forget it.
It has low utilisation on the computer itself, so just set it up and forget about it.
You can restore single files or whole bunches from it if needed.
3. Have Windows create a system image to your back up hard drive and back it up daily overnight.
If the laptop fails you can restore it without having to mess about with setting windows up all over again.
This way, you are covered for most conceivable scenarios.
Laptop fails - you have a copy locally.
House burns down - you have a copy somewhere else.
I chose BackBlaze because, apart from being well reviewed, in the event of a catastrophe, they will send you a hard drive with your data - and if you return their disk to them it's free!
No affiliation - just a happy customer.
The important thing is that you do back it up! The laptop will fail at some point - it's just a matter of when.
