DNG file storage

[leica1215]

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I'm considering subscribe cloud storage for all my photos, any advise of which cloud service particularly good for photos?

 

Or external hard drive is better? If so then why is it?

 

 

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[jdlaing]

Both would be ideal in my opinion. iCloud and a portable hard drive.

[jaapv]

Cloud storage has its problems. DNG files are large, so uploading your entire database might be problematic, and if you discontinue your subscription, everything is gone.

[Exodies]

For the reason Jaap mentions I wouldn't consider cloud storage, but cloud backup is another matter. I recently started using crashplan, unlimited storage for about 60$ per year. It took about three weeks to upload my data (1.3TB) and then it runs quietly in the background. I have two external drives for Mac time machine backup and these will meet most recovery needs I ever have. For a total catastrophe (house burns down) I have crashplan. If the company fails (as long as it doesn't coincide with my fire) then I lose nothing. Download will of course be faster. There are other cloud backup services; not much to choose between them.

[Vec]

You're really looking at two uses that Exodies just pointed out. While similar, have really different requirements: storage, and backup.

 

With files as big as DNGs that are 20-30MB files easily, downloading something like that from any internet-based service is going to take some time. Even a high-end internet connection you'll likely going to get more than 100Mbps of data. (Yes, you can pay for faster service, but that's just local service, the storage service and all the network hops between them and you also impose a limitation) So a relatively best-case scenario you're looking at 2-3 seconds to download a DNG to your machine. Uploading is typically 10x slower with most internet services (in the US at least).

 

Something like that for backup isn't really a big deal. You just need to have access to your data in case you have issues locally. Slow is way better than never!

 

I have a similar setup. Locally I have redundant drive array that stores all my stuff (Drobo in my case) with a battery backup as well, and I'm using Backblaze in my case. $50/year for unlimited.

 

So locally I can lose a hard drive and nothing bad happens at all. If I lose two or more drives or the big earthquake finally takes out Seattle then I can have the slow download from Backblaze.

[ralphh]

I have a raid array in my studio. I process my personal files at home and store them on a portable hard disk (my laptop hard disk is too small).

 

Once a week I take that hard disk to work and copy it onto my raid array. I have another portable hard disk that I backup to raid array to once a week and keep at home, so all my personal work is on 2 hard disks at the studio and 2 hard disks at home, and all professional work is on two at the studio and one at home. 

 

If lightning strikes both places at the same time I'll probably be killed too so, ya...

 

I did look at the unlimited online ones, but I still have concerns about them going bust, getting hacked, being tied to them forever once my library groes so big it would be impossible to move it from one to another. 

[}{B]

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_{I use desktop storage to back up both my original photos and my Lightroom catalogue.}

_{https://www.amazon.co.uk/Icy-Dock-MB662U3-2S-ICYRaid-Enclosure/dp/B00BR6TUB6}

 

_{I have two 3TB hard drives fitted which gives 2TB of storage because of the way it is set up in Raid 1. This means that anything saved to the master hard drive in the desktop storage is also saved to the second 'slave' hard drive. I have this fitted to a PC with an I7 processor and 16GB of Ram and as the connection is by USB3 the data transfer is very quick. As the photos are backed up from a hard drive on the PC I have triple insurance against a hard drive failure.} 

[Manoleica]

Age old ? --  recently I have modified my Back Ups  -- A 1tb external HD for EACH camera, then saved & duplicated to another 1tb external HD.. Using iCloud for specific images..

3 Mac computers each using SuperDuper @ separate times to 3 separate 1tb external HD's..  L

[leica1215]

Thanks all, ralphh you are right, when files pile up to certain size it is going to be a problem when you want to move elsewhere.

I will put mine in external HD as well.

 

 

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[ralphh]

Just make sure your files are at two physical locations. A I don't mean your laptop + a HD in the draw next to it. Houses do burn down / flood / get burgled from time to time. 

 

Another thing that really helps is deleting your junk. I know it sounds painful, but if you only keep your good photos, you'll use 90% less space, and it makes your library much more enjoyable to look through when ever photo is at least decent. How much of your storage is taken up with stuff you have no desire to look at ever again. The vast majority if you're anything like me.

 

I I feel much better now I do this. Every day I download my SD card and go through it with my wife and pick the 10% that's worth keeping and permanently delete the rest.

 

I would never have started doing this except that when I make photography my job and started producing. 200 photos a day, it becomes a choice between killing and drowning in RAWs.

