Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Storing and backing up efficiently and securely more than ten years of photography is a complicate technical task.
At the center of my setup I use a Synology DS1515+ NAS, with 8 disks configured in Raid 6 for a total of 14.54TB of available storage.
I wrote about this set up a year ago, but I recently updated it to be more streamlined and secure.
In this article we will review the pros and cons of Amazon S3 Glacier vs Synology C2 to backup data from a NAS directly to the cloud. While the focus is on Synology products, if you use another brand of NAS, the Amazon Glacier backup options may still be of interest to you.
Windows 10 October 2018 Update started to roll out last week, but some users immediately reported that their documents were being deleted. There have been multiple complaints that the latest update has deleted documents, and this includes pictures, music, and videos among other things.
If you are a creative going both video and photos and amassing a huge amount of data you may have considered both a dedicated storage and maybe a cloud service.
Personally, I use a Synology 5 bay NAS as a second storage and Backblaze B2 as my cloud provider. The tip here is relevant for all providers of cloud storage though.
When I hooked up to B2, I already had about 2 Terabytes of data that I wanted to back up. Day to day operations should not be an issue, but getting that initial chunk of data up was something that needed consideration. I needed to get that data up there fast.
The Gnarbox (pronounces narbox) comes with an impressive promise. It will provide editing, backup, and preview for your videos (and stills) with no laptop while you are on the go.
We chatted with Will Africano, COO and co-founder of the Gnar box at Photo Plus Expo and got a glimpse of the device. If the Gnarbox will live up to the hype they created, this box is probably going to be in everyone’s kit.
I love the irony of their tagline. “Protect yourself from the inevitable”, which in this case is the closing down of their “for Home” service. This was a service for consumers, hobbyist photographers and the like to store their data online in the cloud. This way, when the inevitable happens, and they lose it locally, they still have a copy safe and sound floating around the Internet.
Now, users will have to find a new home for their data. Starting yesterday, CrashPlan are no longer renewing or accepting new subscriptions for their “for Home” service. They are honouring current subscriptions, but when they’re over, your data’s gone. So, you’ll want to find a new service and back up to there as quickly as you can.
There’s one simple fact about hard drives. They’re going to die. It’s not a question of if, but when. And when it does happen, because it will, there’s two things you can do. The first is that you could panic, research data recovery services and spend a small fortune trying to get the data back. Or, you can simply replace the dead drive and restore from backup.
Personally I prefer the latter option, which means having a good backup workflow in place. Photographers and filmmakers create a lot of data. So, you really do need a good backup solution in place if you don’t want to lose weeks, months or even years worth of work. In this video, Caleb Pike from DSLR Video Shooter talks us through his backup workflow.
If you’re a travel photographer or just someone who wants to keep your photographs safe and secure while you’re in the field, one of your biggest challenges is copying and backing up your travel photographs and travel video as it’s captured.
My top three travel photography backup challenges are:
To simplify this task, I decided to try out a 3TB WD My Passport Wireless Pro (more info here). In theory, the WD My Passport Wireless Pro, with a built-in USB port and SD card reader is perfectly suited for this task. However, in practice, it doesn’t quite manage to live up to it’s potential.
In this article, I will take you through my setup of the WD My Passport Wireless Pro for travel photography and travel video and my recommendations on the suitability of using this drive for backups while on the road.
No matter if you are a professional photographer or a hobbyist, I’m sure your photos are important to you. Therefore, it’s essential to have a good backup system so you can avoid any situation that may result in losing them all. David Bergman suggests an effective 3-2-1 backup system. It will protect your images from any situation that may hinder them, and save you from losing years of work.
Lets be honest with ourselves for a second here, computer hardware is potentially a very dangerous and/or sensitive thing to meddle with. Actually, just in general computers (mostly PCs) have the potential to become unstable in an instant, sometimes even without a catalyst. Or a warning. Of course, back-up solutions are widely available and we should always back up important stuff at least to two different places. But what about the more basic things in your computer? So here’s the question:
If your C: Drive died tomorrow, how much work would, sweat and tears will it take to restore your computer? This is not where you keep the data, mind you, this is where you install software like Adobe Creative Cloud, Capture One, Presets and Filters, Office and all the other utilities you use. There is a solution!
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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