Photography Backups

[James Cutting]

Question: Backing up your photographs - what do people use? I understand it varies from external Hard Drives to Cloud Storage.

Personally, I've always stuck to Cloud (OneDrive) as it has 1TB storage (quickly filling!!) As I find it easy to use and implements well with Lightroom. Plus working in IT allowed me to fully look into cloud storage. Plus with Hard Drives there's a larger risk of losing the disk and everything on it.

I'd be interested to see though would others think, and see what people do currently. I need to look at expanding on my 1TB and see what I can best do. Open to new ideas

I primarily shoot RAW!!

Cheers.

[ghostwave525]

personally i use a 2tb hard drive myself

[James Cutting]

Thanks, what one do you use?

[ghostwave525]

Thanks, what one do you use?

bought it a year ago now but it's the maxtor m3 portable external hard drive 2tb usb 3.0

hope that helps

[TREBAX_RAVEN]

Hi James, i have two hardrives that i use, a Toshiba 2TB hardrive and i also use a another Toshiba 1tb. I'm still filling up the 2tb one still so am okay at the moment. Just a couple of things to bear in mind. obviously if your using cloud storage like you are at the moment i think it is a yearly subscription payment isn't it? So you you endup paying more in the long run. Online cloud storage can take a while to upload to especially if you have 2000 RAW files to upload! The other downside is if the internet is slow in the area you are in it can become very frustrating when uploading! But with cloud storage it can never be lost like a hardrive which is a great benefit. I know some people that are really keen about storing there photos use a mix of both cloud storage and hardrives to back up there photos. might be worth looking into that. Hopethat helps

[Andy_99]

I use both
Have a primary 1Tb drive dedicated on the laptop, then a 2Tb external USB for primary backups (WD Passport USB 3.0) of the machine. I then have Amazon Photo's unlimited (Part of my Prime membership) which sync's up when on-line.
Mmm forgot I also have access to a 1Tb One-Drive store as well

[sneezy24]

See my responses on the FB group!

BTW - I shoot Raw and JPG.

[James Cutting]

Hi James, i have two hardrives that i use, a Toshiba 2TB hardrive and i also use a another Toshiba 1tb. I'm still filling up the 2tb one still so am okay at the moment. Just a couple of things to bear in mind. obviously if your using cloud storage like you are at the moment i think it is a yearly subscription payment isn't it? So you you endup paying more in the long run. Online cloud storage can take a while to upload to especially if you have 2000 RAW files to upload! The other downside is if the internet is slow in the area you are in it can become very frustrating when uploading! But with cloud storage it can never be lost like a hardrive which is a great benefit. I know some people that are really keen about storing there photos use a mix of both cloud storage and hardrives to back up there photos. might be worth looking into that. Hopethat helps

Thank you that is good to know! Yes, it is a yearly payment, and I would need to look at increasing this to get more storage But thanks, I will look into this and the options with Hard Drive's!

I use both
Have a primary 1Tb drive dedicated on the laptop, then a 2Tb external USB for primary backups (WD Passport USB 3.0) of the machine. I then have Amazon Photo's unlimited (Part of my Prime membership) which sync's up when on-line.
Mmm forgot I also have access to a 1Tb One-Drive store as well

Thanks for that. Yes, I have been using Amazon Drive to backup older stuff, but it's just the hassle of downloading it, uploading it again, then downloading when you want to edit.

See my responses on the FB group!

BTW - I shoot Raw and JPG.

I saw thank you Think I will be looking into purchasing a couple portable HDD's, and using them as a back up, 1 copy of another...

[James Cutting]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LQQH86A/ref=emc_b_5_t

This is the type I have been looking at (And have used before)

[Yunglee]

Hi,

currently I use only external hard drives in the following combination:

1x 2GB Seagate USB3 Expansion drive - Main raw photo library (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UNA1ICQ/ ... UTF8&psc=1)
1x 3GB Seagate USB3 Expansion drive - Apple Time machine back up, backing up the computer hard drive and the 2GB Seagate photo library drive (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UNA1ICQ/ ... UTF8&psc=1)

I used to use Amazon S3 online file storage sometime ago, but stopped when broadband speed were slow and I moved to shooting raw.

