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Hammy #54417
Leading Member
Why not put all the data online?
With 3Ware's IDE RAID controllers, you can have up to 24 drives in RAID5 configuration. All online and redundant - instant access to many TB's of pix.
I have 3 of these controllers - two of them running RAID10 in my active servers and another R5 in archive server.
Brian.
With 3Ware's IDE RAID controllers, you can have up to 24 drives in RAID5 configuration. All online and redundant - instant access to many TB's of pix.
I have 3 of these controllers - two of them running RAID10 in my active servers and another R5 in archive server.
Brian.
I use Archive Creator software. It really simplifies storing large amounts of data across several CDs or DVDs. I was tearing my hair out doing it one at a time after returning from a major trip with 20G of pics. This software works very well with CDs. Haven't tried it with DVDs yet. Waiting for the format war to be won. Here's the link:
http://www.pictureflow.com/
http://www.leecarruthers.ca
http://www.pictureflow.com/
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http://www.leecarruthers.ca
J
Joe Ciarcia
Guest
The problem with a RAID array is that a virus, power surge or brown out can take the whole thing down in seconds. They're also a little cost prohibitive for me at the moment. Eventually I will probably set up a Linux based server to serve up images but I still won't rely on any form of backup that is not mechanically decoupled from my system with the ability to be transported to an offsite location (I always keep two backups, one onsite, one off).
Cheers, Joe
--
'Don't play what's there, play what's not there.' - Miles Davis
J
Joe Ciarcia
Guest
If I was going to go with hard drives that's definitely the way I'd do things, it must be pretty expensive for you though.
Cheers, Joe
'Don't play what's there, play what's not there.' - Miles Davis
Cheers, Joe
--
'Don't play what's there, play what's not there.' - Miles Davis
Hammy #54417
Leading Member
Cost? - $1/Gb - not that prohibative
Redundancy? - that is what RAID is: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
This is a solution for somebody who wants instant access to a file when needed. Otherwise, why archive - to spend hours searching for a single disc that has the client file?
Virus? - I've never run a virus scanner in almost 20 years, have discovered two viruses over that time that did nothing. I am on the internet almost all the time - but I never d/l anything I think might be hazardous, don't give out email, and wouldn't allow a data server to have access to that sort of thing. Anyway, there are virus scanners out there.
Brown out/power surge? - when would somebody run a production server without protection - UPS offers this protection for minimal expense.
Backups onsite and off - taking the corporate route of disaster recovery. Now were back to cost - costs twice as much: money and time. And how far offsite do you have it? Bank vault, seperate city? More cost.
There is no perfect way to backup - different methods work for different people. At some point, one has to figure out how much it is worth to backup data compared to the revenue that the 'old' data might bring in.
Brian.
Redundancy? - that is what RAID is: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
This is a solution for somebody who wants instant access to a file when needed. Otherwise, why archive - to spend hours searching for a single disc that has the client file?
Virus? - I've never run a virus scanner in almost 20 years, have discovered two viruses over that time that did nothing. I am on the internet almost all the time - but I never d/l anything I think might be hazardous, don't give out email, and wouldn't allow a data server to have access to that sort of thing. Anyway, there are virus scanners out there.
Brown out/power surge? - when would somebody run a production server without protection - UPS offers this protection for minimal expense.
Backups onsite and off - taking the corporate route of disaster recovery. Now were back to cost - costs twice as much: money and time. And how far offsite do you have it? Bank vault, seperate city? More cost.
There is no perfect way to backup - different methods work for different people. At some point, one has to figure out how much it is worth to backup data compared to the revenue that the 'old' data might bring in.
Brian.
J
Joe Ciarcia
Guest
I'm aware of what RAID is however the only thing that a RAID array's redundancy protects you from is a mechanical failure of the drive. It does not protect you again a failure of communciation to the drive, brown out, power surge, fire, flood damage, or where I'm from... complications caused by earthquakes.
