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Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan?

Posted by Soulskill on from the giant-stack-of-floppy-disks dept.

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."

8 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Offsite != cloud by flaming+error · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are offsite options besides the cloud. I shuffle hard drives between work and home. If you work from home, you could do the same at a friend's house or something.

    1. Re:Offsite != cloud by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Informative

      I do this.
      Whenever I finish a project I make two copies onto notebook sata drives. One in my media vault (a mechanics tool chest with drawers that happen to be the right size) for reference, and the other to the bank deposit box. A deposit box that holds ~30 2.5" sata drives is $25/year.

      If there is even an event that takes both the bank and my house out at the same time, then I have vastly bigger problems.

      For active work I do snapshots onto a drive and my working set is on a mirrored volume.
      -nb

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    2. Re:Offsite != cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Be careful with that, I store my expensive 200+ pound pull strength rare earth magnets in mine :)

    3. Re:Offsite != cloud by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

      And if you don't have any friends, keep one in a bank's safe deposit box.

      Don't forget to poke holes in the safe deposit box so he can breathe.

  2. USB Stick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    My preferred way is to copy the data to many different USB sticks. I write a little note with my name and address on it, slip the that and the stick into a bottle and pitch it into the ocean. Data is safe from fires and most other natural disasters. Best of all, people around the world contact me (we even become FB friends after!) and return the USB with all my data!

    Works like a charm

  3. Delete more by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  4. Re:Storing locally will cost you more, not less... by sirwoogie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Uhh, he did say 8TB worth of data. Not knowing his internet connection, this is still pretty much out of reach for most residential services except extreme FIOS connections. If you factor in caps it could take a long time. For example, lets be generous and figure he has a 350G/mo cap. Even at this rate for 8 terabyes it would take nearly 2 full years to get it to the cloud without exceeding the cap. That's just for the upload. Same amount of time for the download. Now let's also say he didn't have a cap, and also had a great connection at about 50Mbps (which most of us don't in the US). That would take over 16 days full line rate accounting for overhead just to get it up there, same amount back down. If you had an unmetered Gigabit line, that might be one thing. Sounds like he's a starving artist with low budget. Gotta work with the requirements. I think sneakernet an array to a friend that you trust that lives far enough away from you or take them to work (if you don't work at home) are the best options.

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    -wog
  5. Re:Storing locally will cost you more, not less... by Achra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.