External Hard Drives And Cloud Storage

Well here is my advice, having been thru the worst of the worst..failure of two hard drives and no offsite back up,,..

First off I use La Cie drives as do you,,GREAT...I then mirror that drive with another external drive..I use either seagate or WD..I then use BackBlaze as my cloud service.. I love them because the cost,,$50 plus they will send you a hard drive to use to download data and then you can ship back for a nominal fee..Or you can just download files from there site...I know have an additional hard Drive offsite in my sisters safe. I no longer need to rely solely on them.. They also have dedicated reports that shows failure rates of all hardrives available..seagate, toshiba WD etc..and varied sizes..4 tb seagates were terrible.

My worst scenario happened last summer..I had complete failure of my hard drives due to stupidity on my part..BUt I learned always have 3 back ups. ANd then I still use Back Blaze..I tried carbonite as a back up to my backup cloud service but that service did not impress me and was not needed by me since i do things the right way..3 Backups always, plus cloud service.

What other questions do you have? Browse Backblaze,,pretty good

I have a Passport (Western Digital) 2 TB external Hard Drive.

It has been fine, although there have been connection issues with one of my computers (all PC). And when I went online for drivers I saw so many people saying "It's roached if you dropped it." It wasn't true, for me. But I didn't drop it very far.

I have had others including Toshiba that were less portable and broke without much help.

I use the One Cloud (among others) which is from Microsoft.

Truth be told, I don't keep sensitive data there. To me losing all of my images would be heart breaking, but that's about it. For others is would be catastrophic (I would imagine) One has to figure that there are lots of people staying up nights trying to break into the MS cloud. And one would figure that MSFT has at least two people for every one hacker in order to keep their cloud secure. It can be done (keeping things secure. Look at Lockheed Martin. Tell me there aren't government sponsored efforts to hack their systems, and they fight them off.

I have lots of micro SD cards 32 gig and up that I fill and then file (throw into the desk drawer) as a third backup.

I recently had a computer crap out on me (I'll never buy HP again! How many times have I told myself that?) and I was surprised (and a little freaked out) when I signed onto MSFT and all of my accesses were there on my new Dell (which I have also sworn "nevermore" about)

Would I recommend the Passport? Yes, but I would caution you not to leave it hooked up. Just get into a routine of backing up once per something (week month) and then unplug it and let it just sit there.

Hope that is helpful.

PLAU
UPD

I'd say yes to cloud. I have a primary 5TB small external drive I use with my laptop to do work and store all images. I do a weekly backup to an 8TB external drive I keep in a fireproof safe. I have Amazon Prime and use their cloud photos storage as an additional backup. It's almost like a remote hard drive. https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Drive-Storage/b?ie=UTF8&node=13234696011

I believe in redundancy. Too many things can go wrong and if I lose ten years of unprocessed and processed photos it would be a huge loss.

I forgot to mention that I have over 300 gigs in the cloud. It copies every computer, and i keep a copy of all photo files on each computer... I don't have that many photos.( my cloud is redundancy laden)

Staying on top of all this is a real PIA. Probably a job description of the near future.

I have three external hard drives attached, a box of thumb/flash drives, a few discs (not many - they fail too often). don't waste your time with Carbonite - they only back up what is on your computer - and if yours is like mine - it won't hold all my images forever those that run into the very large MB's.

All that being said - not any of this is life or death for me - if it were all to disappear before I finish this - so what?! When I am gone it won't matter and iota anyway. All of it will most likely wind up in a dumpster somewhere or at the land fill.

Backup is the moment in life when you need to activate the OCD side of the brain. It really is not all that difficult but you have to have a plan and stick to it. I've always been too GD independent to put it in the cloud, but if you just have a couple external drives and good file organization, it's not hard to just plug in your backup drive when you're going out, or reading a book or whatever so you always have a fresh backup. It's also better to have a copy of the copy in case you knock the backup off the table when the lightning hit and took out your computer and backup at the same time. Fortunately they're cheap so you can really have a lot of storage. Unplug the backup disk the moment you're finished backing up. Years in the IT world convinced me that it's never a bad idea to have too many backups, as long as you keep them organized.

You didn't mention whether you're using it but for Mac people, storing your images in Apple Photos makes this really simple. There's just one big file to copy and once it's copied to an external drive, you can lock that up and, if you need to, open it to take a peek. You can also have multiple image databases so they don't have to become huge. I keep my main day-to-day Photos database file under 64 Gb so I can copy it to an SD flash card for backup and periodically start a new one so that one problem doesn't wipe out everything.

Interesting input and I will spend time tomorrow sorting through ideas. Thank you!

