P
-
Welcome to the new forums! Please read this first. For known issues we are working to resolve, click here.
Long-Term Image File Storage Choices
- Thread starter Chaplain Mark
- Start date
Chris Noble
Veteran Member
Yes; my redundancy today is HDD on-site + HDD off-site. At some point I'm going to move to HDD on-site + cloud. And I have no doubt that the HDD on-site branch may evolve to a different medium (although magnetic HDD has surpassed everyone's predictions on long-term density and cost improvements).
By the way -- each backup branch needs to provide you with file-level restore as well as system (OS + apps) restore. Many of the cloud solutions only offer data file storage, which is not complete enough for me.
a_c_skinner
Forum Pro
"It is surprising the lack of support for the M disk storage option. "
Which makes it less attractive, there is no merit in having a backup with perfect data if it isn't easy to get the hardware to read it.
I often wonder how the reported life-span is arrived at.
Which makes it less attractive, there is no merit in having a backup with perfect data if it isn't easy to get the hardware to read it.
I often wonder how the reported life-span is arrived at.
tkbslc
Forum Pro
Lots of good backup advice has been given. However, one that is often forgotten is printing. I would suggest printing your best and most important photos and storing them as you would have pre-digital. Often after you pass on, the prints are all that your family will keep.
PHXAZCRAIG
Forum Pro
That sounds impressive. I wonder how they get the speed? I saw a demo from Cheyenne years ago where they took4 or 5 tape drives and combined them in a RAID array to get very fast speeds from slow tape drives. But pretty impractical and it went nowhere that I know of.
Forget about ZFS on Windows, I don't believe it is well supported. Debian based Linux distros (i.e. Ubuntu and Mint) make it easy to install the zfs-fuse package so you can read ZFS filesystems. You need a kernel extension to run ZFS in system space, which is probably the way you'd want to do it.
As far as I know, Synology and QNAP do not support RAID-Z.
Possibly a very power-efficient server could be used to make a home-grown RAID-Z server. Maybe with ARM processor, because Intel is either power hungry or slow, take your pick.
I use NTFS for this because it is more universal than any other good filesystem (FAT32 alas does not qualify as good).
Btrfs is supposed to be more durable than Ext4, however I think ZFS is a better option. On Linux Mint, Btrfs is a choice for Timeshift, instead of Rsync.
Good questions.
Last edited:
Good advice!
Sometimes PC Talk forum posters seem to think their photo collections (or whatever) deserve a lot of effort, such as replacing HDD sets every 5 years.
Wow, my heirs will never do that.
But I'm sure they will look at printed photos stored in boxes after I'm dead.
Last edited:
You should consider the Internet... Your life will be infinetely easier and troublefree.
Then the Cloudprovider (select a reputable one
) will have to handle technology shifts, dataloss prevention, multiple copies and so on... And the good ones does that on a level that FAR FAR superseedes any efforts you can do on your own. And you have the most simple interface to get your images again if you ever need them.
Just sayin’ - Life is to short to start handling hardware for your requirements.
Then the Cloudprovider (select a reputable one
) will have to handle technology shifts, dataloss prevention, multiple copies and so on... And the good ones does that on a level that FAR FAR superseedes any efforts you can do on your own. And you have the most simple interface to get your images again if you ever need them.Just sayin’ - Life is to short to start handling hardware for your requirements.
a_c_skinner
Forum Pro
RAIT, not RAID, surely?
jfriend00
Forum Pro
Yep, that's what I use Backblaze for. To me, the #1 most important thing is that the backups actually get made, get rotated, get taken offsite, etc... How many of you have set up an elaborate backup strategy and then parts of it just don't really happen that often? To me, that was the primary flaw in my previous backup strategies. Life gets busy real easy and some parts of the strategy just don't get executed.You should consider the Internet... Your life will be infinetely easier and troublefree.
Then the Cloudprovider (select a reputable one
Just sayin’ - Life is to short to start handling hardware for your requirements.
Using Backblaze (there are other similar services too), all of that is completely automatic and I only pay $50/yr for unlimited backup storage. When I load some new photos on my PC, they are backed up to the cloud automatically in the next hour.
I also have an internal backup drive which I run a nightly backup too using Acronis True Image, but honestly I probably don't need it.
But, the best thing about this backup strategy is that I get redundant backups, versioned backups, offsite storage and it's all entirely automatic so it never fails to get done.
You might want to step over to the Printers and Printing forum and examine the posts about longevity. There is no "permanent" solution to backup. I've got my Dad's Kodachromes from the late 1930s and some of them faded (most didn't).