 

I still need to go through my library for past years and delete most of it. I've had a DSLR for well over a decade so it'll be interesting to go back through it all. Hopefully I've improved lol

[Vec]

Given the cost of the 6TB drives I'm using -- including the redundancy caused by running 5 drives and using 1 for parity (oversimplification, but it works for the math) -- a 23MB DNG costs me around $0.0016 of storage. While rating to get the cream of the crop to float to the top is a valuable exercise I'm not sure the cost savings is really why you're going to be doing it.

 

Another way to look at it: 1,000 shots will cost me $1.61.

[ralphh]

It's not so much the cost per file for me it's the hassle of filling drives.

 

I have 2x2TB drives in my raid and 2x 2TB portable disks.  With my personal and professional work I'd fill them in a little over a year.  I'd then have to either take them out and store them (annoying), or upgrade them.  With 80 - 90% culling they should last me 5-10 years, at which point I will be starting to get nervous about life expectancy and wanting to upgrade anyway.

 

Even with 6TB drives I'd be out of space in 3 years. One thing I really don't want to do is end up in a situation where I have hard disks in a safe somewhere - they can and do die during storage - you could have a mirrored pair in a safe for a decade, pull them out and find them both dead.  At least if they're live in a raid array you know when one goes and can replace it immediately.  

 

I started burning by back catalogue to M-disc (1000 year shelf life DVD basically), but it was just too slow and painful and I gave up.  After I've culled I may try again.

 

It's also just so refreshing to have less images, but the average quality be high.  It's like having a spring clean and throwing away all the old junk in your house.  It's painful to do at frist but it feels good after.

 

And besides, how many out of focus shots of my kid blinking do i really need?  to be clear - I'm not talking about deleting good images - If I take 50 great images that are all reasonably different from each other then they're all staying. I'm talking about the duplicates, the terrible, the utterly boring, the pointless.  Perhaps I just take more of these images than everyone else :<

[hoolyproductions]

I have my DNG catalog/folders (in lightroom) on my local Dropbox folders, which are then automatically backed up to the cloud. IIRC it is about 90 euros per year for 1 TB of storage which is more than enough for my entire catalog.

 

I also keep a back up of these folders from time to time to external hard drives (one at home and one in the office). This is in case of some kind of issue on the dropbox server - also to protect against human error.

 

Works well for me and also means I can access my catalogue from more than one laptop, which is handy when I am travelling. Opening the catalogue on different devices can creat sychronisation issues if you are not careful but so far these have been easy to fix.

[Adam]

I use a MAC, I do regular Time Machine backups to an external drive that is always connected, plus once a fortnight backup to an offline hard drive. Double backup is a good redundancy. Plus using an offline drive (connected only when backing up) is a simple safeguard against viruses (provided you scan before backup) and ransom-ware, which will encrypt your connected backup drive too.

[jaapv]

I don't think ransomware for Mac exists, and viruses are rare.

[flyalf]

Hi,

 

I use cloud for both sync and backup (archive) of DNGs.

I have a NAS with RAID 5. This is set up through a PC client to sync the present year LR in-folder towards cloud (Jotta). I pay a fixed price around Euro 60 per year for unlimited storage. Each year I make a archive of the previous year DNGs (backup). I dont have a nomal bacup of DNG folders so if files by accident are deleted on my PC / NAS for the present year they are also deleted in the cloud.

 

One issue that I havent found an answer to: Do cloud protect files from being corrupted? I assume that my files on PC / NAS are subject to corruption.

[Exodies]

The cloud is run on software; there are always bugs; I don't expect many un-corrected corruptions but neither do I expect none. Given that backup recovery is a rare event and storage/network corruption also then having both at the same time will be an acceptable risk (for me).

 

The storage we used at work was raid arrays of mirrored discs which were also replicated between sites. This was then backed up to disc and tape. I don't know if this is standard practice.

[zlatkob]

It depends on how much you shoot.  I suggest using dual hard drives (a main and a backup), and sending high res jpegs to the cloud as a 2nd backup. Cloud storage shouldn't be your main storage because there's no guaranty that you'll be able to access your photos.

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[keithlaban.co.uk]

All of my work is backed up to onsite and offsite hard drives.

[rafael_macia]

Some years back, I came across "TDK Archival 100 Year DVD" discs.

My work, some 700GB of files is stored presently on 3 hard drives.

I thought, a master set of my images .... (which I still have yet to do, mind you), would be a compact and long range solution to the storage situation.

 

I know that the DVD is being phased out, and players, in the future might be difficult to come across 

But does anyone think storage on "Archival" DVD's worthwhile?

thanks,

rafael