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What is your backup method?

Manzur Fahim said:
Hello everyone,

Hope you are well.

Just wanted to see how are you keeping your images / files safe? File corruption, malware problem, hard drive dying and so many other issues that can, in a moment, take away all the files you have. All that memories, gone in a second. I have lost my data once, though it wasn't super important, it was enough to make me paranoid about data backups. This is how I do it:

1. My first stage of backup happens in my camera. I always use two memory cards, and always in backup mode. So, that in case of one card failure, I will have another copy. I have had card fault happened 2-3 times so far, and those were some good brand cards. So, instead of trusting the card and the manufacturer, I trust having a second copy more. I use large capacity cards, and I do not format the card after every shoot. The photo stays in the memory card until the card is full, and then I switch to my second set of cards. Once the second set is full, I then format the first set and start using it. This is how I cycle through my memory cards, and the cards acts as backup until they get formatted.

2. I installed an enterprise grade hardware RAID controller in my PC. These controllers can heat up very easily, so I modified the heat-sink to accommodate a fan, which keeps it cool enough. I added 8 x 16TB enterprise grade hard drives (Not desktop or NAS drives), configured them in RAID6, so it can still be operational if up to two drive fails. I have additional hard drives which I can use to replace a faulty drive when it happens, and it will start rebuild. This is my main storage, this is where I copy the files from memory cards.

3. First of every month, I do a backup of all my photos and catalogs to an external RAID0 drive. I know that RAID0 is not giving me any drive protection, but this is there so that I can backup files faster than a normal external drive. Currently I have about 18TBs of files, and backup to RAID0 drive takes around 14 hours.

4. 10th of every month, I initiate a backup to another set of external drives. One drive goes to my sisters place after the backup is complete, and I switch it with another drive next month.

5. 20th of every month, I backup the most recent 4TB files to 2 x 4TB SSDs in RAID1.

6. Some important photos and shoots, I also backup to cloud, where I have 4TB storage.

24th of every month, the RAID controller does a petrol read, which scans all my drives to check for physical errors. 26th of every month, the RAID controller does a file consistency check to make sure everything is ok. These are just maintenances I do to make sure that everything is working well. These tasks are scheduled in the controller software, so they are automated.

I set reminders on my phone, so I know when a backup task is due. I do not do automation when backing up, so I choose what to backup and where, and since backup drives are always offline, I have to power them on manually. The least amount of time my backup drives are online, the better.

My website serves as a backup too, but just for jpeg files.

I am very interested to know how you do your backups.
Click to expand...
My work machine holds 6 TB of disk space. I process my RAW files and others there. Since I keep every shot I take, I have over 80000 images there, plus a bunch of scanned pre-digital.
I backup everything to my NAS. Every once in a while, I backup the NAS to a 16 TB drive which I take offsite.
The NAS is a Synology DS918+, set in Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR). The NAS monitors the drives and reports on any malfunctioning disk and that can be replaced live.
I do not store anything in the cloud, but I use mty Smugmug account to display photos, mostly in private galleries.

JC
 
you are lucky if MS stilllikes the SAMBA connection to the NAS, They decided to protect and imporove my experience by removing th ability to communicate with the Linux OS of early NASboxes, A security threat if on the net, but not on a cat6 ethernet cable.

p
 
ph. said:
you are lucky if MS stilllikes the SAMBA connection to the NAS, They decided to protect and imporove my experience by removing th ability to communicate with the Linux OS of early NASboxes, A security threat if on the net, but not on a cat6 ethernet cable.

p
Click to expand...
NFS. I run an MS free operation :cool:

JC
 
Manzur Fahim said:
I am very interested to know how you do your backups.
Click to expand...
Very simply. My desktop has SATA cables extending outside the case; Whenever I have changes I want to save, I attach one of my multiple backup HDDs, boot the PC from a Macrium Reflect Free USB flash drive, and create a full-disk image of whichever internal SSD I want to back up. Periodically I store recent backups off-site in case of fire, theft, etc.
 
I use two external SSD drives, nothing fancy. I have had one incident. I renamed one yearly folder and the backup program didn't understand that. It made an empty folder instead so I lost one year's photos. There was a bug in the program which they corrected later but it started me thinking. Making a backup is great but it can also cause problems and you may end up loosing all your files if you just keep copying empty folders from one backup to another.

The best way might be making a monthly or yearly backup with different name. Also two indipendent backup software programs might be a good idea. Then if something happens you can go back and find a backup that was still "good". This needs a lot of space. I haven't done that yet but are you doing it like this?
 
LumixPete said:
I use two external SSD drives, nothing fancy. I have had one incident. I renamed one yearly folder and the backup program didn't understand that. It made an empty folder instead so I lost one year's photos. There was a bug in the program which they corrected later but it started me thinking. Making a backup is great but it can also cause problems and you may end up loosing all your files if you just keep copying empty folders from one backup to another.

The best way might be making a monthly or yearly backup with different name. Also two indipendent backup software programs might be a good idea. Then if something happens you can go back and find a backup that was still "good". This needs a lot of space. I haven't done that yet but are you doing it like this?
Click to expand...
Any rearranging, renaming, etc. of files and folders I do with Windows own File Explorer; I use my backup program (Macrium Reflect Free) to do nothing but back up complete images of my SSDs onto multiple backup HDDs; I keep those images for months in case I need to restore anything on them, and I periodically test the restore process to make sure everything still works.

HDDs are cheap nowadays compared to what I spent to get the travel photos on them. :)
 
I have a 12TB external HD that I back up my entire Windows 11 PC to weekly, and I have a 2TB NAS that I back up just my photos (and over 2K music CDs) to every 3 days.

I also use Amazon Prime Photos to back up to the cloud.
 
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