Archiving photos

[ataraxia]

How do you archive your photos? And what do you do with your photo archives?

I've accumulated (too) many GBs worth of photos, especially after I upgraded to my DSLR. I've had to back up my photos in portable hard disks because my laptop was running out of space. But I'm not really sure if there's a more efficient system? I have photos from 2-3 years back but I have almost never accessed them!

Would love to hear from more experienced photographers how you manage your archives. Do you archive everything? Do you double back up like some pros recommend we do? How do you "use" your archives?

 

[Turboredbean]

I archive my photo's by dates, I have back-up on my hard disks. but before I keep them, i made sure I only keep the Impt ones. those not so nice shots and those that are common goes to the recycle bin.

 

[ed9119]

be strong and ruthless ....... keep 5% ..... dump the rest

made me a better photog for sure

 

[esoeij]

I recently invested in a NAS (Network Attached Server) with 2 hard drives. So there is a back-up (RAID something) of the primary hard-drive which contains all my photo archives. My back-up of last resort are all the photos I've uploaded to Facebook!

Btw, is it common to upgrade to a Pro Flickr or other similar websites to archive photos?

 

[xersion]

I recently invested in a NAS (Network Attached Server) with 2 hard drives. So there is a back-up (RAID something) of the primary hard-drive which contains all my photo archives. My back-up of last resort are all the photos I've uploaded to Facebook!

Btw, is it common to upgrade to a Pro Flickr or other similar websites to archive photos?

whats the price u got it at?

 

[esoeij]

whats the price u got it at?

There are many types and brands to cater to different budgets. I bought mine from Memoryworld at Funan. Can't remember exactly how much I paid for it, and just realised I lost the receipt :sweat: when I tried to check. I think it was about $800 excluding the harddrives.

 

[NikF601]

Another system is Drobo... Can go to cathay photo to see at showroom and get more info...

 

[Achim Reh]

I use Qnap NAS . 1 TB mirror Raid. This system works stable for the last 6 years without even the slightest hickup . I migrated to a bigger set of hard drive lats year, was also easy. Pull one drive out ( system up and running) , and plug a bigger drive in. Wait for unit to get ready. Change the other hard drive the same way.
Only catch is , you need 2 1TB drives to have 1TB total storage. I also store/ archive by date. I archive all raw data. When I need a raw file to work on it, I copy it to my local HD , and after I am finished , I copy the result back to the Qnap under a different folder. For finished processed pictures, I archive by location/ theme, e.g., what was taken and where. I would never ever recommend to store pictures on a single drive, specially not in singapore. In my experience , hard drives , specially those which are not running a lot , tend to fail much more often than in other countries,probably due to the high humidity.

 

[ataraxia]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply! I think the suggestion to be assess my photos and keep only decent ones is a good one. Time-consuming but it's useful to review my shots. Would help me see how I can improve.

I would never ever recommend to store pictures on a single drive, specially not in singapore. In my experience , hard drives , specially those which are not running a lot , tend to fail much more often than in other countries,probably due to the high humidity.

That's something I've heard from quite a few people; might start doing so!

Unfortunately, I think the RAID system idea is too complex for a technophobe like me...

 

[esoeij]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply! I think the suggestion to be assess my photos and keep only decent ones is a good one. Time-consuming but it's useful to review my shots. Would help me see how I can improve.


That's something I've heard from quite a few people; might start doing so!

Unfortunately, I think the RAID system idea is too complex for a technophobe like me...

The Drobo system mentioned by NikF601 is relatively idiot-proof. The entry-level Drobo models are not NAS, just plain vanilla back-up drives with RAID capabilities. I was contemplating this but it got very mixed reviews, the main bugbear being that it is really slow. I am also not a techie, I had to ask the shop technician to install and configure my NAS for me. I only know how to use the basic functions (e.g. just backing-up stuff, but not network settings, iTunes server etc) but that's good enough for now.

