Mark German

Very, very sound advice… good stuff.

I have 2 PCs at home. I use my Mac for live projects that I’m working through. I have a terabyte raided on a Windows PC, and I use that for backups. Even if a drive dies, I have enough redundancy to recover data safely.

I don’t use DVDs to backup anything. They are one scratch away from oblivion. I trust harddrives, I fix them for a living, and I know that short of catastrophic platter on drive head contact… I’m going to be able to recover files from a faulty drive. A faulty DVD is a Frisbee

One thing though… on the “My Documents” or “My Pictures” folders, they are still recoverable if Windows completely craps itself. The physical data, and profile persist, even if Windows does have a catastrophic fit and requires a reinstall. The important thing, is to copy that data off those folders before you reinstall. When Windows installs, it automatically overwrites the default profiles, and blows away the data. Backing up after a software failure is pretty straight forward

Really well put together. Thanks for a great wrap up!

In another life (knowledge manager) we used to help companies with their disaster plans and how they planned to protect their records and you’d be suprised (and horrified) to learn how many large companies there are out there who regularly cut these items from their budgets when looking to trim the ‘fat’.

And the most important rule of all for all back-ups. DO NOT keep them in the same location as your PC/laptop. The flood/fire/accident/burglar that destroys/steals your originals will probably also destroy your backups! At the very least purchase a small fire-proof safe and place your CDs and external hard drives in there each evening. But much better to have them in a seperate location.

It also helps to think laterally. I regularly email ‘finished’ translations to a friend who stores them on her PC and vice-versa.

Also, think about just what is absolutely essential. It’s probably less than you think. These I routinely copy to a CD and give that to my husband to take to work and keep in his office. (Again, a different location minimises the risk) As for personal photos etc, Flickr is my backup. Yes, its not failproof but its off-site and they have far greater back-up resources than I do.

One thing though… on the “My Documents” or “My Pictures” folders, they are still recoverable if Windows completely craps itself. The physical data, and profile persist, even if Windows does have a catastrophic fit and requires a reinstall.

Sure, Adrian – but how many people know that – particularly those that do not back up their data? ;)

Regarding DVDs – pain in the ass, and by no means foolproof. But used in conjunction with the rest of the ‘recommended’ back up system, works as a further safeguard.

Regarding fixing hdds – changing over circuit boards is not something 99.9% of people that read this are going to do. Having a platter crash requires a ‘clean-room’ to crack the drive open and spare parts to put a drive together. 99.99999% of people reading this will never do this. Oh – and the freezer trick does not always work ;)

EXCELLENT MARK! THANKYOU. just the kind of thing that puts a smile on my fast first thing in my work day..
glad to have things spelt out to me like this mark, thankyou heaps and have a great day!

The freezer trick has saved my arse a few times!

My ideal dataflow goes like this:
Transfer from SD card to internal HD.
Burn to DVD x2.
Post 1 DVD to parents, put one in the cupboard at the other end of the house.
Use Apple’s TimeMachine to backup to a 1TB Time Capsule automatically.
Backup to a 1TB external raid every 7 days in addition.

After helping 2 friends and a family member recover what was possible from toasted laptop drives (all priceless photos of children), my backup still seems slim, so I also put those 1% type photos up hi-res on FlickR, and use Back to My Mac for all my mail, contacts, calendars, and system settings.
Paranoid? Hell yeah…

Good day Mark.
Having done a recent trip to the UK, to do specific shots, I took a laptop and drive for storage. When I returned my main portable hard drive that I usually send my work to was getting full, so I purchased a 500GB one to help clear out and back up to. I did this on the 28th June. I kept a copy of my RAW files on the original drive, so I could continue to access them through Lightroom and play as I wanted. I just did a big equestrian day the other weekend, and sent all the data to that drive to work on, but because I still had a version of the original Lightroom on the laptop, it meant that Lightroom 2 was having trouble finding folders. Now I reckon someone was watching over me and caused this problem, for the better. To fix the problem, I had to copy all the horse photos to CD, (4 discs) then let Lightroom 2 import them into a new folder where I could access the data as I would expect. Now the spooky thing. That afternoon, my wife moved the laptop, didn’t realise the drive was attached, and dragged the drive off the table. It was F*#@ed. All data lost. Had I not copied to compact disc, the horse stuff would of been lost totally, and me in jail for killing my wife. This is a horror story that had a touch of luck. I am now getting a second drive to back up my other one just in case.
By The Way – I had to do the things the way I did for Lightroom2, because I don’t know any simpler way of pointing to a whole folder of RAW files so it reads them all at once, without having to go select my date organised groups. Any feed back there would be good, as there must be a simpler way of getting the program to find folders that are moved to a different location?