I use Carbonite... daily backup to the Cloud. It has majorly saved my hide twice in three years. I actually heard about Carbonite here on the Forum. It's about $99 a year for Personal Plus. I can honestly say it is the most useful expense beyond my new laptop WITH cooling pad. I will never use a laptop without a cooling pad again. I have my DELL laptop set up like a desktop... external mouse, keyboard.

I also have a 1 terabyte Seagate external drive. I've been lax about backing up on it though. I think I may rely too much on Carbonite. I do believe it's important to have two forms of backup.

Heavens, backups. I have little externals following me around like goslings to a mother goose.

I back up every night to a Seagate via Apple's Time Machine. We also have one somehow in the "house" which backs up whenever it feels like it (every few hours?). I also back up, to another eternal, images posted for sale and all their versions. Also, when I shoot, I back up all the original files to another external. And last night, I completed backing up all the images on my computer's harddrive here by year.

gasp.

Mostly Seagate, though I've deliberately gone from a 2tb to a 1tb when the "new" Mac suddenly decided not to recognize one of my Seagate HDs. Fortunately, my old Mac still recognized it, so I was able to transfer everything from that external HD to a new external through the old Mac.

Btw ... I have a lovely LaCie that I use when I go shooting and will be away from home for a bit. Wanted to get more of those when the above happened, but all they had were Seagate.

Joy, you just reminded me ... I have Carbonite too ... something's amiss based on a little red X up on my top bar ... must put calling them on my to do list.

Lois, Carbonite changed about a month ago. I got that red X too. I think they want everyone to update, and also consider their new types of plans. I used to pay $56/yr for basic personal... now I pay $99 for a "plus" plan. If you asked me what's different now that it's $99/yr, I couldn't tell you without going and looking it up! lol

Hey Joy, I use it for my own stuff, but I also do all the paperwork for my husband's company, so Bad Lois for not looking into this before now. Carbonite quit accepting the OS on my old computer, where I was keeping all the company stuff, which is why I shifted to this one, But since Carbonite would cover my photog stuff, too, that was a win win. I have indeed put this on my to do list. (Things on my to do list have a statistically higher probability of actually getting done than those NOT on the list.)

Btw ... I had a major mishap a couple of years ago with one of Richard's company files ... and Carbonite was lovely. We got everything back on track very easily. So I'm sold on them.

Keep in mind that The Cloud is just someone else's computer. LOL


---------------
~ Bill
BillSwartwout.com

I use a 5TB WD External drive for images which is also backed up with Carbonite. Which I've used for many years. I had one issue a few years back where some files were deleted my an error between the keyboard and the chair. Carbonite was a life saver and download all my files back to the drive. Off-site and on-site backups are important. Especially for natural disasters or something happens to your home, you have a backup off-site.

Carbonite backs up continually, so if you change a file or add a new one, it wakes up and starts sending the file to their servers.

My son recommended BackBlaze and I'm backing up there right now. I started it three days ago because for the past six years I had Crash Plan, but they are dumping the private consumer unless you want to move up to a business account for 120.00 a year. BackBlaze is only $50.00 (if you pay it all together at one time) and I already checked out the structure there, VERY easy to use from what I can see. I did the 15 day free trial, and I have 12 days left so tomorrow is payday for me and I'm going to pay the 50 bucks. I also have one external 2 TB drive which I back up to less often than I should but I did back up about a month ago. I figure I should probably invest in another external drive and keep that in a fireproof box or something, but I don't know how redundant I want to get. At least I'm backed up in two places.

The basic rule of safe file keeping is to have three copies of everything:

1. Your computer's internal hard drive

2. An external hard drive attached to your computer. This will be your go-to place to retrieve files you accidentally deleted from your main hard drive, or that got corrupted. Most operating systems have automated backup capability so you can set it and forget it. On Windows 10 it's called File History.

3. An automated cloud based backup service like Carbonite, Backblaze, etc. This will save your bacon if drives 1&2 are both destroyed by a fire, power surge, earthquake, tornado, ransomware, etc. The initial upload can take a long time (2 weeks in my case) but once done incremental backups are fairly quick.

-James
http://www.montereypeninsula.info

One more reason I wish that our FAA images could be downloaded by ourselves. I know Abbie can get them for us, but that would be a fantastic feature! Another POD site has this feature, so for me it's like a cloud of sorts.

I have 3 external hard drives, all WD passport. I will be looking into cloud storage.

I go one step further. I only use each SD card one time, so when a card gets filled, it gets filed away into a fireproof box at home. It gives me a 4th backup.

Costco has the best prices on hard drives. I never would trust the cloud. We always have more than one hard drive and keep buying new ones all the time. They can fail every 3-5 years. It is good to keep updating storage as technology modernizes. I would not trust an SC card for storage. People use to do this with CD's and DVD to try opening them later and the data was gone.

I have two hard drives I mirror at all times. Make sure you mark them so you know which one is which. It makes life easier.

