Portable hard drive backup

[IkarusJohn]

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Yep, the crap endures, doesn't it. Better to bin it at the outset.

 

I have made a mess of my LR catalogue, and my photo storage is a mess. I have had good intentions in the past, but they have come to nothing. I thought I could put my LR catalogue in the cloud, with my photos, and access them from my work and home computers. It doesn't work.

 

So, I will create a new catalogue, combining all my photos to date (I suspect this will take some time) and I will put that onto a portable hard drive that I can take to the office (so I can do some critical editing on the larger screen), and I can take it home to do minor edits on my laptop (also good for travel). So, all photos on a vulnerable, portable hard drive.

 

I will then back it up using Time Capsule both at work and at home - surely that should be safe?

 

Cheers

John

[CalArts 99]

fwiw, when I mentioned using the cloud earlier, I suggested to use it in conjunction with physical drives. It's really all about redundancy. I use SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/) in addition to storing the same files on several drives (Glyph drives: Glyph) which are not all in the same physical location. And of course you only need to be as redundant as to how irreplaceable and valuable your files are to you. I primarily store drum scans (which would cost a lot to re-do) and also psd files that are ready for printing for exhibition replacement prints. With the rest of it I'll just make a decision as to how much redundancy I feel that I want.

 

It's not whether the cloud is safe or not safe or will fail or not fail, but it's just about keeping important files in various places in case of something catastrophic (and not just drive failure.)

 

But to get back to the OP's actual question, who wanted to know what to do specifically when traveling, carrying around a secondary drive while away from home is clearly a common thing to do (either a small bus powered drive or a Glyph which is powered and with a fan but doesn't need a wall wart which is partly why people in the music industry use them; they are easier to carry around from studio to studio.) And when they return, they can copy everything over to multiple drives or do whatever they are comfortable with doing. But at the same time they could also upload (e.g., really important files) to a cloud service just as a backup safety net while on the road. In addition, they could carry multiple SD/CF cards and use those. Copy over to them instead of carrying around a physical drive and/or never format the cards they use and keep them as 'backup' until returning home, etc.. Or carry around a couple of high GB flash drive sticks, etc. (e.g., LaCie - LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0) Clearly there are various ways of doing all this.

 

Everybody is going to have their own way that works for them while away from home. But also while at home, I only suggest to be sure to have multiples and not all in the same physical location.

[IkarusJohn]

That's useful, thank you.

[honcho]

.......It's not whether the cloud is safe or not safe or will fail or not fail, but it's just about keeping important files in various places in case of something catastrophic (and not just drive failure.)......

 

Precisely. I made the point earlier. Thanks for putting the thread back on track, I hope the OP can draw something useful from it now.

[prk60091]

why temporarily backup in transit??

 

flash memory is cheap...I now have 15 4GB SD cards. I take 1 card per day of vacation. At the end of the day I view that days work on my iPad -- but do not erase the SD Card until I get home and the images are safely ensconsed on my Harddrive- and backed up via time machine and off site via crashplan.

 

I number each card and to keep from "overuse" after a vacation or a trip away I start on the next numbered card and put that immediately in my X1. So after everything is sorted and backed up-- I can see at a glance where to start my next set of cards.

 

For everyday shooting (there is Always a blank card in the camera) I take a spare "just in case the blank card in the camera fails" as it did for me once in Hawaii (w/o a spare in my pocket)

 

ymmv