As a software engineer I can tell you that 1) you are very lucky, 2) you've had more viruses on your system than you know about (you just didn't discover them and they weren't triggered) 3) before a virus scanner can detect and clean a virus the virus must first be released, cause damage, and be discovered before a virus profile can be written. You don't have to give out your email address in order for someone to get it, if you have it posted anywhere on your website it can easily be obtained by an automated spam bot. There are TONS of other ways to get your email address. I also assume you use your email to communicate with other users who may not be so careful about checking for viruses, etc. If someone else's machine is hit by a virus and your email address is on that machine then the virus now has access to your email address and can send itself to you. Some of these viruses are VERY sophisticated.
UPS's are a false sense of security if you don't understand what their capabilities and limitations are. A lightening strike can easily bypass a sophisticated surgre protection circuit. A UPS is an uninterruptable power supply, if the power goes out it switches over to a battery backup. Not all UPSes are created equal and the cheap ones don't regulate voltage (they may condition it (RFI filters) but they don't regulate it (the more expensive units do though)). A UPS can not protect your equipment from all power surges.
And if your studio burns down then what? How much is your data worth to you (or your clients)? Pardon the pun but if your studio burns those disks are toast (groan
. Also what about theft, how do you protect against that if you don't have an offsite backup?Very true. Cheers, Joe
--
'Don't play what's there, play what's not there.' - Miles Davis
Jeffrey Knapp
Forum Enthusiast
Am I doing the math wrong here? - 20GB would mean you're burning over 30 CDs at 650MB per? WOW! From what I've heard the "+" type DVD units are digital video,and the "-" units are for data backup. With reliable DVD drives being had for about $150 or so, (or maybe you could try a Panasonic DVD-RAM unit [$300 or so] that burns both sides for 9.2GB) I really recommend you try one. After using one, I think of my CD burner like a floppy drive.
Unfortunately, since it looks like the "blue-light" drives won't be reasonably priced for a while more, DVD seems to make the most sense (to me) for now.
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Jeff-at-work (LC-5,S602,S2)
Unfortunately, since it looks like the "blue-light" drives won't be reasonably priced for a while more, DVD seems to make the most sense (to me) for now.
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Jeff-at-work (LC-5,S602,S2)
James Akiyama
Leading Member
It is more expensive than other solutions, however, it gives a pretty good confidence that your images are intact.
If you do use this method, you need to make sure that a corrupted file isn't allowed to propagate to other drives.
James
If you do use this method, you need to make sure that a corrupted file isn't allowed to propagate to other drives.
James
Loner
Well-known member
Did anyone ever keep off site back-ups of their Film transparencies or negatives before digital?
Chuck
Chuck
This is how I do it:
1.Burn all images from CF directly to CD using Roxio - make sure data is verified. Roxio will span across however many CD's it takes to backup your job.
2.Label CD "MASTER" and also CD ID no. or Job No. or whatever you want.
3.Put the MASTER in Fire Rated Data Safe.
4.Copy all images from CF to Hard Disk and use those copies to enhance crop etc and print from.
5.Manage all images using Foto Station Pro. If you set "OFFLINE STORAGE" option you can get it to refer you to all the CD's in your safe.
1.Burn all images from CF directly to CD using Roxio - make sure data is verified. Roxio will span across however many CD's it takes to backup your job.
2.Label CD "MASTER" and also CD ID no. or Job No. or whatever you want.
3.Put the MASTER in Fire Rated Data Safe.
4.Copy all images from CF to Hard Disk and use those copies to enhance crop etc and print from.
5.Manage all images using Foto Station Pro. If you set "OFFLINE STORAGE" option you can get it to refer you to all the CD's in your safe.
Tim Lozinski
Leading Member
also Using DVD+R to backup large chunks at a time
MIRROR FOLDER is a 3rd party pluginto WinExplorer which seemlessly works
I use it since I do not want to mirror the whole drive (they are different sizes) but only the RAW images folder, not the TIFS unless they are pretty special.
