'HELP" I need a Back Up System

[diver46]

Hi,
I just had one of my external hard drives crash. Needless to say I lost a lot of photos, I usually back up to an additonal hard drive, but things got away from me and now I am paying the price for being lazy.

So I need a better system. Does any one know about the Drobo or My Book Mirror Edtion II 2TB from Western Digital. Or should I just by a couple of 1 TB external drives and back up twice, and use a third to work and process photos.

Any advice would be appreciate.

[Busk]

Sorry about your Hard Drive. Did you have a physical problem with the drive or is it software related? Have you tried to recover the Data? There are several recovery programs that I have used to repair and recover Data from "Broken" hard drives. Was the Data compressed from the BackUp software you used?
I have used several Western Digital Devices and Iomega Devices to backup in the past and now just build my own using Notebook Hard Drives and external enclosures. I stopped using the Over-The-Counter devices because of there software. Sometimes the software when it backing up your data will compress it. Now I can plug my drives into any computer and access it, I don't have to have the software installed.
Hope this Helps! Good Luck!

[PaulT]

There are several Western Digital and Buffalo external drives that come with Memeo backup software. Usually I prefer to backup manually but I quite like the Memeo system. Once you have done your first big backup - which will take several hours - the software will backup new or changed files only. Worth looking into.

[moggi1964]

I use GenieSoft which operates similar to Memeo by the sound of it. It won't support Mac's though. You can configure it to store files such that you don't need the software installed to recover them.

I automatically back up to both an internal drive and an external drive. I use maximum compression on the external drive (which is only a 250GB unit).

You could consider a RAID 1 setup plus an external drive configured with a backup software.

Newegg have this drive at a good price ($110 after $20 MIR):
Fantom GD1000EU 1TB USB 2.0 / eSATA Silver GreenDrive External Hard Drive

You have one option with Genie which is that you can automatically backup to an FTP source. The initial backup would be lengthy but after that it just updates changes. I am not sure how much storage would cost you but if you are in business and need to retain access to pictures then it may be worth it.

I hope this helps and I hope you didn't lose too much data; I know how frustrating that can be.

[moggi1964]

In addition:

if your pictures are jpeg's you can get an account at Smugmug and for about $40 a year have limitless storage there.

It's on my list of things to do for sure.

[DavidFromPhila]

Here's what I do, and it's been great for years and years:
1. Purchase external hard drive, or purchase an external enclosure and a hard drive to put in it.
Make sure that it connects in a very fast way... USB's kinda slow... eSata is better. Make sure it's as least as big as the drive you're backing up.
2. Purchase or just download (there's free software) that does file synchronization.
3. Every now and then (at least once a week, anyway), do the synchronization.

The advantage of this method is that your backup is in the exact same format as the original... no incremental backups, no compression. So if you need it, it's ridiculously easy to use.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by diver46

Hi,
I just had one of my external hard drives crash. Needless to say I lost a lot of photos, I usually back up to an additonal hard drive, but things got away from me and now I am paying the price for being lazy.

So I need a better system. Does any one know about the Drobo or My Book Mirror Edtion II 2TB from Western Digital. Or should I just by a couple of 1 TB external drives and back up twice, and use a third to work and process photos.

Any advice would be appreciate.

You must look into Windows Home Server. Set one up, and never worry about backing up again.

Backing up home computers is a responsibility that Windows Home Server takes very seriously. After you set up the server in your network-connected home and install the connector software on each PC, the operating system will automatically back up each computer in the household overnight. Backup sizes are kept small by several innovative backup technologies, including the ability to skip backing up a file that has already been backed up from another PC in the house. That means that if an identical mydoc.txt file exists on five computers in the house, it's backed up only once - yet restored properly to each PC, if so requested.

[waple]

Do any of these backup things do uncompressed backups where you can just go to that other drive and open a file? I hate using Nero now since if I lose a file I have to go through their proprietary whatchamacallit and sometimes it doesn't even work. I'd like to be able to just go to the other drive and know exactly where my file is.

What kind of software would be used for the syncronizing idea? That one intrigues me.

And what about trying to sync data between a home and studio PC? that's my biggest issue. I often bring home a memory card and edit in Lightroom, or work with a client's web site on my home PC but then I need to get that data over to the studio the next day.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by waple

And what about trying to sync data between a home and studio PC? that's my biggest issue. I often bring home a memory card and edit in Lightroom, or work with a client's web site on my home PC but then I need to get that data over to the studio the next day.

Look at setting up a VPN between your studio and the house. It's easy to do and you can extend your office network to the house. Then just copy files back and forth.

[Jason Hermann]

For hardware this is an awesome deal I plan on getting within the next few days The Raid option for protection/ redundancy is what I'm in need of most!

Buy PCNation.com Products: Buffalo >> (HD-W2.0TIU2/R1) 2tb 2x500gb Drivestation Duo 7200rpm Tt Sata Raid 0/1 Usb 2.0

Best,
Jay

[DavidFromPhila]

The only thing bad about that one is that it doesn't have ESata. USB is slooooow for lots of gigabytes.

[Jason Hermann]

Very true, but you get what you pay for

Best,
Jay

[nemir]

Originally Posted by diver46

Hi,
I just had one of my external hard drives crash. Needless to say I lost a lot of photos, I usually back up to an additonal hard drive, but things got away from me and now I am paying the price for being lazy.

So I need a better system. Does any one know about the Drobo or My Book Mirror Edtion II 2TB from Western Digital. Or should I just by a couple of 1 TB external drives and back up twice, and use a third to work and process photos.

Any advice would be appreciate.

Have you thought about archiving older images to disc? One dvd can fit 3gig of images.. dual sided can fit twice that. Soon blu-ray burners will fit 30gig.

You can take your stuff away from your PC then. Even store it off-site altogether, to protect you against loss by fire, theft or disaster.

[aam1234]

Originally Posted by Worm324

For hardware this is an awesome deal I plan on getting within the next few days The Raid option for protection/ redundancy is what I'm in need of most!

Buy PCNation.com Products: Buffalo >> (HD-W2.0TIU2/R1) 2tb 2x500gb Drivestation Duo 7200rpm Tt Sata Raid 0/1 Usb 2.0

Best,
Jay

Bought one sometime ago but didn't use it yet. Please let us know what you think about it (after getting one, that is).

Cheers

[jonpaul]

Originally Posted by Worm324

For hardware this is an awesome deal I plan on getting within the next few days The Raid option for protection/ redundancy is what I'm in need of most!

Buy PCNation.com Products: Buffalo >> (HD-W2.0TIU2/R1) 2tb 2x500gb Drivestation Duo 7200rpm Tt Sata Raid 0/1 Usb 2.0

Best,
Jay

Jay, I see what may be a conflict betwwen the product listing and the details in the product overview of the Buffalo unit: The product listing says "2tb 2x500gb" the details in the product overview "2x1tb". Maybe one or the other is a typo. If it is indeed a 2tb unit, I would order one myself. Regards, Jonpaul