Comments on: How to Store Digital Photos http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/ Daily discussion of photography business issues & photography websites. Marketing and sales tips for smart photographers, plus a dose of inspiration from the PhotoShelter team. Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:08:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: TNG11of100 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17205 TNG11of100 Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:03:38 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17205 I very much agree with Peter Krogh's 3-2-1 approach, as this provides a 'spread spectrum', increasing the likelyhood that data will survive over the long term. Of all of the storage methods mentioned, I believe there is one that is essentially overlooked. Going back to the beginning of the article... "None of the typical storage media, from CD/DVDs to hard drives, have proven to be as resilient as film". I believe the term 'film' in this sense is slightly inaccurate. I believe it may be more accurate to state 'as resilient as photographs', meaning not the film negative itself, but the developed image on photographic paper. Developed photos are known to have already have survived for than 100 years. If "none of the typical...media" are as resilient, then why should photographers, want to move away from including a photographic print format completely, and focus only exclusively in the un-tested world' of electronic storage, with significant challenges. I understand the necessity to preserve data in its digital format, but offer that Peter's theorem for preserving data, which is exceptional, might be extended to be: 3-3-1 "Three instances of a datum, on three media formats, one of which is printed media and not electronic, with one instance offsite" A printed photograph, of course, adds complexity and cost to an archival system, but the benefit is that this format is very familiar to everyone, and the most universally supported at any point into the future, as the only mechanism you need to read it, is your eyes. Perhaps an approach, of printing only the 'keepers', would help to minimize administrative effort and reduce cost. It might also be simpler to create an additional storage folder in the fileystem/folder-hierarchy, perhaps called 'print'. Each time downloads are done from a capture device (camera), and photos are examined, sorted, labeled, processed, one additional work-flow step could be to create an extra copy of 'printable' photos into the 'print' folder. Periodically, the contents of the 'print' folder are printed, and then purged to accept the next round of printables. (Similar to emptying the memory card of your camera). When I say 'periodically', this can be as often as you need, be it weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. I believe a 3-month interval would be efficient I very much agree with Peter Krogh’s 3-2-1 approach, as this provides a ‘spread spectrum’, increasing the likelyhood that data will survive over the long term. Of all of the storage methods mentioned, I believe there is one that is essentially overlooked. Going back to the beginning of the article… “None of the typical storage media, from CD/DVDs to hard drives, have proven to be as resilient as film”. I believe the term ‘film’ in this sense is slightly inaccurate. I believe it may be more accurate to state ‘as resilient as photographs’, meaning not the film negative itself, but the developed image on photographic paper. Developed photos are known to have already have survived for than 100 years. If “none of the typical…media” are as resilient, then why should photographers, want to move away from including a photographic print format completely, and focus only exclusively in the un-tested world’ of electronic storage, with significant challenges. I understand the necessity to preserve data in its digital format, but offer that Peter’s theorem for preserving data, which is exceptional, might be extended to be: 3-3-1 “Three instances of a datum, on three media formats, one of which is printed media and not electronic, with one instance offsite” A printed photograph, of course, adds complexity and cost to an archival system, but the benefit is that this format is very familiar to everyone, and the most universally supported at any point into the future, as the only mechanism you need to read it, is your eyes. Perhaps an approach, of printing only the ‘keepers’, would help to minimize administrative effort and reduce cost. It might also be simpler to create an additional storage folder in the fileystem/folder-hierarchy, perhaps called ‘print’. Each time downloads are done from a capture device (camera), and photos are examined, sorted, labeled, processed, one additional work-flow step could be to create an extra copy of ‘printable’ photos into the ‘print’ folder. Periodically, the contents of the ‘print’ folder are printed, and then purged to accept the next round of printables. (Similar to emptying the memory card of your camera). When I say ‘periodically’, this can be as often as you need, be it weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. I believe a 3-month interval would be efficient

]]> By: external disk http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17204 external disk Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:38:39 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17204 I have 2 drobos myself, had to replace the fan because they were causing too much noise, something to consider when you consider to purchase one. But now my photos are secure and the drobos operate smooth and silently I have 2 drobos myself, had to replace the fan because they were causing too much noise, something to consider when you consider to purchase one. But now my photos are secure and the drobos operate smooth and silently

]]> By: My Book Elite 1tb External Usb 2 0 Hard Drive http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17206 My Book Elite 1tb External Usb 2 0 Hard Drive Sat, 15 May 2010 09:59:09 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17206 <strong>My Book Elite 1tb External Usb 2 0 Hard Drive</strong> Buy the BAAH0010HCH and other Hard Drives at Now available at PC Connect My Book Elite 1tb External Usb 2 0 Hard Drive

