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My question is I back my photos/store files on TDK CDR80 discs and have been keeping them in those folders with the plastic sleeves inside. Is this ok or is there a better method or way of backing up? is use Nero to do back ups and when I shoot for a day Ijust back them up with the Microsoft program? Also is there a program or a way of telling what you backed up last and what has not been backed up?

Thanks

I would firstly PRINT the images that are important to you.

Back up on external HDD and also DVD. Maybe keep the DVDs offsite.

cheers

Ok, I know this is a stupid question, but I will ask anyway.

We have a simple laptop and 2 external HDDs. When I transfer files from the CF to the card, I normally just transfer straight to one of the HDDs. About once a month (I don't shoot that often), I try to back up from that HDD to the second HDD (which I am solely using as a photo back-up).

However, the only way I know how to do this is by copying my "photos" folder from the first to second HDD. The problem with this is that it will copy everything, which takes about an hour and a half (at this point).

Apart from copying CF folders immediately to both cards, is there a better and more efficient way to back-up?

Cheers

P

I'd change from CD-Rs to DVD-Rs (or DVD+Rs), DVDs are inherently more resilient to mishandling since they don't expose the delicate data layer. Avoid RW media, they deteriorate over time. Stick to metal-azo dyes (the dark purple ones) and store the media sensibly (dark and at room temperature). Multiple copies (some off-site) are a good idea but obviously more time consuming to make.

These days I import all my camera pix into Aperture's library. After every import, and also after major editiing sessions I sync the library content to a vault on an external firewire disk drive. Every once in a while I backup the vault to a stack of DVD-Rs.

All of my data, including the Aperture library, is also subject to nightly incremental backup to an internal backup disk.

Cheers
Steffen.

Gidday Reschsmooth,

There is a free cool little tool called Microsoft Sync Tool http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx that you can install and you can sync between the 2 HDD's.

You can run this as a scheduled task each day/week etc to make the copy process easier.

I'm sure there's heaps of other free tools like this out there.

Cheers

EDIT: The following applies specifically to Microsoft OS. The last time I used Macs regularly, they weere called "Lisa"s. DItto for Linux (It was Unix). The general principles apply though.

The system I use is to have three external drives.
Two onsite, and one remote.
One of the onsite ones is used for a Windows Backup which I do manually once a month or so.
The other is used to synhcronise MyDocuments (I back up more than photos)
I use the Synch software that came with the drive (Maxtor OneTouch), but there are many ways of doing this. Another has ben mentioned before in the thread.
I use the remote to also synchronise MyDocs, so there are two copies of MyDocs as well as the master on the computer. I visit the remote regularly, so it is rarely more than a week out of date. The Maxtor software happily synchs this driive too even though it is not a OneTouch Drive.
About once a year, I do a full scan on the external drives. If there are any errors at all, I replace the suspect drive with a new one. When A drive gets full, I replace it with a new one & place the old one in a safe place. It still gets the once a year scan treatment.

I no longer use removeable media (CD/DVD) as I have been burnt too many times with these.. They are great for posting images, but not much else IMO.

Another option is to dive into the old DOS commands.
In particular, the XCOPY command:
"XCOPY c:\MasterPhotos\*.* H:\BackupPhotos\*.* /M/S" should do the trick.
the /M switch only copies files with the Archive attribute set, then clears the attribute., so photos are only copied once, unless they change.
The /S switch copies all directories & subdirectories as well as files.
This command can be put into a batch file, then run at a set time. (See the AT command.

To get to the DOS commands Start... Run... cmd {Enter}. This will open up a command window. You can now use your DOS commands, and lots else. Try typing XCOPY /?{Enter} to get a list of ALL the XCOPY command can do for you. It is very powerful

HTH Greg

Without getting into the entire workflow....

Cull the files that aren't worth keeping, to start with. I would also recommend using DVD's instead of CD's.

If time & money allows, keep two copies of each DVD and store them in seperate locations (eg. one at work, one at home). You can also keep them on your HDD if you refer to them alot, otherwise I'd personally be inclined to only keep them on disc and use your home version to reference from.
Should the home disc get damaged or fail, make a copy of the 2nd copy you have, so you always have two.
If both fail at the same time, you're pretty unlucky.....

If one were paranoid enough, one could be inclined to make sure they buy DVD's from two different stores in the attempt to use discs from different batches for each copy...hopefully limiting the chance that discs from the same batch could be faulty

You need to draw the line somewhere.

Just a note about DVDs - use good quality media. Some of the chaper brands burn fine but develop errors after a few months. Stick to something like Verbatim.

But with the low prices for harddrives these days, the recommended method would be to backup your photos onto an external harddrive (just buy an external case and whichever size drive you can afford, cheaper than buying a package). That way you keep two sets of your photos in two different places, and harddrives are much less likely to develop errors than DVDs or CDs.

Mr Darcy wrote:Another option is to dive into the old DOS commands.
In particular, the XCOPY command:
"XCOPY c:\MasterPhotos\*.* H:\BackupPhotos\*.* /M/S" should do the trick.
the /M switch only copies files with the Archive attribute set, then clears the attribute., so photos are only copied once, unless they change.
The /S switch copies all directories & subdirectories as well as files.
This command can be put into a batch file, then run at a set time. (See the AT command.