@Mark – similar story to me the other day – My main Lightroom drive died the death of 10,000 Revolutions… On the weekend of a big deadline. Time machine backups had me back and working in about 4 minutes, with a complete restoration to a new HDD completed in about 3 hours.

good info for those who need it mark.

i use:
1) DVD
2) local HDD
3) External HDD
4) Copy to Client on DVD (with no guarantees I retain a copy for them should they need it in the future)
5) Full size JPGS all hosted on the net.

I think it’s fairly fullproof!

For the record, my own photo system/workflow goes something like this:

Flash import to portable hdd
Copy to internal hdd
Backup to Raid1 external (500gb)
Upload choice online backup
Format flash
Format portable hdd when capacity reached (80gb)

you’re all making me feel guilty for not backing up properly. i can hear my dad’s voice in my head: when was the last time you backed up? but he’s allowed because he’s a brilliant computer tech and has saved my data a few times when i was stupid. (any redbubblers in the shepparton area: go see my dad, peter, at solarcom on wyndham st ;)

does anyone know what the deal is with mac’s time machine? i don’t have drive for it yet but i’m thinking perhaps i should investigate getting one.

we use a mac time machine and I guess you just unplug it and plug it in to a new hard drive if the one your using takes a crap….

Thanks for the link.
I really need to spend some time looking at how my stuff is all arranged. Right now, I can’t read from one drive to the next using lightroom cause I have just mixed up my settings, so I shall spend some time to fix it.

Time machine is simply ‘Apple’ language for ‘external hdd backup’.
It runs on a schedule set by the user, makes a ‘snapshot’ of your internal hdd, and periodically appends the data. Should the drive fail, then so has the backup. Should a physical disaster occur, your external drive being in the same location as your original data will likely be trashed.

External drives alone are not by any means (Apple-speak or not) a foolproof backup system.

Thanks Mark – some wise words.

I’ve started the long and tedious task of backing up everything. I live in fear of loosing work. (having already lost three months images…hopefully they’ll turn up somewhere!)

I now back up on an 750 gb external, dvd’s and cd’s, oh and another computer. Can’t be too careful. =)

Thanks Mark. Wise words have now got me thinking….....

think i may also upgrade my zenfolio membership….currently infrequent DVD burns, copy to pc and copy to external HDD which will be winging its way to canberra in the not too distant future

yep think i will suck it up and pay the whole $60 extra to upgrade now – got my portable HDD back btw – i think they just replaced the disk into the current case

good info mark I can hear my husbands voice in my head !! I just need to to do it

I’ve just seen this :o
Thank you so much Mark for putting up this information …I know you have told me so many times to get an portable/external hard-drive …well, I have one now ..and when I get my comp back from you (xxx) I will use it every time – as well as other means like Zenfolio.

stone tablet

Raid arrays
I don’t understand what you mean by this term Mark.. will you explain please ?

Online backup on mozy costs $4.95 per month for unlimited space and it is much cheaper if you pay 2 years in advance.
I use mozy home online backup and very pleased.

Thanks…least I now have some idea what to (re)search for ! :)

Maybe this explanation of RAID is a good start ? :)

People! People! (including you Mr German) work on the basics first otherwise your in for a world of hurt:

Your computer is a “system” that grows over time as you add new applications to the operating system and both control your data that you add along the way. It’s best to treat things as a whole rather than separately.

Before you do anything buy some backup software – what you should do as a start is buy some reliable backup software that will enable you to restore your PC back to whatever point in time you had a problem (either with software or hardware). From personal and professional experience the software I like to use is called Norton Ghost – it costs about 80 dollars but then allows you to really work from a solid basic platform of reliability.

Not bad Mark, but some comments:

RAID is for redundancy (hence the “R”) and uptime, not for backup/disaster recovery. Rather than having 2 drives instantly mirrored, you’re better off having them mirrored on a schedule. That way, if you bugger something up you don’t automatically screw the other copy. IMHO, RAID has no place in a personal backup plan, unless you’re using it to build a multi-terrabyte file server.

You also didn’t mention offsite backups. One of the best things you can do is use an external HDD, and store it at you work/parent’s/friend’s. Bring it home and sync weekly or monthly.

Personally, I have:
master copy: laptop
backup1: media centre hdd1 (nightly sync)
backup2: media centre hdd2 (nightly sync)
backup3: external hdd stored at work (monthly sync)

Good work though.

Ben

a great journal entry Mark, .........for those really serious about backup have a look at the Drobo (similar to RAID) at http://www.drobo.com/

Thanks for this Mark, I have external hard drive which i back up to occasionaly (not as often as i should) but i only have it connected to my pc when i need to access a photo from it. other times i have to use the usb port for other things. i did back up to disk 2 years ago.

