It’s not a matter of if, but when. There is never a good time for your hard drive to fail, especially your primary drive that you store all your weddings on.
That’s what happened to me last week, and I didn’t lose one image.
A back up system is a must when you are a wedding photographer. The images you create can never be recreated. I truly feel the images I create are worth so much more than I charge for them. So it is very important to have a rock solid backup plan.
I’d like to share with you the structure of my back up system before the crash, and how I have now changed my system after the crash.
First, we’re going to refer to this crash as “The Big Crash of 09”. It was quite scary when it happened. All of the sudden my hard drive that I store all of my wedding images on would not mount. Even after transferring the hard drive to all the different computers in the studio, it still would not mount. And after a call to tech support, it was quickly determined that the drive had failed.
My network of computers are all Apple, and Apple has a backup system called Time Machine which backs up all new information every hour on the hour. It really gives you a nice warm and fuzzy feeling. But when it comes time to retrieve that information, you have doubts as to how well the software has been working. You begin to question if the software has been working at all.
With each wedding I photograph, I make a back up of all the images I have created to DVD. I then edit those images down to the ones I want my customers to see, and then I back up those images to DVD. But how do you know that you have backed everything up? Even though my routine is very strict, you always have a nagging feeling that you may have missed something.
I was lucky this time, and everything had been saved using Time Machine onto a very large eight terabyte external drive called a Drobo.
Before the recession started, I had one person working with me in the studio, and because of this fact I had all of the studio images stored on a server for central access. But now that I am working by myself, I find that I really am no longer in need of a server, so I have now changed my backup system, which has added one more layer of redundancy.
Attached to my primary workstation, I have now added two external one terabyte drives, and one eight terabyte Drobo. Inside the workstation are two 500 gig drives.
So, now when I bring my exposed cards in from a wedding my routine works like this. First, I download the images to one of the external one terabyte drives. I then back up the raw captures onto DVD. The second external one terabyte dive is my back up drive, and is an exact mirror of the first external one terabyte drive. I accomplish this mirror using Carbon Copy Cloner.
As I have said, there are two internal drives as well. One is my startup drive, and the second is a mirror of the startup drive, again using Carbon Copy Cloner. This way, if the startup drive fails, I can still operate the computer and album production can continue while I wait for a replacement drive to be installed.
All four of these drives, the two internal 500 gig drives, and the two external one terabyte drives are all backed up ever hour onto the eight terabyte Drobo.
This then is the most solid backup system I have ever created for myself. A double layer of redundancy.
Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP, AuthorPPBF Administrator
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Aric,
Great article! There is little doubt that all of these drives whirling around at 5400 RPM or better are destined to become decorative paper weights some day. I would like to point out a hole in your extensive backup plan. Perhaps you just left out this detail but where do you store your DVD backups? Hopefully off-site. Your plan accounts for mechanical failures but not more catastrophic ones like disaster (water, fire, etc.) and theft. All your “eggs” are in a single basket. Consider an off-site backup solution, There are many out there and I have finally found one I like. Also consider storing your DVD copies off-site. Great work!
Eric
Another redundancy to consider is the outside online or take home backup. This type of back-up protects you against theft, fire or any other man made or natural disaster. It might be too much to handle but in case of a fire, or any other man made or natural disaster, these solutions are the only way to protect your business. After all even the cleaning lady at night has the key to the office.
I agree with both Eric and Cesar. While you might not want to backup offsite every hour, I backup to a “Personal Digital Vault” offered as a service by my phone company. I get 2Gig free with my DSL and can get 50Gig for $50.00 a year or unlimited for $100.00 a year.
The first backup will take a long time, but incremental backup will only backup changed or added files.
Check it out. There are many other companies offering online/offsite backups, and they’re worth every penny.
Wow! Great system you have in place now! I constantly worry about my hard drives failing so I make DVD’s of all my RAW files but I still worry! Your system sounds very solid and stable and excellent for your own peace of mind! Thank you for this article. I will look into implementing something like this for the future!
As for the off site storage for DVD’s, couldn’t you get a water proof or fire proof safe to keep at your studio? What are the other options?
This is a great discussion! Only a few weeks ago my hard drive failed and although I have always backed up my original RAW files on CD I haven’t backed up my jpegs, which could have been many hours of reprocessing images. Fortunately my backup external hard drive was only failing because of the power cable and I was sent a replacement and once again I have my files! I will now back up my processed files too! Whew!
I don’t have quite your redundancy and my procedure is a little different. I have a stand alone CD/DVD burner that I download CF cards on straight from the camera. And it is portable enough that I can take it to weddings. That DVD has my original camera files and is stored in the client’s session envelope. Before it goes into the envelope, the files are downloaded to the computer and backed up to a 1T external.
The first of the year I bought three years service from Carbonite. It took almost four months for the initial backup, but now it does its thing every night. That off site storage helps me sleep at night.