backups

[jann1033]

ok tell me the mistake i might make doing this..
i'm thinking of starting to save all my raw files to a pocket drive and backing them up to a disk as well but not saving them on my actual computer hard drive...i figure i'll work on them in light room after importing from the drive then save the finished jpg on line at zenfolio or my harddrive and backed up as well on disk....any reason why i need to save the raw to the main drive? main reasons are space and i can save a few yrs on a pocket drive and label as such . any one know if a pocket drive is any less reliable than any other external drive?
thanks

 

[DueyDooDah]

There is only one reason to move the raw files to the local drive - speed. You will probably have quicker access to the data on the local drive than a drive using a USB port (I'm assuming here that you have a USB connection for your external drive). It won't make that big of a difference, though, unless you are moving a lot of files. You should be OK with your solution.

By "pocket drive", I assume your are talking about a USB flash drive. A flash drive should be more reliable than a HD as it is a solid-state device. But, it is also much easier to wash, lose, drop, smash, etc. a flash drive than it is a HD.

 

[MICKEY88]

you can store a few years worth of raw on one pocket drive.....?????

I had over 40 gig, just from my photo shoot monday

any reason you want a pocket drive rather than a larger external drive, pricewise the larger drives are cheaper


a friend of mine just told me yesterday that I need a wireless NAS setup

sounds pretty cool..

I can put 2 hard drives in it and connect to it from anywhere in my house via my wireless network, also it can be setup with a ftp, so I can access it from anywhere I can get a net connection,

once a drive is full I can pull it out and ad another one...also sounded rather inexpensive... for the enclosure, then a matter of picking the size hard drives I put in it...

 

[Groucho]

I'd agree with Bob - an internal drive will definitely be faster, which I think you may notice when opening largish raw files.

I would definitely lean towards keeping them on your local drive when working on them. If you start to run out of disk space, maybe start to move them off to the external (and DVD, of course) or network drive. This is what I did for a while, though I'm starting to keep them online since I recently added a 750g drive to my PC (along with a 500g and two 160g)... drives are starting to get pretty cheap again, a 500g can be had for $80 and a 750g is down to about $110. Anyway, I do usually keep my "done" photos in separate folders. (One for each camera then 1000 in each subfolder... so \K20D\00001-01000, etc.)

A way to ease the pain of keeping them in multiple folders is to use built-in Windows tools like offline folders, which automatically syncs a local folder to a network one. There's a fancier one that's a free download from MS called SyncToy which is more powerful but I haven't played with it much yet. Basically, you set your RAW folder to sync to an identical folder on another drive and it'll automatically make sure the files exist in both locations. Based on the price of drives, I may pick up another giant drive for my NAS PC and start doing that... again, in addition to DVD backups of course.

 

[fitzperry]

I would definitely lean towards keeping them on your local drive when working on them. If you start to run out of disk space, maybe start to move them off to the external (and DVD, of course) or network drive. This is what I did for a while, though I'm starting to keep them online since I recently added a 750g drive to my PC (along with a 500g and two 160g)... drives are starting to get pretty cheap again, a 500g can be had for $80 and a 750g is down to about $110. Anyway, I do usually keep my "done" photos in separate folders. (One for each camera then 1000 in each subfolder... so \K20D\00001-01000, etc.)

A way to ease the pain of keeping them in multiple folders is to use built-in Windows tools like offline folders, which automatically syncs a local folder to a network one. There's a fancier one that's a free download from MS called SyncToy which is more powerful but I haven't played with it much yet. Basically, you set your RAW folder to sync to an identical folder on another drive and it'll automatically make sure the files exist in both locations. Based on the price of drives, I may pick up another giant drive for my NAS PC and start doing that... again, in addition to DVD backups of course.

This is kind of what I've been doing (minus the automatic sync). I'm sure a lot of people will think I'm insane, but I've been toying with the idea of using a Macbook Air as my primary computer. Dh won it at work and had no real use for it as he's a Linux guy so I got to keep it (yay!) Then a few days after we got it the motherboard on my pc died. Dh didn't have time to fix it before we left on a long trip, so I've been using this exclusively for 6 or 7 weeks and I've hardly missed the big machine.