Lois, can you not just set up a scheduled backup?

Hi Mark, nice to “meet” you. Was directed to this post from Caroline Gorka’s.
This is fabulous information. Although I do have external hd and digital negs on DVDs, never realized about the “My” places in Windows. Will move it all out of there today.
Thanks again, great advice.
Peace, Judi

what about a flash drive – are they just as good as storing them on DVD or not?

what about a flash drive – are they just as good as storing them on DVD or not?

Mark i have no idea how to do that, I have just taken the big step of being a home owner again just me and the kids so my stress is up a little at the moment, my computer is 6 years old and i cannot afford to upgradeand by the sounds of vista i wouldnt want to. my photos are the main thing on hear that i wouldnt want to lose, everything else is insignificant.

Mark has pointed some good ideas here. Some of you are completely lost, and some of you giving advice should be shot!!!

I have been using computers now for 31 years.

No backup system is 100% But there are ways of improving them

DVD’s and CDs eventually will destroy themselves and are helped by leaving them out in the light and in enviroments where the humidity is not controlled very well.

ALL HARDRIVES WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL!!!

Don’t use any special software that backs up your artwork in a special format.

Software that just copies is fine.

USB flash drives fail aswell and don’t really have the room for backing up lots of photos.

The memory cards you use in your camera fail aswell.

Now for what I do to backup my important artwork.

I have 2 hardrives in my computer
The C Drive has the operating system on it and the physically separate D drive has only my artwork on it. This is so if the operating system fails, I can wipe it out and restore it without losing any artwork that is on the D drive.

I use 3 USB external Drives for backing up my artwork.

I do a DVD backup aswell and store if at my inlaws house, in case of fire then the backup is at their house.

I have saved 1,000 of peoples treasured photos and artwork and also help them to understand that no backup system is 100%, but multiple copies is the best way to go.

The other important point I need to stress is DO NOT take your computer to kid next door or the wannabe computer expert, in cetain cases they will do more damage then good.

I had one computer expert format a hardrive full of photos and then started installing Special software to get the photos back.

The specail software overwrote areas of the hardrive that contained the deleted photos. If he really knew what he was doing he would, have taken the hardrive out of the person’s computer , installed the specail recovery software on another computer and then added in the hardrive in the 2nd system. this way no photos that are being recovered get overwritten.

I forgot to mention another common mistake that novices do.

They do what they think is a backup of their important photos , artwork , and data, then erase the original copy of their important photos, artwork, and data only to find out their only backed up SHORTCUTS to their improtant photos, artwork and data.

Lesson to be learned is after you make a backup check it to see you really did make a backup!

Just re-read your post – still can’t see anything about off-site stuff, other than the online section. Point me in the right direction.

And yes, you mentioned RAID as part of a backup strategy, and I said that IMO it should play NO part :)

One other thing – if you’re planning on having an external HDD connected all the time, make sure that it spins down the HDD when it’s inactive. Otherwise the drive’s lifespan is dramatically reduced.

Ben :)

Ben

Heh, fair enough – but I still think you’re missing the easiest and safest method – external HDD that lives at work: cheap, quick, easy, offsite. Only downsides are 1) you have to remember to sync it manually and 2) hdd may be damaged in transport.

Ben

Hi to Mark and all. What an incredibly useful thread. I have been aware of the need for more backup. Recently spent quite a bit on new bigger hard drive,RAM etc and am aware o f the limitations of CDs. At this stage there’s not a huge amount on my computer that really matters. I was thinking of going through my images and making a file of the can’t bear to lose stuff and storing it separately. Also I have several hundred colour transparencies I’m about to have professionally scanned, and I will certainly want those securely stored.
I will reread this thread and think hard about it. Meanwhile this ignorant newbie will attempt to upload some images. The help is so much appreciated.

Thanks so much Mark. this is a fantastic set of advice….

this whole subject ties my brain in knots worrying over just “which” method is the most reliable, and yet it seems the best is a bit of everything. When the cupboards were overflowing with two copies on DVD of everything I moved into external hard drives and thought “Yay”.....I currenlty have five 1Tb external HDs full of art…
BUT! now wonder at their life span, how long they will last, and am considering at what point I take out the safely stored, full external HDs and copy them to fresh new ones!!!! (my mind was thinking 5 yrs? 8 yrs? 10 yrs?)
See? It’s all so stressful! Does anyone know a safe way of deciding the life span of a 500gb or 1Tb external HD?

This page is a fabulous read. Mahalo nui loa Mark, thank you so much!