Digital Photographers are continually wondering how to backup their photographs, and then how to back-up their back ups. I visited the whole back-up issue a couple of months back and now, here I am, still struggling with ridiculous amounts of data. And you have to be prepared because you never know when you’re going to have a brain melt and empty a cup of water into your laptop, right?
Make your data swim!
So, I’ve located most of my image library files (largely Canon RAW) on a 4TB G-Raid3 drive… A great drive, but, to buy them over and over as the library grows is just silly. So I was thinking about a backup drive that will take all and more, the drive needs to be fast, upgradeable, flexible and cost effective… The only solution I’m hitting on time after time is a Drobo, but then I’ve heard reports that they’re a bit buggy – so, there’s a V2.0 out – which is bound to be buggy too… THe only consolation being that the bugs are within the firmware / controllers – so the data on your disks is still going to be OK if the unit fails…
Why Drobo? There’s nothing else… Simple… I’ve searched for ages and there’s nothing that is as streamlined and easy to use… (It’s not just for me)
More on this tomorrow…
What about the promise SmartStor NS4600, or SmartStor DS4600.
Handles up to 4 x 2TB drives in whichever raid configuration you like.
I don’t want to go Drobo either, not a fan of proprietary raid technology as if it goes down, you’ve gotta send it back to drobo and not any data recovery solutions. Hence why I’m thinking about the Promise solutions.
I wanted to support Drobo but after suffering from 1st generation Drobo blues (I still have two), it is hard for me to recommend it even with the latest Drobos now which I’m sure have improved.
There are plenty of RAID housings out there – it’s just they require a little work while Drobo make it pre-built. But then you definately pay for that!
PS Should also advise off-site backups.
The Drobo (or any other raid solution) is useless if you have a fire and the RAID is sitting right next to the main machine.
Drobo were at Focus and I had a chat with the guys* there. Great build quality by the looks of things, my main concern when discussing the solution to my requirement was it came out at the Drobo Elite. Now it’s a lovely product but complete overkill for my actual needs especially with the additional price to pay for what I would consider essential features.
* I say guys but I got to speak with the nice female rep there
Hey Brad! – I ended up purchasing 2 x 2TB internal drives for an existing enclosure (G-Safe) and am up and running with synchronised backups from my 4TB G-Raid3 to the G-Safe 2TB – That way, when the G-Safe is full, I can swap the disks out. –Same as with Drobo / Any other enclosure — but I already had the G-Safe and now I have 2 x 1TB drives spare to use as TimeMachine Disks for the actual Lightroom catalogue which I keep local on my Mac (Backed up often / twice daily) –Sime
Come across one of your 365 photos – fantastic stuff!
I’m not a photographer, but have you considered backup like Jungeldisk(.com)? It’s a little tricky to set up – but you will then have unlimited backup storage on Amazons cloud system (aws.amazon.com). You pay only for what you use.
You can set up scheduled backups, have synchronized work folders, network drive(s), version control, etc. I have used it for my data (incl pics and vids) for about 2 years now and love it.
Hey Thomas, Thanks for your message! — I’ve got me a currently 1.2TB image library… So it’s sort of out of the question, sadly. I’d love a semi-pro photographer grade “cloud” storage solution. –Sime