Anyway, while we were on vacation I would download my photos to the MBA and back them up on a portable hard drive. I figure once I get my RAW files processed I'll move them off the MBA to an external drive (and backup on dvd of course).

 

[jann1033]

i can get a 500gb personal media drive( not to be confused with a pocket drive, which i keep calling it even though it really isn't ) and i figure since i filled up my 250gb external drive in a yr it ought to last 2, if not no big deal. i like the idea of it since i could have a few and just put whatever one i want in the slot, not have to attach anything to anywhere( easier the better for me). it costs a little more since i don't see them on sale and as yet i think hp is the only one who makes them( at least can't seem to find them in off brands) but i hate to not have it backed up to a drive somewhere...
i figure once i finish working on them, i either download to zenfolio or they basically just sit there so if it take a extra min. or two to load them i don't really care. i considered just burning them to dvds and keeping them that way but i don't really know which is more stable, the dvd or an external type drive.
i did see that media storage thing that looks like a good idea, i think it basically is a giant tower of drives but it costs almost as much as my computer the problem with us is neither hub or I know how to do anything inside the computer( and are afraid we will blow the thing up messing with it)...i almost got a lenovo desktop just so i could just push in new drives etc ( but the hp was cheaper which unfortunately always counts with me)
i wonder how much of a pain it would be to find files etc on a tb drive...i hate going through my 250 gb of folders now
ok dumber computer ? care to explain sync ing in easy to understand terms? is it just a fancy word for copying them? no offense but i sometimes think computer guys make up an whole nother language just to confuse us not so competent types

 

[Groucho]

What's special about the 500g "personal media drive"?

500g external drives are very widely available and usually around $100 or cheaper... just wondering what the HP one you mention is offering special that you think you need?

 

[jann1033]

it's portable, you just pop it in a slot when you need something on it so conceivably i can have a few with certain photos and be better organized... at least that would be the plan and not have to have a bunch of external drives or what ever to do it..they are small, maybe half the size ( or less) of my western digital my book external drive. i could get another drive if i want to but this just seems easy to me...like an off site library of photos that aren't clogging up my computer if i'm not using them..

 

[Groucho]

So it's just size? And that your PC has a slot in the front?

Hmm. I don't know if I'd be willing to pay much extra for that... it's possible it's got an eSATA interface, which would be faster than USB (should be as fast as an internal drive), but even so... I'm a cheapskate and would probably just have to go for a standard external drive. Then again, my external drive setups at the moment are either a bare cable that plugs into the back of a bare drive (can't get much smaller than that ) or the guts of a Maxtor external drive, just the metal chassis with no plastic outer box... but then, I don't mind slinging bare drives around.

As for clogging up... well, your PC (this is a new one, right?) probably has a pretty big hard drive, I assume. There's no disadvantage to keeping a ton of stuff on your hard drive, it won't run any different if it's got 200 gigs free or 20 gigs free. (It will get a little funky if you get really, really low on space, though...) I know it's pretty common to want to keep things tidy, but really, unless you're truly running out of space on your main drive, you might as well keep them all on there (in addition to backups on an external drive and/or DVD).

 

[jann1033]

i think i 'm just nervous about wasting space since this old one is so packed full it's crying for mercy and i don't want the new one the same way for a least a little while...i don't remember how fast the pmd are ...i probably wouldn't have paid extra but i got a good deal since it's not a quad core and it has it so....i might be able to get a regular external drive on sale cheaper, otherwise the prices are close for the 500, the 750 is much higher..hub wants me to get all my junk off this computer so he can load it up with music and french lessons otherwise i would just leave the junk on here but i don't want to tempt him to load his junk on the new one

 

[webshark3]

I do a lot of work off my external drives (USB 2.0) as well as off a SD card reader (Sandisk Extreme III) RAW files up to 25MB each and even larger TIFFs are not an issue at all.

Give it a try if the price is right....