Backup: External hard drives or off site data storage?

[johnny9fingers]

I've been trying to decide which is the best option and was ready to utilize both, but figured it was overkill. So I'll probably find an off site data storage provider. What do you folks do???
John

 

[davect01]

I do both. I have a three TB Hard drive, but also upload to several different places.

 

[Travisennis]

I use external hard drives but I've been think about cloud storage. Right now I have two external hard drives. I backup to one each time I load new images on my computer. I backup to second external about once a month. It's not a perfect setup but it works.

 

[jebuskrust]

I heard that flickr removed many accounts with no apparent reason. Figure it out, all info was permanently deleted.
Consequently, I have many photographer friends which are quite afraid to keep their raw files on some other website. Plus, it was another online service which over night they changed their EULA and terms and conditions, then next thing you know, all your files are being sold to 3rd parties for additional profit.

I think investing in external HDD is the best solution

 

[JJJPhoto]

I have multiple copies of all my images stored on multiple local hard drives, I have copies stored on a local NAS (Network Attached Storage device) so that family and clients can access them over my home network or the internet, and I use an image hosting site that stores full-res copies of all my JPEG files in the "cloud."

So, if my house burns down then I'll lose my RAW images but I'll still have my JPEGS. Maybe I should get one of those fireproof safes and keep it next to my desk and put my hard drives inside them unless I'm actively backing up files.

 

[hodad66]

I've been running various raid external boxes for the past five years. I've
only had one failure and the box duplicated the good drive as soon as I
plugged in the new drive.

 

[Bolampau]

I have multiple copies of all my images stored on three external hard drives. Two drives are kept at home and the third is stored at the In-Laws house (just in case my house was burnt or flooded)

Not sure I'd trust cloud storage!

 

[Michael Johansson]

Old thread but still up to date subject.

I store my RAW on a separete HDD in my main PC. TIFF/JPG files from Lightroom are stored on two NAS HDD depending on picture usage. All is backed up on an external HDD that I keep at work in case of burglary, fire or other disaster. I use SyncToy for this back up as I then can use the backup HDD straight away on any computer just by plugging it in via USB or eSATA.

Now to my qustion: how is it possible to store pics in the cloud? The data amount is rather hefty (RAW files from A900 is ~36MB and NEX-7 is ~22MB. That will take an awful long time to upload, won´t it?

 

[Nubster]

I'm computer dumb so a lot of the talk about storage and raid, ect., just goes over my head. At the moment, I keep all my stuff on my computer. I do have a 1TB external, but I haven't really started to use it. I don't trust storing online for reasons given above but I'd maybe consider doing that in combo with keeping them at home as well but I also don't like the idea of the few good shots I manage to get being sold or stolen at some point.

 

[Chuck Lawson]

Both. I back up everything to both a local external drive and a network attached drive; selected folders (including all of my images) are also backed up to a cloud backup provider.

 

[Jefenator]

I keep an external drive at work and bring it home once a week to back up. It absolutely saved my bacon last winter.

 

[kaptnkain]

Hmm, I've been keeping my RAW files on a 10K hard drive. Problem is, I don't have much more room in my case for a RAID-1 array - I already run an SSD as a boot drive and another as a scratch disk.

 

[kevistopheles]

I keep everything on a 2 TB drive (with it backed periodically in a few places) and I post stuff to Flickr and Zenfolio to show. I'm about ready to replace the drive. I like to have fresh drives every year or so and storage is pretty cheap.

 

[Bimjo]

Yeah, my 1TB is nearly full, time to get a replacement.

 

[kaptnkain]

I think that just running hard drives in Raid 1 and just replacing them as they fail (if they fail - that raptor's been running for 3-4 years without issue) is the most efficient and logistically sound idea.

 

[Grisu_HDH]

I heard that flickr removed many accounts with no apparent reason. Figure it out, all info was permanently deleted.
Consequently, I have many photographer friends which are quite afraid to keep their raw files on some other website. Plus, it was another online service which over night they changed their EULA and terms and conditions, then next thing you know, all your files are being sold to 3rd parties for additional profit.

I think investing in external HDD is the best solution

+1 for me here.
I backup to 2 external HDs once a month and I know there will be a day when a technical damage or virus could damage everything...
Thats why we do photo books of all holidays or other important memories all the time (like gluing them into a photo album in the good old days).
But upload private pictures with family, friends, children or private emotions into the nirvana where you don't know where tbey go to is a no-go for me!

 

[Electric Shepherd]

I back up my iPhoto library and also external Lightroom library to an external HDD via Time Machine on my Mac and also to DVD. The DVDs get taken to work so I've got an off site backup. There is a small risk re the longevity of DVD as a long term storage solution, so maybe one day I'll get another HDD to do that job.