I'd like to back up my images on something that I can leave, undisturbed, for a few years with the hope that they will still be readable after that. I have USB keys, SSD drives and hard disk drives as options (I could also burn DVDs, but that would probably take too long). For no real reason I get the feeling that hard disks might be the best, but does anyone have any more definitive data on the relative longevity of storage media?
I'd go for hard disks but you shouldn't leave then for a long time without checking them occasionally. You could also use cloud backup as well if you've got the bandwidth and/or patience.
Regardless of which media you choose, make sure you have several of them in different places.
How many TB of data?
Ideally, two old style hard disks of different makes, stored in different places (not SSDs), plus a cloud backup.
I have Live Drive Pro - a cloud based storage.
Unlimited data, multiple machines and devices..
Wouldn't be without it..
Never rely on just one media.
As above back up to a hard drive not stored at your house. Encrypt it if worried whoever looks after it might look at the images ;)
Then also stored on a creditable cloud storage, but watch out for them terminating their service sometime in the future.
If you have amazon prime they offer a free storage for your images, include raw. Probably the cheapest, but who knows how long they'll continue to be free. TBs of cloud storage can be expensive.
I have 3 large very hard drives which I alternate as being my working drive (and back up to the others) so they all get used and de-fragged on a regular basis - In addition, I also have a separate hard drive which I save copies of any finished edits to.
As for Cloud Storage - you do realize that that's just someone else's hard drive, right?
Rule one, three copies.
Rule two, one copy off site.
Rule three test backups, you just might have three perfect copies of a corrupt file.
Personally, working drive is two local SSD's. All fresh imported images are copied to cloud for a year. I then have a copy of everything on a local NAS device, and a selection of USB2/3 and old firewire external drives to rotate off site. So until an image file is a year old it's in four places, after a year in three as its drops of the cloud storage to save costs.
I tend to rotate my disk media so my local working drives are always fairly new, when bigger cheaper ones become available they get replaced and the ones replaced join the set of offsite disk drives. My off site disks get rotated around, eventually the disks in the offsite rota do dies and get disposed of.
Sounds like hardwork but I have a system of what I do after a shoot, and at the end of each month to rotate media around and create fresh copies. My day job is in IT, so a few scripts automate the workflow quite easily. If your on Windows OS, a search will find you a few powershell scripts that can do the job and if a Mac user, Powershell, Shell scripts or even the trusty old automator app can be used.
i use 2 x 8tb hard drives, 1 drive that backs up to the cloud autonatically (although i'm not sure i trust the cloud), and 2 x 2tb pocket drives for when i'm out and about.
Never had a problem with the drives, and i give each a 'whirl' every 3 months for a few minutes just to check the files are still sound.
more_m_photo As with most things in life, the devil is in the detail.
I do have small quantities of key data backed-up in the so-called "cloud", in encrypted containers. And there are bits and bobs backed-up in my own cloud (a remote mail/webserver located 400km away in York). But largely thanks to the piss poor broadband we have round here, to back-up my entire near 20TB dataset to the cloud would take over two years! And of course, there is the all-important question: do I really want to entrust my entire dataset to someone else's server?
Consequently, my main backup system comprises of four of these things...
The master copy lives permanently in my Media Server. In-addition to dishing-up all our books, letters, music, photos and video, it also behaves like a giant NAS. It is available across our LAN. With a few mouse clicks I can make it available anywhere on the planet, if I need to do so. The other three volumes are in decent quality aluminium cases, such as those pictured above, and live mostly off site. Importantly, for me anyway, all four volumes are whole-disk encrypted. Backups can and do get lost, stolen, or simply discarded.
Other important thing is cost. These 20 TB "enterprise grade" disks are relatively cheap at the moment. They have proven to be pretty reliable too. And the power consumption numbers aren't bad either.
Don't want to bore everyone to death with all the nitty-gritty details here. But if you are interested, you can read all about it, c/w appropriate links...
I am basically in agreement with waist.it . I use a 40TB 4 disk Synology NAS as my master copy which is configured with RAID for internal resilience. I also run a cloud backup from this everynight. I used to have a Google Cloud synchronised copy, which I do for all my other files, but this proved too expensive once my photo database got too big but if it is still relatively small then this is a good option. If you do use this option though you will need to keep your master on a local hard drive or NAS otherwise LR and PS are way too slow.
It's funny how this has popped up, I've been looking for something in my old format film/slides this morning My slides go back 30yrs my film goes back 52 yrs all is good with them and only one copy, fair do's if I have a fire yes i've lost them then as I get older who knows how long I'm going to live, when I'm gone biggest percentage of what I've been shooting will be in the skip I suppose.
Looks like nothing will beat the old system for storing the media, It's time consuming getting it digitalised and not always to the standard of the slide or film, not even the pro's scan them that good.
Conclusion is theres problems with both media if they're digitalised, just something we have to put up with till they perfect it.
Edited by sd photography54
TerryGeePhoto said
I am basically in agreement with waist.it . I use a 40TB 4 disk Synology NAS as my master copy which is configured with RAID for internal resilience. I also run a cloud backup from this everynight. I used to have a Google Cloud synchronised copy, which I do for all my other files, but this proved too expensive once my photo database got too big but if it is still relatively small then this is a good option. If you do use this option though you will need to keep your master on a local hard drive or NAS otherwise LR and PS are way too slow.
Yep (esp. the bit in bold). I do my editing on a reasonably powerful lappy, fitted with a 2TB Samsung EVO NVMe M.2 SSD. Then perform an incremental rsync to the electromechanical drive on my Media Server, shortly before I toddle up the proverbial "wooden hill", last thing in the evening.
Thanks all, but I don’t need advice how many backups and where, just which storage medium is going to be the most stable
… and it’s c 5TB and to be stored as long as I can get away with
Edited by more_m_photo