I also use Dropbox for moving files between devices and having some files available when out of the house, but only the basic service and don't use it for photo back ups. I really like Dropbox and would think about paying for space if I wanted online storage.

I've come to the conclusion that if someone breaks in and steals the hard drives or the house burns down I've got bigger problems Although I might rethink that...and look at Dropbox (or another online back up tool) to back up all the raw files.

I think the obvious next move for me is NAS (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01G1YI0NC/ ... _lig_dp_it) to make the back up easier, but to be honest Time Machine does a good job of backing up the external hard drives.

hope that helps.

[Richard B]

Old school from buying rolls of film and then paying for development used to cost me about £30 -40 quid for a days airshow years back.
Today i can buy a large memory card for that amount, so i use that and keep it. Copy on to disc, and also on a external drive, thou i buy drive sizes that will hold what i shoot per year.
New external drive each year.
So what i have is the original memory card of say Waddington 2014. Card 1 or maybe card 2.
Then it copied onto a hard drive of 2014. Then onto a disc in a disc folder 2014 etc.
Some early discs back in the early 2000's where rubbish and some have lost the content on them from back in the start of digital. Very good today they are but not to be fully relied on.

Would not stick 2 or 3 years worth of pictures on a large drive, they do fail being mechanical.
Buy one each year then if the worst comes you aint lost 2- 4 or more years in one go.

[James Cutting]

Hi,

currently I use only external hard drives in the following combination:

1x 2GB Seagate USB3 Expansion drive - Main raw photo library (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UNA1ICQ/ ... UTF8&psc=1)
1x 3GB Seagate USB3 Expansion drive - Apple Time machine back up, backing up the computer hard drive and the 2GB Seagate photo library drive (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UNA1ICQ/ ... UTF8&psc=1)

I used to use Amazon S3 online file storage sometime ago, but stopped when broadband speed were slow and I moved to shooting raw.

I also use Dropbox for moving files between devices and having some files available when out of the house, but only the basic service and don't use it for photo back ups. I really like Dropbox and would think about paying for space if I wanted online storage.

I've come to the conclusion that if someone breaks in and steals the hard drives or the house burns down I've got bigger problems Although I might rethink that...and look at Dropbox (or another online back up tool) to back up all the raw files.

I think the obvious next move for me is NAS (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01G1YI0NC/ ... _lig_dp_it) to make the back up easier, but to be honest Time Machine does a good job of backing up the external hard drives.

hope that helps.

Hi Lee,

Thanks for that, it's really helpful

I was looking at the portable HDD's, but, NAS boxes seem much better, and the one you've got there also looks good. And if you can set it up with RAID configuations, then that's even better as there's bakup there too.

Seems it's good to use a mixture of physical and cloud! But thanks, given me some good options

[James Cutting]

Old school from buying rolls of film and then paying for development used to cost me about £30 -40 quid for a days airshow years back.
Today i can buy a large memory card for that amount, so i use that and keep it. Copy on to disc, and also on a external drive, thou i buy drive sizes that will hold what i shoot per year.
New external drive each year.
So what i have is the original memory card of say Waddington 2014. Card 1 or maybe card 2.
Then it copied onto a hard drive of 2014. Then onto a disc in a disc folder 2014 etc.
Some early discs back in the early 2000's where rubbish and some have lost the content on them from back in the start of digital. Very good today they are but not to be fully relied on.

Would not stick 2 or 3 years worth of pictures on a large drive, they do fail being mechanical.
Buy one each year then if the worst comes you aint lost 2- 4 or more years in one go.

Hi Richard,

I see what you're saying, makes sense and sounds good. Thank you

[mprl]

Hi James,
I use a 2TB hard drive permanently attached to my PC to store my photos on so I don’t fill up the computer memory. I then backup my RAW files onto two 2TB Seagate portable hard drives ( I now have several pairs of hard drives like this) I then store one of these upstairs in the house away from the PC and the other I store away from the house in a secure location. Hopefully having three copies avoids loosing everything if a drive stops working, and also god forbid if anything happens to the house I still have a copy stored elsewhere.
Cheers
Matt