Cheers - Tim
MIRROR FOLDER is a 3rd party pluginto WinExplorer which seemlessly works
I use it since I do not want to mirror the whole drive (they are different sizes) but only the RAW images folder, not the TIFS unless they are pretty special.
Cheers - Tim
L
Lin Evans
Guest
Hi Joe,
The upper end tape systems (Ultrium LTO & DLT) are very reliable and extremely fast. I back up around 60 gigabytes in a little over an hour. The Ultrium is faster and higher capacity than DLT, but built along a similar platform. Yes, it's expensive - an external LTO Ultrium 1 will run close to $5,000 with a good SCSI Fast Wide card & software, but it is extremely reliable, fast and simple to use.
The downside is that your data is always near-line rather than on-line as it is with random access media. I use magneto optical for online backup and DVD for archive, but I wouldn't trade the Ultrium for anything else for backup speed and efficiency.
If it were possible to get similar speed, an external hard disk with IEEE-1394 interface would be great, but in practice they are much slower than the tape. Of course if you just set it up and let it run all night, it might be the most economical way to go, but a lot depends on how much data you have. For example, the largest present Firewire externals are around 600 gigabyte, but the costs per gig are higher than tape. Ultrium 100 gig (uncompressed) tapes are under $100 each and a 600 gig hard disk would run around twice the price of six tapes. On the other hand, if you data requirements are no where near this capacity, even a 200 gigabyte external firewire might be all you need.
Lin
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http://208.56.82.71
L
Lin Evans
Guest
Typically LTO Ultrium backs 15 meg per second uncompressed. We backup 60 gigabytes in a little over an hour daily with our Ultruim LTO 1. If it's taking 15 hours not including verify, you really need to get rid of some problem files. It sounds like perhaps you may have a disk full of Windows junk files like the thousands of C:_restore\temp*.cpy which 98 & ME create. If you are using a good backup system, these files are totally unnecessary and will absolutely "KILL" any backup system when it hits 60,000 or more of these tiny (usually about 60 bytes) files.
If your tape system has proved reliable and you have few or no verify errors, running verify if probably unnecessary as well. Whatever the problem, if it takes 15 hours without verify to backup 100 gigabytes of data with your LTO, something's seriously wrong.
Best regards,
Lin
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http://208.56.82.71
Bryan Carnathan
Senior Member
I am using a dual 3.5" drive external firewire case with 120GB and 200GB Maxtor drives in it. You can get the case for $48 + shipping from:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MAP-302F-01
It is fast and portable. I added this to my multiple-copy CD-R backup scheme when I had 3 CD-Rs less than a year old fail when I was loading a new PC.
Make sure at least one copy goes to an off-site location.
Regards,
Bryan
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http://www.carnathan.com/Digital_Photography.html
http://www.save-u.com
http://www.nationalticket.com
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MAP-302F-01
It is fast and portable. I added this to my multiple-copy CD-R backup scheme when I had 3 CD-Rs less than a year old fail when I was loading a new PC.
Make sure at least one copy goes to an off-site location.
Regards,
Bryan
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http://www.carnathan.com/Digital_Photography.html
http://www.save-u.com
http://www.nationalticket.com
William Night
Leading Member
Quite right.
But, if you archive your pictures with one of the .PAR tools from http://parchive.sourceforge.net you can specify the number of parity files to produce, such that you can lose any given number of parts, from the original and the parity files, and still be able to recover all your data.
It's basically a file version of RAID 5. It takes more room, but if a piece of the archive gets corrupted or deleted you can recover, as long as you originally made enough parity files.
This way you can burn seven CDs of pictures on ten CDs. The first seven are the normal archive, the next three disks are the parity info, and you can lose any three pieces (all in a row, all original, all parity, etc) and not lose any data at all!
I wouldn't trust CDs with anything less.
Bryan Carnathan
Senior Member
I am having trouble getting the two hard drives to work in this enclosure at the same time. I'll have to do some research.