Buy the BAAH0010HCH and other Hard Drives at Now available at PC Connect

]]> By: EricE http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17203 EricE Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:27:53 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17203 @whatsupdoc: There is nothing inherently wrong with RAID. Your problem is you were using RAID incorrectly. No level of RAID is a backup solution - including RAID 1 (or mirroring). If you have lost files due to RAID array failure that's not the fault of RAID but due to your not performing proper backups! RAID is fault tolerance for hardware failure, not protection from data loss. if you accidentally delete a file on a RAID 1 (mirror) it will be gone on both hard drives. Heck, I'm setting up a software RAID 0 (striping with no parity) for pure performance. Yes, if I loose a drive I will loose the entire array - but it's a risk I can afford to take as I have multiple, continuous, backups of my data. I am no longer a fan of vanilla RAID 5 - with hard drive capacities these days for primary storage there is little reason to move beyond mirroring. For pure capacity, even with larger hard drive RAID has it's benefits, but I will only mess with self-configuring RAID like that offered by companies like Drobo with their BeyondRAID and a few other RAID vendors that have extended functionality in their array management. The ability to dynamically non-distructively resize an array is huge. It's more than a simple convenience with the volumes of data we are managing today, but a necessity. Backing up an array (a couple of times if you are prudent) before breaking and rebuilding it to make it larger is crazy in this day and age. Since this article was written, the Drobo Pro has been released and for large amounts of fault tolerant storage for an individual user I would take it over any of the NAS solutions mentioned above. For multiple users, I would move up to the Drobo Elite. I never was a big fan of NAS, and it makes even less sense these days. I do use a regular firewire Drobo to back up my internal drives (via Time Machine), but I can see myself getting to the point where even the new Drobo Pro with five slots won't be enough to backup my data and more importantly give me a meaningful history of files. For the money and the functionality it provides, the Drobo Pro is currently unbeaten. The Drobo Elite does things (like multiple machine access, data protection the equivalent of RAID 6, thin provisioning, non-distructive expansion or re-configuration of your array, etc.) that formerly were only possible on enterprise grade SANs that started in the $25K range - the value, power and flexibility are just astonishing. Even if you have one of the NAS's mentioned in the article *you still need to back up your data separately* - maybe even more than one backup copy! It depends on how important it is to you. For me, many of my pictures are irreplaceable - I will never get to re-create those moments in time. I use TimeMachine for immediate local backup, I use backblaze.com for off-site backup with some basic history, and I make clones of important data and store the hard drives off site for longer term storage and more history than backblaze.com offers. The nice thing about services like backblaze are they always work continuously and automatically (much like Time Machine). I know from experience if backing up isn't easy to do (i.e. automated) I'm not going to do it! Yes, it took a couple of weeks to do the initial upload of 1.8 TB of my data - but now that it's over, it has no problem keeping up. If i dump a large number of photo's from a shoot (100GB or so) it may take a day or two to catch up - but I have Time Machine and if I really want an immediate second copy, I will clone to a hard drive and take it off site. Eventually BackBlaze catches up. Moral of the story - don't rely on just one backup, or technology like RAID (or even burning to DVD - optical media isn't nearly as stable as many assume), to save your data. @whatsupdoc: There is nothing inherently wrong with RAID. Your problem is you were using RAID incorrectly. No level of RAID is a backup solution – including RAID 1 (or mirroring). If you have lost files due to RAID array failure that’s not the fault of RAID but due to your not performing proper backups! RAID is fault tolerance for hardware failure, not protection from data loss. if you accidentally delete a file on a RAID 1 (mirror) it will be gone on both hard drives. Heck, I’m setting up a software RAID 0 (striping with no parity) for pure performance. Yes, if I loose a drive I will loose the entire array – but it’s a risk I can afford to take as I have multiple, continuous, backups of my data. I am no longer a fan of vanilla RAID 5 – with hard drive capacities these days for primary storage there is little reason to move beyond mirroring. For pure capacity, even with larger hard drive RAID has it’s benefits, but I will only mess with self-configuring RAID like that offered by companies like Drobo with their BeyondRAID and a few other RAID vendors that have extended functionality in their array management. The ability to dynamically non-distructively resize an array is huge. It’s more than a simple convenience with the volumes of data we are managing today, but a necessity. Backing up an array (a couple of times if you are prudent) before breaking and rebuilding it to make it larger is crazy in this day and age. Since this article was written, the Drobo Pro has been released and for large amounts of fault tolerant storage for an individual user I would take it over any of the NAS solutions mentioned above. For multiple users, I would move up to the Drobo Elite. I never was a big fan of NAS, and it makes even less sense these days. I do use a regular firewire Drobo to back up my internal drives (via Time Machine), but I can see myself getting to the point where even the new Drobo Pro with five slots won’t be enough to backup my data and more importantly give me a meaningful history of files. For the money and the functionality it provides, the Drobo Pro is currently unbeaten. The Drobo Elite does things (like multiple machine access, data protection the equivalent of RAID 6, thin provisioning, non-distructive expansion or re-configuration of your array, etc.) that formerly were only possible on enterprise grade SANs that started in the $25K range – the value, power and flexibility are just astonishing. Even if you have one of the NAS’s mentioned in the article *you still need to back up your data separately* – maybe even more than one backup copy! It depends on how important it is to you. For me, many of my pictures are irreplaceable – I will never get to re-create those moments in time. I use TimeMachine for immediate local backup, I use backblaze.com for off-site backup with some basic history, and I make clones of important data and store the hard drives off site for longer term storage and more history than backblaze.com offers. The nice thing about services like backblaze are they always work continuously and automatically (much like Time Machine). I know from experience if backing up isn’t easy to do (i.e. automated) I’m not going to do it! Yes, it took a couple of weeks to do the initial upload of 1.8 TB of my data – but now that it’s over, it has no problem keeping up. If i dump a large number of photo’s from a shoot (100GB or so) it may take a day or two to catch up – but I have Time Machine and if I really want an immediate second copy, I will clone to a hard drive and take it off site. Eventually BackBlaze catches up. Moral of the story – don’t rely on just one backup, or technology like RAID (or even burning to DVD – optical media isn’t nearly as stable as many assume), to save your data.