One recommendation I received long ago was making a duplicate hard drive and send it to a person who does not live close to you in case of a disaster. I guess the cloud serves that purpose now.

So most here trust their work to a cloud?
I used to use an external drive until it became corrupt. I now use a flash drive.

No not me, the cloud puts the control of your storage in someones you don't know hands. I don't even trust HD that is why I have to mirror each other at all times.

To me on of the keywords here is redundance. I work with 4 copies. External Hard drives and 3 different computers. That´s my own "cloud". The other keyword is "physical distance". It doesn´t matter how many copies you have when you keep ém all in one room and then there´s a fire ....

Stacie, I had my genealogy information on a flash drive and then the USB started working itself loose and it would not connect firmly to the laptop. It took me a week of jiggling and moving it around to be able to finally get it to show and get the files off. I researched it and it seems that it not an uncommon issue with USB connections with a flash drive. I don't think I would trust everything I have to go on a flash drive alone.

I have many (10 I think) Buffalo Tech NAS drives, all of them raided for redundancy. I also have a USB drive attached to each NAS drive for backup. Automated NAS to USB drive back is performed regularly.

I have terabytes of data (I have also copied all my music and movie/TV DVD's to disk as well). I haven't used cloud storage because of bandwidth and cost issues. Maybe eventually.

The electricity when off at my house, fried an older NAS drive system. However, the USB drive worked, restored and went on my way.

Just remember, everything dies. Cards, thumb drives, hard drives. Nothing is forever, so good planning and redundancy is key.

I am a bit paranoid when it comes to losing things, but I have lost things over the years, so I've learned my lesson.

I just remembered something so obvious;
Most of us use cameras so the sd card has all your work if you don't format them. I often refer to my saved cards.

Cloud storage is safer, I had an external hard drive fried along with the computer by a lightening strike. Cable internet draws lightening as I was told because it has an emf signature with it.

I guess it comes down to relative risk and the degree to which you trust whoever runs your cloud. In my case, I'm using a laptop with wi-fi, so, as long as I'm not charging my computer, lightning isn't much of a risk unless it passes through me before entering my computer. In that case, there will be bigger considerations than losing my images. I unplug when storms arrive anyway. The stubborn part of me just doesn't want yet another corporation taking yet another few bucks a month for yet another digital service that seems redundant. Between cell phones, internet service, cable, etc, digital services cost me much more than energy. We have a ways to go before all this evolutionary technology really works well. In not too many years, someone will be offering a complete digital package that costs much less than the gaggle of individual services we use today. Our digital providers of today are like the 1915 Hupmobile compared to a new Tesla.

Having some experience in the professional world with backup, archiving, etc, I'm fine with having a couple of redundant backup disks, which are only plugged in when in use and are otherwise carefully stored.

Of course, the other angle to this is that, maybe a lightning strike with everything plugged into the wall all at once (except me) and totally fried would require a fresh start and THAT might be a good thing, kinda like a painter burning down his studio and starting over.

My solution is really almost accidental. I use a service called CopyTrack.com to root out image theft on the web, and in order to function properly, they require that you upload your works to their site. Then their system's web crawler seeks out images all over the internet that might be similar to yours. If they find a possible match, you let them know if it's actually a match, and if so whether it's a permissible use or infringement for which you want compensation - and they seek out payment, then give you 70% of what they recover. Since it's completely free, every recovery is like icing on the cake, and I've found it invaluable. (Just as an aside - given the nature of my work, the most frequent theft of my images is by porn sites, and unfortunately CopyTrack has a policy against going after porn sites. Still not exactly sure why, but so be it - where possible, I've pursued those cases on my own.)

Their initial image limit is 1,000, but they upgraded me to 5,000 after a simple polite request. I still don't upload ALL of my images - that would be excessive - only the ones I've edited and included in final photosets or published anywhere. But after 70+ shoots, I'm now approaching 5,000, and will probably ask for more space again soon. They also let you organize the images into "collections" for your own administrative tracking. And here's the part that's relevant to your initial inquiry: Once you've uploaded them to CopyTrack.com, they're accessible for download from wherever you can log onto the website. So I consider that my unofficial backup for all images that I might actually need to retrieve in the event of a hard drive crash.

I should probably pursue other solutions as well - my wife and I have a Dropbox account but we'd have to upgrade to 1TB for it to be of any real use for image backup. I do certainly trust Dropbox as a secure solution, but at the moment I don't see too much reason to worry when CopyTrack is out there protecting me.