Long ago I was managing an IBM 34 system and the building took a weekend to repair its electrics, so we shut down a computer that had been continuously on for several years. When we booted it up on Monday the HD failed. Then we discovered that the backup 8" floppies (!) were busted because we had backed up too much data for them. Basically our system and records were un-recoverable. Took us two months to rebuild the books from paper copies.
I think 99% of us learn from major mistakes like that. But in the spirit of the thread, here is what I do:
- Outboard SATA station with two HDs, one in the station and one at the bank. The way tech is going, I suspect that UBS3 HDs are just as good these days.
- Backup data (D) and image the OS (C) every couple of weeks (do it every day if you feel like it).
- Every month do a backup on the in-house HD and swap it with the one at the bank. Fire up the incoming HD as soon as possible and do a backup.
Well to each our own...
Allthough I have to say that it’s such decisions that makes life harder and harder as you get older (because you start make irrational decisions like that for an increasingly number of things).
If you don’t trust the cloud, fine. Then encrypt your files before you upload them, and upload them to two different vendors - problem solved, and you are left with no work, hardware maintenance, technology shifts and so on. You can go take more pictures instead.
Just sayin´ ;-)
I could not feel safe if I had only one backup in one Cloudprovider, So I should have two of them, which means double cost or have one Cloudprovider and one local backup.You should consider the Internet... Your life will be infinetely easier and troublefree.
Then the Cloudprovider (select a reputable one
Just sayin’ - Life is to short to start handling hardware for your requirements.
I don't have much confidence in cheap and unlimited plans, so many of them suddenly stopped or changed prices.
On the other hand, for me and other people, setting up backups, NASes, networks and securing them, is just another hobby,
like you wouldn't say "life is too short to make photos of monuments or landscapes , there are thousands terrific photos osf avery site in the internet"
No, I agree. You should NEVER settle with one copy of your images. If you stop having local copies of your images you NEED to have two different cloud copiesI could not feel safe if I had only one backup in one Cloudprovider, So I should have two of them, which means double cost or have one Cloudprovider and one local backup.You should consider the Internet... Your life will be infinetely easier and troublefree.
Then the Cloudprovider (select a reputable one
Just sayin’ - Life is to short to start handling hardware for your requirements.
I don't have much confidence in cheap and unlimited plans, so many of them suddenly stopped or changed prices.
On the other hand, for me and other people, setting up backups, NASes, networks and securing them, is just another hobby,
like you wouldn't say "life is too short to make photos of monuments or landscapes , there are thousands terrific photos osf avery site in the internet"
I mean mainly about Linux, but since it is not an of the shelf solution, it would not be easy for a novice like me
Synology does not support it, but if it was critical, I could consider building my own NAS
One of my 2 backups of the NAS on usb HDDs is in NTFS (the other in ext4) just in case I'll pass by the same time with the NAS, so my children could more easily restore the data, given they have the passphrase
I'm still worried about data integrity or other failures, that may corrupt my data without me knowing that.
I forgot to mention that for important personal data (bank or tax receipts, passwords etc.) I use two different backup methods to the same medium, the first being the backup program of the NAS and the second directly from my PC to the encrypted HDD (I used Back in Time in Ubuntu until recently) in case one of these methods prove to have flaws.
thanks a lot for your suggestions
Last edited:
Most people chain their backups, so if you get a bit flip at the source or an intermediary, then it is copied down the chain to the others.
One protection here is two copies of each file on the data set. So once you've made the initial copy, you have the fall back. Zfs gives you the option to do this on a file system basis - you can have N copies of everything.
Freenas may be the easiest way to implement zfs at home. Linux zfs is something more than a hack, but still not what I'd call mature. I continue to run Solaris for this purpose.
I did not mean I was worried about file security. I am worried about files disappearing, whether by tech problems, financial problems, Russian hackers, whatever.
Actually I don't trust any single backup, no matter what kind. I figure three HDs is reliable enough.
won't be a problem getting the hardware for a long time. The problem is that it's a minor PITA to deal with a multitude of discs.
Yes- I believe you should find the best vendor option where they charge you the proper amount for the service. Those selling below cost will eventually stop doing so, one way or the other.
But I don't think you need multiple cloud providers - you have your two versions at home. If the cloud provider goes, you use the second one at home and xfer to a new external provider. There is a pain point here getting the initial dump done, but seems like overkill to pay for 2.
Keyboard shortcuts
- f
- Forum