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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Do you archive everything? What software and RAID is best?
Corey Perrine, Photographer
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Augusta | GA | USA | Posted: 7:39 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> Here's my loaded questions...
I'm getting to the point where archiving all that I shoot is becoming cumbersome.
I was thinking about doing a select edit from now on and trash stuff I know will never fly.
For those out there who have done so, have you regretted it?
What archive system do you use? i.e. Program to tag and sort all your images? Aperture?
Also, I'm about to purchase a a RAID system and was thinking of this...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/
Anyone have advice on which RAID system is the best? I've heard good and bad on Drobo.
What brand of drives do you load in the slots?
Thanks,
Corey |
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Mark Sutton, Photographer
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Herndon | VA | USA | Posted: 7:52 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> Although I shoot everything in RAW and keep all those original images on external drives. I archived all my completed jpeg stuff a few years ago with Adobe Lightroom. I have all that stuff on a 2 Terabyte drive, but since I just joined Photoshelter. I'm moving everything from that drive into my Photoshelter account.
It gives me an offsite storage location and access to my clients if they need something they no longer have to call me to get it. I'm a little late but Photoshelter is what works for me. You can also archive with it too. |
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Derek Montgomery, Photographer
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Duluth | MN | USA | Posted: 9:03 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> Hi Corey. I shoot everything in RAW, select every image that could be used for anything and then keep those. The other stuff I trash. I use my own filing system to organize my photos. I don't really tag stuff since I'm not always using Lightroom to edit my photos. If it's a deadline assignment, Photo Mechanic and Photoshop are simply quicker for me.
I have the RAID drive you linked too as well as this one...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax
Both are awesome and blazing fast with an eSata hookup. I like it because they are quiet, small and redundant so if one drives fail you are not screwed.
I would get the drives pre-installed. That's what I did and it didn't cost much more than if I would have bought drives separately and installed them. At least I know these drives worked and are a perfect fit for the system.
I've also heard good and bad on DROBO and the fact that it's a proprietary system scared me off. They may be in perfect financial health, but I'd rather have a system that isn't proprietary and can be worked on by any number of people if something goes wrong.
I've had these drives for over a year now and they have NEVER given me any problems. OWC is the way to go and these two drives, including the one you linked too, are awesome. |
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Dominick Reuter, Photographer
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Cambridge | MA | USA | Posted: 9:48 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> Corey -
For what it's worth, I've been using the two-disk LaCie RAID1 drives and am on my way to filling up a terabyte since January with raw files.
The OWC drives you linked to are what I am getting next, so I can get larger capacities and better fault-tolerance. The benefit of a RAID 5 system is you could pretty much have fisher-price brand hard drives in there and be okay, since one drive failing is not debilitating for your system. (Overstatement, I know).
All images I edit are FTPed to photoshelter for safekeeping of the most important pictures and access from anywhere.
As far as trashing stuff, I am reluctant to even erase blurry photos of the floor. This is mainly because I don't want to even introduce myself to a habit that could lead to losing a file I never imagined needing. I have a couple other reasons I won't go into also, but losing pictures makes me queasy.
Everything is sorted at a minimum in folders with the date it was shot and the assignment slug using Photo Mechanic, since I am reluctant to marry my image library to a particular application's database.
With the cost of storage decreasing and the speed of interfaces increasing, the short-term frustration of managing gigabytes of images is, I think, vastly outweighed by the long-term value that is demonstrably and potentially in your archive. |
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Anthony Vasser, Photographer, Assistant
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Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 11:05 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> Commercial gigs I keep everything raw. Freelance, personal, etc I only keep the converted, adjusted, corrected jpg's because they are about 50% smaller and non proprietary. I'll trash the unusable, the multiples, and the uninteresting otherwise I'd drown under a sea of photos that I'd have no ability to sort through if I were trying to find something anyway.
I use a manual backup system consisting of 3 pairs of non-raid drives. Drive1 is local for immediate offloading (images go into a folder structure by year/month). Drive2 is a networked/NAS drive at a friends house in another state which mirrors Drive1 (set write only jpg and cr2 files). Drive3 is at a local friends place which is brought to drive 1 and files moved manually every 2 months or so (when I know I can complete it within 24 hours). Drive3 exists primarily to minimizes spread of viruses which are the most likely to take out automatic mirroring procedures.
No drives are ever placed more than 2 feet off the ground (falling), always stored off and in their original store packaging (motor wear), transported on a car seat and never the trunk (vibrations), are never all in the same place (theft), and are of different combination of manufacturers (not brands) to minimize production faults.
I also have an online server where I put the best stuff. Supposedly it is secure, and backed up, but I don't trust that. To me, RAID is marginally better than a single drive because your primary and backup are adjacent and prone to the same human error (power surge, virus, dropping, theft, weather).
Commercial stuff goes to 2 additional pairs of NAS drives and an additional server. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 11:22 PM on 04.12.11 |
->> I'd consider holding off on the RAID enclosure until there are enclosures using Thunderbolt available. If you're planning using eSATA it's not as big of a difference - the drives will probably limit your throughput, but it is a big difference over USB or Firewire.
Pretty much any backup system or methodology works well as long as you've taken the time to think through a few things:
What do I do if I get a virus that wipes my computer, while the main backup is plugged in? (aka, don't plug all your backups in at once. Download cards to computer, unplug them, then back up, then unplug your backup... And don't plug all your backups into the computer at once)
How do you protect yourself from mistakes you make when you're tired? Like deleting a folder on the wrong drive? Make a simple enough system that you just can't get it wrong; never hit the delete button with a backup drive plugged in.
What do you do when your office burns down? I keep a hard drive in my car just with recent (not yet turned in to client) shoots on it, and keep it parked a little back in the driveway so I'll have a minute or two to grab it in an emergency.
Do you know how your drive statuses are made known to you? A lot of the time when RAID's are used, there isn't a good notification system - so one drive failing isn't noticed; the next one failing results in a not-very-fun situation.
What do you do when you outgrow your current backup system? This is one of the main issues with a Drobo - you can't upgrade them forever. With most standards-compliant RAID systems, you can plug the drives into a new RAID tower - but do you have your drives marked so you know which ones to swap out? It happens pretty often that an operator will just pick the wrong drive as being the correct set of data - and kill your array's integrity. |
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