Jeff
Topless New York

P.S. I really wish I could get some kind of referral bonus for pointing people to CopyTrack, because I'm shocked at how few photographers know about it and are taking advantage of it. :-)

Bellesouth,

All good advice. As far as the original HD you have, sounds like when it fell, the case was crushed and is now pushed up against the internal HD mechanism and maybe even one of the cables internally became loose. I had that once with an old Maxtor Hd and just removed the case and had to buy a new cable and then it worked! If you're "shy" about this, maybe contact the manufacturer and see if they will fix it free,

I have everything on the 4 HD's I now have and then all of it on one that I can grab in case of a fire or hurricane.......My first concern is the images that I've actually touched and worked on and then the RAW files and then misc. images.....

Rich

Thanks Rich, I'm not "shy" about doing that, I've unscrewed the outer case around my computer and cleaned it. I figure nothing to lose by trying it on the HD since I already have the information from my other HD.

Jeff, I never heard of CopyTrack - thanks for sharing it.

Doug, I don't think I want THAT much of a fresh start! :)

It totally depends on your paranoia level and what you are willing to risk losing and how much effort you want to put into avoiding loss.

For me it's

Primary / Working copy on thunderbolt attached RAID 10 array (currently about 1.6T in original and working process files)

Secondary copy (backup 1) on a single firewire attached disk (rsync / file copy backup).
Synchronized from primary after every major import or editing session.

Third copy (backup 2) on a separate firewire attached disk (time machine)
Whenever time machine wants to run. Many times a day.
This also includes my os and non photography files.

Fourth copy (backup 3) on a NAS in another part of the house (rsync / file copy backup)
Synchronized from Primary approximately weekly

Fifth copy (backups 4a, 4b, 4c) NAS backed up to three different USB drives that are in rotation,
only one is ever in the house at a time, the not in use ones are kept offsite at another location.
These run monthly.

Sixth copy (backup 5) NAS backed up to a cloud service.
This runs nightly.

Not photography related, I have a set of bootable external disks with a copy of my os disk that I update monthly, rotated offsite.

Periodic (quarterly) file restores and bit for bit verification of the backups are done against the primary or secondary copy, to ensure the data is recoverable.

Most of this is automated. It's all a very precise process that is repeatable and verifiable with little room for human error.


I am a paranoid systems administrator in my day job, and have seen all manner of failures of storage and failed disaster recovery attempts by various sizes of companies over the decades.

I would suggest a minimum

Primary disk (whatever you use now, could be the single internal disk in a laptop)

Three removable disks (at a minimum) (usb, whatever). Only bring one into the house at a time, others are at another location.
Back up to the current removable disk in the house daily or whatever suits your schedule.

Add a cloud backup just-in-case.




Why a minimum of 3 removable disks?
If you have 1 and have it attached when lightning/flood/theft/virus happens, you lose both.
With 2, you might have both in the house at the same time (bring offsite local, and before you take old local to car... disaster strikes)
With 3, you should always have at least one and often 2 at the other location.

The more offsite disk copies you have, the further back in time you can go to find files that may have been deleted from primary.
The direct attached removable disks have faster transfer rate than cloud. Cloud is just belt+suspenders+duct-tape bonus.

I have two externals, one in a fire box and use cloud also. Have too many to lose.

BelleSouth,

If and when you do take it apart, you'll see that it looks exactly like an internal HD, which it is! You may need a new power cord, about $10 or so and if it works, can use it as an additional external HD.....
Rich

"Doug, I don't think I want THAT much of a fresh start! :) "

Yeah, I admit that I only feel that way on the bad days.

I store everything on the NAS that I built with OpenMediaVault.

My NAS replicates data every night to an offsite location that is with a major provider of offsite storage. It works great!

External storage has to be treated like a new baby - you think I exaggerate?! I have ruined too many external hard drives either by tugging at the laptop and forgetting the hdd is still attached and writing!!! Or switched-off the power and stripped the drive back to RAW format! The most unnerving error message is "Drive will not migrate!"

Luckily, I know a bit about computers, and have had the good sense to have backups in triplicate - so the quickest way out of most of my dilemmas is to run an sfc /scannow command - or a chkdsk /f/r command. This last one I used on my 3Tb external (...drive failed to migrate...) and it took 22 hours to complete: the drive was perfect.

Imagine how I felt when my 8Tb showed as being in RAW format?! Thank the Lord I do not have any hair!!! And luckily too, that was only a problem with bad USB3 hub drivers, so there was no loss of data.

My really important data is held on 100Gb Blu-ray discs - all my RAW files are there, and my expensive software, plus one or two important documents (Bluebeard's Treasure Map...) ;)

I find that cloud storage is incredibly slow - the backup I wanted to do would have taken two years to accomplish at my upload speeds. Getting a high-speed link was a cost disproportionate to my needs - but a professional would have a very fast uplink to a cloud-based storage system.

Thank you to everyone who posted here with questions, insights and advice. I don't think any more can be said without being repetitive so I'm closing the discussion. Thanks again!