To get to the DOS commands Start... Run... cmd {Enter}. This will open up a command window. You can now use your DOS commands, and lots else. Try typing XCOPY /?{Enter} to get a list of ALL the XCOPY command can do for you. It is very powerful

I use a similar system to Mr Darcy.

I had a reasonably new harddrive (< 6 months old), that I hadn't backed up ... contained all manner of things, including photos taken on new d50. Hard drive died and would not spin up again. Not Happy Jan!

Hard drive was replaced under warranty. I subsequently bought an external hard drive (well an internal hard drive in an external - with USB box).

I have the following in a batch file (works in Win XP) ...

@ECHO OFF
@Set mm=%DATE:~4,2%
@Set dd=%DATE:~7,2%
@Set yyyy=%DATE:~10,4%

@xcopy g:\*.* L:\ /D/E/F/C/Y/M >> d:/%yyyy%%mm%%dd%_BU.txt


It copies everything from the hard drive to the backup.
switches do the following
/D Copies files changed on or after the specified date. If no date is given, copies only those files whose source time is newer than the destination time.
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones. Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/F Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
** USED later **
/C Continues copying even if errors occur.
** Continues if file is in use
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.
* Don't want process to stop in a batch
/M Copies only files with the archive attribute set, turns off the archive attribute.
** As Mr Darcy mentioned turns off the Archive Attribute
If you look at your windows explorer - in details mode, you can add the attributes of files as a column. Anything with an "A" will get copied, and then the "A" is removed from that file.

The results are output to a dated named log file - IE every file that is copied and what / where it has been copied to is written in a log.

I have added this batch to the Scheduled Jobs in Windows (Accessories / System Tools) to run every Friday night.

rflower

I was looking at the xcopy command after previous references to it, but it would appear you have the smarts working already - very clever.

Sometimes the simpliest (as far as resource utilisation goes) are the best - no need to buy any expensive backup packages when it's already there.

Now all I need is (yet) another drive to backup to..........(can you fit 5 drives in a standard midi tower case ?)

Cheers

Justin

jberth1 wrote:rflower

Now all I need is (yet) another drive to backup to..........(can you fit 5 drives in a standard midi tower case ?)

The standard cases have 4 slots for harddrives, but you can get brackets so you can mount a harddrive in a 5 1/4 slot, there are usually at least 3. One of those is probably taken already by your cd/dvd burner. So in terms of room there should be enough to have 5 drives. If you have enough IDE/SATA connections, well that's another story

cawdor,

hehe..that was a bit rhetorical...but anyway...

a dvd burner / dvd-rom / internal card reader / 4 SATA hard drives / floppy drive and front mounted cooling fan means I don't have any space left at the moment...

time to loose either the floppy drive (more internal heat with another internal hard drive) or grab an external USB / SATA drive, which I'm more inclined towards....I'm definately sick of backing up to DVD's....

Cheers

Justin

cawdor, when you said quality media, does the TDK stuff count?
its got a purple underside so i assume it has a metal azo dye aswell?
i think its only verbatim that actively markets its media by boasting about the metal azo properties..

-julz

Yeah, what is considered 'quality media'. Where do you buy them and how much will they cost?

Many DVD -/+ discs I used have had fault in at least one out of ten of them. DVD medium seem to have problem in reading/writing discs between burners. Some burners can be more compatible with a few brands but not that good with another brand of disks. I ran the disks in 4 different DVD burners under same test write levels, their results all came out differently

Yi-P wrote:Yeah, what is considered 'quality media'. Where do you buy them and how much will they cost?

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

Many DVD -/+ discs I used have had fault in at least one out of ten of them.

Since I standardised on Verbatim and TDK DVD-Rs about 150 disks ago I didn't have a single bad one.

Cheers
Steffen.

By quality media I mean media that is manufactured to consistently high standards, such as Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden. These media have been exhaustively tested by enthusiasts and are commonly known as the best two brands of DVD media you can buy in terms of burn quality and reliability. Yes you pay a few dollars more per spindle but you get what you pay for.

Personally I am exclusively using Verbatim, since it's easier to get than Taiyo Yuden. All my DVD burns with these disks are consistently fast and disks I burned 2 years ago still read perfectly.

I used to buy Princo because they were cheap and they burned nicely, but a few months down the track the disks became unreadable.

TDK is good too. Stay away from Princo and Ritek if reliability is what you're after.

I've been using the TDK003 DVD+R disks for quite a while and haven't had an issue with them. I'm happy to see these are in the '1ST CLASS MEDIA' list and suggested as 'excellent archival quality media'....these are cheap - I'm paying $28 for a spindle of 50

I'm disappointed to see that the RICOHJPN-W11 discs I've also been using for archives are 2nd class and 'not suggested for archival data' use....D'oh! I paid about $4 each for these and now feel I can't trust them....oh well....

I have a mate with LOTS of Princo and Ritek coasters around his house....

time for another backup.....

Cheers

Justin

ahh, thanks for clearing that up!
good to see my TDK's sitting up in first class media very reassuring

then again, ive never had an issue with using TDK media. its quite cheap and readily available too!

-julz