I need a better backup solution

bwana said:
Yeah - I'm going to start contacting clients and ask them how long they expect me to hang on to stuff for. I shoot 10-14 frames a second so there's often a lot of redundancy there I can eliminate.
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Looks like you have two realistic options

1. Build a NAS configured to hold all your data
2. Backup to LTO Tape - tapes are relatively cheap, but the cheapest drive I could find was around 35K (LTO5)

PS: I presume that you're currently 'filing' those drives by date
 
bwana said:
Yeah - I'm going to start contacting clients and ask them how long they expect me to hang on to stuff for. I shoot 10-14 frames a second so there's often a lot of redundancy there I can eliminate.
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You should build storage costs into what you charge your clients :)

I would personally go with a big chassis with as many high capacity drives that you can fit into it - possibly expanded into a second one at some point so that you can have redundancy between the 2.

Either way it's going to set you back a good few rands to get a decent solution up and running.
 
Your issues are a few fold,you'll have to prioritize which order to fix them in

1. Exceptionally large files,need to deduplicate,possibly compress to Jpg,would take too long to upload to cloud storage/cost too much
2. Large number of files,need to deduplicate,would take too long to upload to cloud storage/cost too much
3. High price for high density storage disks (this ties in with the above if you go local storage)
4. Need to be resilient - tolerate failures on disks,this means buying more disks than your current storage
5. How to access all of this,indexed individual disks or 1 large storage system
 
Once you have it all transferred to your new server you can sell the old drives and recover some of the cost.
 
wow, looking at that stack of "backup hard drives" , you've been quite complacent over the years. Did it not occur to you that you might run into this dilemma when you hit the 2-3TB mark ?

There isn't going to be a cheap fix for this, but I would think that something like this, which somebody linked earlier, is going to be the most cost effective and scaleable solution : https://www.avforums.com/threads/smurfs-monster-40tb-unraid-nas-build.1347547/
 
Necropolis said:
You should build storage costs into what you charge your clients :)
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whatnot said:
wow, looking at that stack of "backup hard drives" , you've been quite complacent over the years. Did it not occur to you that you might run into this dilemma when you hit the 2-3TB mark ?
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I knew I'd have to cross the bridge some time but photographic gear was my main concern and hard drives were/are the affordable option.
 
bwana said:
I knew I'd have to cross the bridge some time but photographic gear was my main concern and hard drives were/are the affordable option.
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So affordability > safe data storage ?

No problem if 1 or 2 of the hard drives conk for some obscure reason ?

I'd reckon that ensuring that you don't lose your life's work to some lousy accident is just as important as that piece of camera gear worth thousands, if not actually more imporant.
 
bwana said:
I knew I'd have to cross the bridge some time but photographic gear was my main concern and hard drives were/are the affordable option.
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Alternatively you'll have to just buy storage boxes and start using your drives like CD's? Store them in water/moist tight boxes and just label every drive when they're full. Alternatively when buying a new drive, use that antistatic bag and wrap it around the old drive after marking it. Seal it up and file it. You could end up with quiet a bit of drives though in a couple of years from now as cameras seem to be taking higher quality pictures and the files getting bigger and bigger. Eish...
 
whatnot said:
So affordability > safe data storage ?

No problem if 1 or 2 of the hard drives conk for some obscure reason ?

I'd reckon that ensuring that you don't lose your life's work to some lousy accident is just as important as that piece of camera gear worth thousands, if not actually more imporant.
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Hmm, dunno hey - I imagine that bwana is paid for the pictures that his clients actually use (or is paid by the hour and gives the client a copy of all the pictures taken).

Bwana, does your price include guaranteeing your clients that you will keep an archival copy for them or do you do it as a professional courtesy?
 
Pitbull said:
Alternatively you'll have to just buy storage boxes and start using your drives like CD's? Store them in water/moist tight boxes and just label every drive when they're full. Alternatively when buying a new drive, use that antistatic bag and wrap it around the old drive after marking it. Seal it up and file it. You could end up with quiet a bit of drives though in a couple of years from now as cameras seem to be taking higher quality pictures and the files getting bigger and bigger. Eish...
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Hence my question around how he files them.

I'd imagine that it might even be cheaper for him to fill two drives at a time (so he has a backup copy if one drive goes).

