Online Photo Backup

[WilsonFlyer]

Nope... you can "adopt" the new computer: http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/recipe/adopting_another_computer




You might want to check on the actual fire rating of your safe. Most safes that I've seen, unless they specifically say they will protect hard drives, won't. I had a co-worker who had a family member lose their house in a fire. They had a two story house with basement and the fire safe was in the basement. When the house burned, a large amount of debris fell into the basement and burned. He brought in a name brand external hard drive enclosure that had been in a safe that was purchased in the last few months specifically because it was "data safe." The picture on the vendor's web site even showed a hard drive in the safe in one of the marketing pictures. The enclosure hadn't melted, but the drive was non-functional because the temperatures rose above what the drive could handle.

Thanks. Well aware of all that stuff but you make a great point. Mine and my buddy's safes aren't the Staples/Home Depot variety. These are $2.5k data safes. That's what they are designed for, and they come with an insurance policy to back it up.

As I said, you make a good point though. Get a good home safe that's as safe as you can buy at a reasonable expense. Every home should have one anyway. Make sure it's fire AND waterproof (What good is fireproof if the fire department destroys it with the hoses!). Depending on how hot it gets, it beats nothing.

Most importantly, take something off-site; preferrably far away from your home but that you can get your hands on when/if you need to. That's the best thing ANYBODY can do.

 

[FluffedMojo]

Thanks for all the responses, guys.

In response to WilsonFlyer, I see what you are saying with SmugMug; however, I do already have a FlickrPro account for photo sharing needs.

I currently have a setup similar to your description. I have my pictures on two internal drives (one is my "working" drive with edits, etc. and the other is strictly backup). That backup drive is mirrored onto two external drives, one at my house and one at my girlfriend's house.

I like Crashplan because, if it works how its supposed to, I can backup my files to all of those drives (even my girlfriend's offsite drive) and the Cloud at the same time. That's a pretty nice way of keeping everything in sync.

I appreciate the idea with SmugMug, though...but it appears that its about the same yearly price as Crashplan (I think?), so since I already have sharing covered...I dunno why I wouldn't go with something like Crashplan strictly for back up. Either way, like you said...it is completely a last resort solution. I, for one, hope I never have to use it. But its nice to know it's there.

It is great to know there are people who are as redundant as I am when it comes to backups. I work at a *cough* major technology retailer *cough* right now and I run into so many customers who don't take backups seriously.

I have a relatively small amount of photos, compared to more serious photographers. Only about 10,000; however, they are photos I absolutely can't lose. You can re-download a song, but you can't re-take a photo. That's why redundancy is worth it.