Bryan
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http://www.carnathan.com/Digital_Photography.html
http://www.save-u.com
http://www.nationalticket.com
Bryan
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http://www.carnathan.com/Digital_Photography.html
http://www.save-u.com
http://www.nationalticket.com
J
Jim Dawson
Guest
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Canon 1D & Optio S
Estuardo
Leading Member
I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that DVD media is more expensive per MB than CD-R. This are the figures I use, using Mitsui (considered by most to be the best CD-R media available) based on what Arcal in California sells them for.
http://www.arcal.com/goldinjewelbox.html MITSUI GOLD CD-R, 650MB at $1.46/each or $0.92/each in quantity.
http://www.arcal.com/mitsui1.html MITSUI GOLD DVD-R, 4.7GB 2x General Purpose $3.78/ea or $3.48/each in quantity.
Based on the above prices, I arrive at the following figures based on dollars per GB:
MITSUI GOLD CD-R
$2.25/GB (each)
$1.41/GB (each in quantity)
MITSUI GOLD DVD-R
$0.79/GB (each)
$0.72/GB (each in quantity)
The above figures show DVD is less than half the cost of CD-R media (per GB or MB).
If I'm missing something, please advise.
New subject.
Since optical storage using premium media is hovering at just under a dollar per GB, it seems to me that hard drive storage would cost just about the same - plus allow much faster writing and reading.
I'm thinking of using an external 5.25" enclosure such as this http://www.general-house.com/gh_ME-345U2F.html one from General-House for $77 (Firewire and USB2.0). Then all I'd need would be to get a hard drive mount for each hard drive at ~$20/each to allow for quick and easy HD swapping.
If you look at newegg http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&manufactory=1304&catalog=14&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1 you'll see Maxtor hard drives are around a dollar per GB, such as a 7200RPM DiamondMax Plus 9 Maxtor 80GB hard drive for $76 or a 120GB for $98. WesternDigital has similar prices. Add $20 for the mobile mount and you'll be slight above $1/GB.
Another option would be to get an external HD, but if you have multiple hard drives, it'd be more expensive as you would not be able to use removable hard drives using just one external Firewire and/or USB2.0 unit.
http://www.arcal.com/goldinjewelbox.html MITSUI GOLD CD-R, 650MB at $1.46/each or $0.92/each in quantity.
http://www.arcal.com/mitsui1.html MITSUI GOLD DVD-R, 4.7GB 2x General Purpose $3.78/ea or $3.48/each in quantity.
Based on the above prices, I arrive at the following figures based on dollars per GB:
MITSUI GOLD CD-R
$2.25/GB (each)
$1.41/GB (each in quantity)
MITSUI GOLD DVD-R
$0.79/GB (each)
$0.72/GB (each in quantity)
The above figures show DVD is less than half the cost of CD-R media (per GB or MB).
If I'm missing something, please advise.
New subject.
Since optical storage using premium media is hovering at just under a dollar per GB, it seems to me that hard drive storage would cost just about the same - plus allow much faster writing and reading.
I'm thinking of using an external 5.25" enclosure such as this http://www.general-house.com/gh_ME-345U2F.html one from General-House for $77 (Firewire and USB2.0). Then all I'd need would be to get a hard drive mount for each hard drive at ~$20/each to allow for quick and easy HD swapping.
If you look at newegg http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&manufactory=1304&catalog=14&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1 you'll see Maxtor hard drives are around a dollar per GB, such as a 7200RPM DiamondMax Plus 9 Maxtor 80GB hard drive for $76 or a 120GB for $98. WesternDigital has similar prices. Add $20 for the mobile mount and you'll be slight above $1/GB.
Another option would be to get an external HD, but if you have multiple hard drives, it'd be more expensive as you would not be able to use removable hard drives using just one external Firewire and/or USB2.0 unit.
George Thompson
Leading Member
I usually pay about $.80 per DVD in bulk. Not had any problem.
http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?r=61&go=view_cata&cata=1&s_cata=88
GT
http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?r=61&go=view_cata&cata=1&s_cata=88
GT
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