This Article is about my Backup Methods for Photographers and 3D Artists.
After years of being in the IT-Business and now as active Photographer and 3D-Artist i’am well aware how important a functional Data-Backup is.
In the past i have seen Customers near burst into tears because of a not really existence of a good Backup Workflow. Back in Time it was not an easy Task to store a big amount of Data because of using Tape-Storage or CD/DVD or very expensive HDD Raid Arrays. Today we are living in better Times i think, because of NAS Systems, Cloud-Systems and Cloud Storage Services. As Photographer or Digital Artist it is sometimes not unusual to produce hundreds of Gigabyte. And there is now the Big Question – How to save such a amount of Data secure – .
My Credo is – i don’t wanna do the same work twice – especially when it comes to Photo-Retouching or Manipulation. Many steps in a Photo Retouching, Beauty Retouches or a creative Photo Composing/Manipulation most of the work is intuitive and can not repeated.
Here is now my method of Data – Backup
First Step:
SD/CF-Cards – I copy the data as fast as possible to other devices. Storage cards are not a good place to store data save and secure.
[box title="Handling Tips for SD/CF Cards" color="#ed8b00"]Please Handle your SD/CF Cards with care. Dust, Heat,moisture, static charging, mechanical pressure isn’t really that good for your cards. A good idea as well is to throw away the old cards and replace them with new ones from time to time. [/box]
Second Step
I copy all new Files to a NAS System
Third Step
A second NAS System copies all the new and changed Files via Rsync every 15 Minutes.
[box title="Beware of cheap NAS-Systems" color="#ed8b00"]There are a lot of NAS-Systems out there, but do your self a favor, don’t buy the ones which are made for Home use, Media Streaming or something like that, trust me i tried several of these home semi pro crap NAS Systems, these are sometimes so slow that is is a really pain in the … [/box]
The Second and Third step provides me two local in house copies of my files.
For really Important Data like finished Customer Project i use extra HDDs, the Amazon S3 Service and the Google Drive Service.
These two external Service are providing sharing options as well to share your Data with your Costumers.
The extra HDDs are only to store Project files of one Project so they dont have to be really big. In the past i used 3,5″ HDDs but now i use the smaller 2,5″ HDDs. These HDDs are stored in special padded Containers. And some of them are at the Bank in a secure bank locker.
Sure money is a factor here as well, but make a calculation by yourself and then decide how important your data are and don’t miss the fact that you have spend time of your life to produce the Data and lifetime is priceless.