Also, not sure if he shoots and stores in RAW - .jpg doesn't take that much space compared to RAW.

If RAW, I'd only keep .jpg for archives/backup purposes.
 
whatnot said:
I'd reckon that ensuring that you don't lose your life's work to some lousy accident is just as important as that piece of camera gear worth thousands, if not actually more imporant.
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Images on the day are what pay the bills - for that you need good cameras, good glass, and a good laptop. Add that cost to the usual food, housing, car, school for the kids, etc, and replacing that aforementioned gear and there's not a lot left over for expensive backup solutions so yeah affordability > safe data storage. :o

Rather than spending hours and hours selecting images for my enjoyment I just dumped them on a drive or two and moved on to the next job. Being sentimental about photos is, or was, a luxury I don't/didn't have.

FWIW most of my work is editorial so not much call for photos from a match even days after the event and since that work is commissioned I don't even own copyright to it (thanks to SA's crazy copyright laws).
 
AfricanTech said:
Hmm, dunno hey - I imagine that bwana is paid for the pictures that his clients actually use (or is paid by the hour and gives the client a copy of all the pictures taken).
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Typically I'm paid a flat match rate. I supply them with 100+ edited and captioned images before/during/immediately after a match.

AfricanTech said:
Bwana, does your price include guaranteeing your clients that you will keep an archival copy for them or do you do it as a professional courtesy?
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That's one thing I'm trying to establish - right now I'm working on the assumption that they want me to archive everything, as opposed to the 100+ images I've uploaded from the match itself. If it was anywhere else in the world I'd be a lot happier archiving everything I shoot because those images would be mine.
 
Pitbull said:
Alternatively you'll have to just buy storage boxes and start using your drives like CD's? Store them in water/moist tight boxes and just label every drive when they're full. Alternatively when buying a new drive, use that antistatic bag and wrap it around the old drive after marking it. Seal it up and file it. You could end up with quiet a bit of drives though in a couple of years from now as cameras seem to be taking higher quality pictures and the files getting bigger and bigger. Eish...
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Most of the naked drives are in a cedar box with desiccant to help with humidity. I have to make sure to spin them all up every so often and recharge the desiccant but so far I haven't had any disasters.
 
bwana said:
Most of the naked drives are in a cedar box with desiccant to help with humidity. I have to make sure to spin them all up every so often and recharge the desiccant but so far I haven't had any disasters.
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So you more worried about the space then? (Actual storage space for the drives?)
How long did it take you to accumulate those in the picture?
 
Pitbull said:
So you more worried about the space then? (Actual storage space for the drives?)
How long did it take you to accumulate those in the picture?
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Accumulate as in fill or find around the house?

Those are basically five years worth of photos. I only started doing this after the soccer world cup.

I'm just looking for a more centralised and better organised storage.
 
bwana said:
Accumulate as in fill or find around the house?

Those are basically five years worth of photos. I only started doing this after the soccer world cup.

I'm just looking for a more centralised and better organised storage.
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A server I suppose would be your best bet. And then have a mobile drive to carry around and just upload to your server when done and wipe the carry drive. As said above, won't be cheap. Cheaper would be some kind of filing method I suppose using floating shelves or a cabinet and then just a directory of what is on what drive and name the drivers in some format. Looking for a specific even you did and need to pull the photos, check the directory file you made on your PC. See which drive it is and which folder, fetch the from the storage and plug it in, access the folder needed. I can just imagine the amount of events and gatherings you did. Creating a directory for that could take some time :eek:

I don't know... I think I should wish you luck? :p
 
bwana said:
Images on the day are what pay the bills - for that you need good cameras, good glass, and a good laptop. Add that cost to the usual food, housing, car, school for the kids, etc, and replacing that aforementioned gear and there's not a lot left over for expensive backup solutions so yeah affordability > safe data storage. :o

Rather than spending hours and hours selecting images for my enjoyment I just dumped them on a drive or two and moved on to the next job. Being sentimental about photos is, or was, a luxury I don't/didn't have.

FWIW most of my work is editorial so not much call for photos from a match even days after the event and since that work is commissioned I don't even own copyright to it (thanks to SA's crazy copyright laws).
Click to expand...

Well that changes it quite a bit, non critical data then.

I guess you'd still strongly dislike losing it, so spend some money and make your life easier :p
 
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