Backing up your photo archive is a must. You can probably replace all your camera equipment over time, but nothing can replace years of photos painstakingly accumulated once they are lost due to some hardware disaster. I used to use a portable hard drive to back up the stuff on my PC, but at a certain point, the volume becomes too large to do this efficiently.

 

[detritus]

mine approach is totally unsophisticated and straightforward: 2TB external USB HDD i got cheap from challenger. ;p

all photos arranged by date taken in separate folders (downloaded direct from CS5 bridge)

after downloading, go through, delete the lousy ones, flag / grade the good ones, PP the ones i want to print / share, export the JPEG into another folder.

haven't gotten around to consider the back-up part yet :sweat: hopefully will have some warning before HDD dies and can have time to transfer the files to a new one.

 

[Achim Reh]

On the software side, Apple Aperture offers a really good, extra safe , fully automated backup solution , however, no network drives supported ,only USB / Firewire.
On the hardware side, I think there are not many options to Raid.

 

[David Kwok]

mine approach is totally unsophisticated and straightforward: 2TB external USB HDD i got cheap from challenger. ;p

all photos arranged by date taken in separate folders (downloaded direct from CS5 bridge)

after downloading, go through, delete the lousy ones, flag / grade the good ones, PP the ones i want to print / share, export the JPEG into another folder.

haven't gotten around to consider the back-up part yet :sweat: hopefully will have some warning before HDD dies and can have time to transfer the files to a new one.

Typically SMART don't transfer thru USB and FireWire, also if you want these drives to early notify you of excessive data lost which one early remedy is relocation of sector data, you will need an smartd application running on your host.

Even so, smartd is only a prevention to total disk failure on some areas, you should not depend on it for data lost prevention. Over time, Hdd fails on electronic and medium issues, without redundancy, you are in for high risk in data lost.

 

[David Kwok]

On the software side, Apple Aperture offers a really good, extra safe , fully automated backup solution , however, no network drives supported ,only USB / Firewire.
On the hardware side, I think there are not many options to Raid.

You mount your network drives onto the host, it is not an issue with applications including apple aperture. These applications don't really care. I have been using symbology nas for awhile.

What options of RAID are you looking for? I can recommend based on price range and technical requirements.

 

[David Kwok]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply! I think the suggestion to be assess my photos and keep only decent ones is a good one. Time-consuming but it's useful to review my shots. Would help me see how I can improve.

That's something I've heard from quite a few people; might start doing so!

Unfortunately, I think the RAID system idea is too complex for a technophobe like me...

Nowadays NAS system are pretty much easy to use, you can slowly pick up advance features if you need them

 

[kkgoxplore]

be strong and ruthless ....... keep 5% ..... dump the rest

made me a better photog for sure

To paraphrase someone from the diving forum, "You have not been selective enough if the delete button on you PC has not worn off".

 

[Achim Reh]

You mount your network drives onto the host, it is not an issue with applications including apple aperture. These applications don't really care. I have been using symbology nas for awhile.

What options of RAID are you looking for? I can recommend based on price range and technical requirements.

The version of Aperture I use does not support the creation of vaults on network disks....but ok, I only use version 2, maybe version 3 can.

 

[Mythmaker]

I store them in my NAS, 2TB * 2. That's about the ability to store 179000 raw shots. Assuming if I shoot 500 shots every week, it will take about 7+ years to fill it up. I think the HDD will die first.

 

[David Kwok]

The version of Aperture I use does not support the creation of vaults on network disks....but ok, I only use version 2, maybe version 3 can.

Would you like to try iscsi? Go get the globalsan iscsi initiator, provided your nas offers iscsi target.

 

[Achim Reh]

Would you like to try iscsi? Go get the globalsan iscsi initiator, provided your nas offers iscsi target.

Not sure. Whats is the advantage ?. I am just trying out the use of Adobe Bridge, which looks promising to me so far. Not sure if my 2 Qnap 209 pro are compatible with iscsi , they are a bit old ( but work stable for me of many years) .