 Irene Troy |
Online backup service experiences? Yes, I did actually do a search for this topic, expecting to find numerous threads already running, but the search found nothing, so… I’m something of a maven about backing up my work and currently work with two separate external drives that serve as mirror drives. In essence, my RAW files exist on three separate drives – one internal and two external. Nonetheless, I’ve been worrying about what might happen in the event of a fire or other catastrophic event in my home office. I’ve been researching online backup services such as Carbonite, Mozy and SOS. On surface inspection, these plans appear reasonable in cost, once you consider the size of the files I would need to backup, the cost soars into the unreasonable. Example: the latest read of image files from November 2011 – January 2012 is approximately 50GB. Using very approximate figures matched to the rates the major online services offer, in order to securely backup my image files for one year would be well over $1000. I keep thinking there is something I’m mis-thinking or simply misunderstanding about how to secure my image files either on or off line for a more reasonable cost. How do others deal with the need for secure backups? Do you rely solely on external drives, flash drives and/or online backup, or do you have other solutions? Thanks for any ideas! Irene
|
|
|
|
||
- Carolyn M. Fletcher  Contact Carolyn M. Fletcher Carolyn M. Fletcher's Gallery |
Murry Grigsby has Carbonite and likes it very much. That's the only one I can think of that has mentioned it.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Kay Beausoleil |
Irene, I have 2 external drives which I swap out monthly, keeping one in a bank safety deposit box. After reading about the online services, I nixed them for myself because (1) I'm a control freak and don't want to rely on anyone else, (2) according to some users, it takes forever to do the backups and (3) there's no protection should they go belly-up.
|
|
|
|
||
- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Yes - What Kay said :) I keep spare drives at a friends house & I have a couple of his in case of fire. If our places were to burn at the same time we would be screwed so maybe a bank safety deposit box is a good idea. I dont trust the online storage places either as everything transmitted online has a trace/tag on it. Its how Siesant, Accenture and a dozen other companies that data-mine, store & sell your personal information make their $$ and I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't storing other information (images) that we have no idea about. I also have burned DVDs of all my 2000-2009 raw images and need to get 2010 & 2011 burned as well :) 2TB HD stored in a safety deposit box sounds ideal & cheap. Thanks Kay, Carlton
|
|
|
|
||
|
Irene Troy |
Thanks, everyone! I did a bit more research and actually spoke to a “real person” at Carbonite and also at Mozy. Bottom line: it’s expensive for the amount of data I need to backup – my original estimate of $1000 may be on the low end. Then there’s the issue of how long it would take to upload all my data – we’re talking up to, or even more than, a week. If you are a home user and only backing up Word files and perhaps a few images and music, then these online plans are great. If you are a mid to large size company, the online plans are also worth examining because you can do off-site security storage and can afford the cost. However, if you are like me, doing business for yourself, and needing to back up numerous image files, the cost is simply too much. Kay – your idea has a great deal of merit. I have the two external mirror drives, but they are in the same building. What I’m now thinking is this: purchase an additional external drive, probably 2TB. Then backup all of 2011 onto this drive. Backup my current backups onto the new drive. This means all my work from the past 3 years will be on the new drive as well as on the other external drives. Then, take the new drive and either put it into a safe deposit, or leave it with a friend in his fire proof/water proof safe. Monthly, back up all work to one of the other drives and then switch them around so I always have at least one backup off site. A bit complicated, but once I get a routine going, it shouldn’t be a major deal. Because I’m mostly a writer who does photography, I worry about my writing being backed up. However, at the moment I have two online backups of everything: one is with my editor’s service and is free; the other is on Amazon Cloud Sync. But, backing up Word documents is so much easier because they compress without losing quality. I fully expect that sometime in the next couple of years, someone will come up with a much faster and more reliable and also affordable system for all of us with massive data files to backup. Thanks again guys! Irene
|
|
|
|
||
|
Bob Cammarata |
I go the "External Hard-drive and DVD Backup" route. The drive holds my original digital images, processed versions, and back-up word documents. I keep the external drive hooked up at the house for easy access. The DVD's contain a second backup of all of my original digital images, as well as scanned slides from the past 10 years or so. (Whatever transparencies I shot before then are cataloged according to subject and kept in a file cabinet. They have sentimental value but are not really worth protecting.) The DVD's are labeled chronologically and stored in boxes at another location. This system may not be the most efficient, but it's cheap...and it works for me.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||