Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan?

An anonymous reader writes "I know most people use backup services in the cloud now, off-site, but does anyone have good ideas on how to best protect data without it leaving the site? I'm a photographer and, I shoot 32GB to 64GB in a couple of hours. I've accumulated about 8TB of images over the past decade and just can't imagine paying to host them somewhere off-site. I don't make enough money as it is. Currently I just redundantly back them up to hard drives in different rooms of my house, but that's a total crapshoot — if there's a fire, I'd be out of luck. Does anyone keep a hard disk or NAS inside a fireproof safe? In a bunker in the cellar? In the detached garage? It's so much data that even doing routine backups bogs the system down for days. I'd love suggestions, especially from gamers or videographers who have TBs of data they need to back up, on what options there are with a limited budget to maximize protection."

Comments

Re:Offsite != cloud

[Fwipp]

And if you don't have any friends, keep one in a bank's safe deposit box. They're usually not that pricey.

Delete more

[Hatta]

Any pro photographer will tell you that 95% of what you shoot is crap. Prune it mercilessly.

Re:Delete more

[Jane Q. Public]

"Any pro photographer will tell you that 95% of what you shoot is crap."

That depends ENTIRELY on the kind of photography. For example, if it's portraiture like yearbook photos, or wedding photos, or many other such things, the customer decides what's good and what they want to keep, and they typically have the option of coming back and buying more prints later.

In cases like that, you can't prune. You have to keep it all.

Re:Storing locally will cost you more, not less...

[Achra]

That said, if you're doing 64 GB in a couple of hours, a little more practice with shot discipline will help you both in storage and in workflow time. That's too many pictures.

Then the DELETE key is your friend. Especially if you're doing that many shots. They can't ALL win the Pulitzer Price.

This.

To quote Ken Rockwell: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/howto.htm

Only show your very strongest images.

Throw away most of what you shoot. I do. Most of my photos are awful!

Go through the few photos you save out of a roll, and then throw away all but the one strongest image.

Next time, go through the few you've saved from a few rolls, and throw more away.

This isn't painting. In photography it is a requirement to throw away most of what you do.

You'll see that if you only save or show your strongest images that your body of work will seem to improve. Guess what: as you show only the better images, your body of work as seen by others has improved!

Do you think I shoot a roll of film and get a roll loaded with the images you see in my galleries? Of course not. Most of what I shoot is crap. I'm just good enough to throw most of it away and only show the good stuff.

Ansel Adams said that if you can produce one strong image in a year that you are doing very well. Don't expect to turn out miracles every roll, or even every month. Ansel didn't, I don't, and I don't think anyone does.