]]> By: praveen http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17202 praveen Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:50:57 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17202 I do not know much about RAID, but what I feel is it is a backup copy. Now does that mean that if I lose data on one drive due to virus infection, I have another backup drive... which has a perfect copy..... but that too is virus infected and not retrievable?! I do not know much about RAID, but what I feel is it is a backup copy. Now does that mean that if I lose data on one drive due to virus infection, I have another backup drive… which has a perfect copy….. but that too is virus infected and not retrievable?!

]]> By: Scott Goldsmith http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17201 Scott Goldsmith Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:13:19 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17201 Has anyone purchased or worked with the storage systems at MacGurus.com They seem like great drives with great service. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Has anyone tasted these products? Has anyone purchased or worked with the storage systems at MacGurus.com They seem like great drives with great service. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Has anyone tasted these products?

]]> By: Michael Chow http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17200 Michael Chow Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:45:15 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17200 With regards to the heat problem, I have found that Western Digital's green line of hard drives is great even if you don't care about the environment. Other hard drives can get almost too hot to touch but these drives stay relatively cool even under heavy load. They also have lower power consumption which helps too. With regards to the heat problem, I have found that Western Digital’s green line of hard drives is great even if you don’t care about the environment. Other hard drives can get almost too hot to touch but these drives stay relatively cool even under heavy load. They also have lower power consumption which helps too.

]]> By: helpme http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17199 helpme Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:55:40 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17199 We use a ReadyNAS (www.netgear.com) at home backed up by an ioSafe Solo (www.iosafe.com) fireproof waterproof external drive. With this setup, we get: RAID (drive failure), Backups (RAID failure, accidental deletions, etc.), Fire (ioSafe) and Flood (ioSafe) plus the ioSafe bolts to the ground for theft!!! It's not perfect but it's something. We use a ReadyNAS (www.netgear.com) at home backed up by an ioSafe Solo (www.iosafe.com) fireproof waterproof external drive. With this setup, we get: RAID (drive failure), Backups (RAID failure, accidental deletions, etc.), Fire (ioSafe) and Flood (ioSafe) plus the ioSafe bolts to the ground for theft!!! It’s not perfect but it’s something.

]]> By: whatsupdoc.myopenid.com http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17198 whatsupdoc.myopenid.com Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:05:22 +0000 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot/#comment-17198 hi, i really have to disagree on the RAID part !!!! it does not provide redundant copies of your data but redondant copies of datas that placed together are your data.....ONLY RAID 1 GIVES A TRUE BACKUP !!!!!! raid5 is just a fault tolerant system to prevent downtime of a storage service but not a backup solution !!!!! take a raid5...or a drobo....have a hardware failure of the raid card or the drobo case and NONE OF YOUR DRIVES WILL BE READABLE !!!! you will have to buy a spare raid card or a spare drobo to be abble to read your files.. pros should only stick with RAID1 !!!! 3 disks in a raid 1 mirror with 2 disks always on site and one disk off site.... i've lost numerous files after raid hardware failure....and a raid array takes forever to rebuild leaving the system vulnerable during that time (sorry for bad english...not my native language) hi, i really have to disagree on the RAID part !!!! it does not provide redundant copies of your data but redondant copies of datas that placed together are your data…..ONLY RAID 1 GIVES A TRUE BACKUP !!!!!! raid5 is just a fault tolerant system to prevent downtime of a storage service but not a backup solution !!!!! take a raid5…or a drobo….have a hardware failure of the raid card or the drobo case and NONE OF YOUR DRIVES WILL BE READABLE !!!! you will have to buy a spare raid card or a spare drobo to be abble to read your files.. pros should only stick with RAID1 !!!! 3 disks in a raid 1 mirror with 2 disks always on site and one disk off site…. i’ve lost numerous files after raid hardware failure….and a raid array takes forever to rebuild leaving the system vulnerable during that time (sorry for bad english…not my native language)

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