Saturday, April 21, 2007

Photographic backup strategy

My current backup strategy is very simple: I have 2 Seagate drives, I copy using SynToy files from one drive to the other one and I use one drive for working, the other one for backup. However reading the The DAM book, I can see that my current backup strategy has flaws.

Firstly the 2 drives are in the same location therefore are exposed to the same risk (theft, accident). Secondly drive fails, although I have 2 copies of my files, it is not a long term storage, eventually both drive will fail. Lastly the syncing process is manual, if I don't run it I am seriously exposed.

For the next iteration of my backup strategy, I will likely reorganize my files on the drive so that I can use longer life storage like DVDs more readily. I will put together the "negative" files (being literally raw files or simply jpeg), the working files together and the finished files together.

This means that I can then backup on DVD (read-only that is) the negatives as well as the finished files and leave the working one one the harddrives. This also means I could free space from the harddrives as when needed (I am already close to fill up the smaller drive).

This is not perfect but I am getting there. What are you doing?

1 comment:

BillyWarhol said...

I'm starting to Worry!!

I have about 6 Notebooks from over the past 10 Years of Digital Photography - back to 720K diskettes + i'm sure some o those Notebooks don't even Boot now* I'm curious what might be on them* I bought a new 250 Gig + i have to transfer my 1 Gig Jaz Drives each with 20,000 Photos so i have a massive JOB ahead of me*

whattabout BlueRay Discs??

;))