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Where do you store your photos?

Shacklebolt

Shacklebolt

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 2, 2004
596
0
So, as my photo library passes the 1TB mark, I'm wondering where everyone keeps their photo libraries and how they access them. In an ideal world I could store them all on my MBP, but that is of course not an option, and as I move to my third external hard drive, I wonder how everyone else has gone about confronting this problem.

Thoughts welcome!
 
My working library is on an internal drive in my Mac Pro. This gets backed up every night to a Windows Home Server-based storage server (with folder duplication turned on for redundancy), which in turn gets manually backed up to bare drives stored in a separate location.

edit: When I return from a trip with my MBP I export my photos to a library and import that library into my primary library. The primary library is where ownership of the files resides.
 
All images are on an external firewire 800 (2tb) drive which is mirrored internally in the device and also backed up to another drive for off site storage
 
1. LR catalog on partition of internal drive in MBP
2. Current working images on same partition
3. Old images (i.e. non-current projects) on 1TB external
4. Second 1TB external for backup

Works well for me.
 
All are managed by Aperture and stored on my 1TB data drive. This gets backed up to another drive via Time Machine, and to a third drive via Aperture Vault.

I also save copies of all RAWs to the third drive during each import (this folder also gets backed up via Time Machine)

Finally, I have another Aperture Vault on a small portable external that I update a couple times per month and keep offsite at my office.
 
4 x 1 tb Nas (raid 5 and a hot spare), backed up again to separe stand alone drives and hidden in my garage.
 
2TB drive on my Mac Pro for my Aperture library. Haven't worked out what to do when that's full, but hopefully 3TB will be mainstream by then.

Backup done to a 1.5TB external at the moment, needing something bigger though.
 
workflow:

  1. download into Aperture 3 (iMac i7 8GB RAM 2TB int HD)
  2. eject SD card
  3. Manual force immediate timecapsule back-up (2 TB ext HD)
  4. upon timecapsule done, then I format the SD card in camera
I don't have offsite back-up, but once/month I transfer the entire Aperture library + my documents folder (for word/excel/taxes/etc) to the basement External HD, a 1TB drive.
Hope that if fire/etc hits either the basement or 2nd floor loft will survive.
 
mtbdudex said:
workflow:

  1. download into Aperture 3 (iMac i7 8GB RAM 2TB int HD)
  2. eject SD card
  3. Manual force immediate timecapsule back-up (2 TB ext HD)
  4. upon timecapsule done, then I format the SD card in camera
I don't have offsite back-up, but once/month I transfer the entire Aperture library + my documents folder (for word/excel/taxes/etc) to the basement External HD, a 1TB drive.
Hope that if fire/etc hits either the basement or 2nd floor loft will survive.
Click to expand...

I really like your sequence and process on this. Time to incorporate it into my routine. Thanks!
 
Check out chase jarvis on youtube/vimeo if you wanna get really geeky and safe with the backing up and storing of video/picture files.
 
for those of you who use lightroom how do you handle backups. I tried moving some photos off to my external and it was a pain to manually relink all of the photos since Lightroom is only smart enough in my experience to find photos in the folder you've shown it. So since my photos are organized into date-folders, that is a LOT of re-linking.

Thoughts on how to improve this?
Thanks
 
thebrain74 said:
for those of you who use lightroom how do you handle backups.
...
Click to expand...

I have the LR3 library on the internal disk, images on one FW800 external. Then Carbon Copy Cloner to clone both of those drives to other externals. I recently migrated the LR library from an old to a new machine and the "new" LR found the library and the photos without a hitch (but see below).

thebrain74 said:
...I tried moving some photos off to my external and it was a pain to manually relink all of the photos since Lightroom is only smart enough in my experience to find photos in the folder you've shown it. So since my photos are organized into date-folders, that is a LOT of re-linking.

Thoughts on how to improve this?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Create a parent folder from within Lightroom (right/control click on one of the uppermost folders in the tree and choose "Add parent folder"). LR then "sees" the parent folder and will only need to reference that if resynchronising or updating the location. Back up first!
 
1. If you shoot a lot, you have to buy a lot of storage space, that is just common sense.

2. It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you do it more than one time (ask your girlfriend). In other words, back-up, back-up, back-up.

3. My personal recommendation is to first save a copy manually (using the finder) before you involve your preferred image processing software. This copy should never be touched and be considered the 'Original' image file. I keep these drives off-line (some photographers prefer off-premises) and only attach them, when I need to make a new copy from the 'Original' image file.
 
two 4tb Western HDs, one for files, one for Time Machine. All images managed by Aperture and not as referenced images. I have a couple of offline externals to do periodic backups of A3 libraries as well. I also keep all original unedited photos on CDs, just in case.

I looked at DROBO, but was scared off by some of the recovery stories. The Western drives are cheap, quiet, and have a quad interface (Firewire 400/800, SATA, USB). Amazon usually has the best pricing. The 4tb is really two 2tb drives, which theoretically can be yanked (the cover just flips up)... although usually it is the enclosures that fail first, and not the drive. They usually run about $380 for 4tb.

Western also have some new 3tb drives, hopefully these will work their way into the enclosures to offer a 6tb solution.

I actually run the A3 libraries off my internal drives for speed, the libraries are pretty big.
cheers,
michael
 
mlblacy said:
two 4tb Western HDs, one for files, one for Time Machine. All images managed by Aperture and not as referenced images. I have a couple of offline externals to do periodic backups of A3 libraries as well. I also keep all original unedited photos on CDs, just in case.

I looked at DROBO, but was scared off by some of the recovery stories. The Western drives are cheap, quiet, and have a quad interface (Firewire 400/800, SATA, USB). Amazon usually has the best pricing. The 4tb is really two 2tb drives, which theoretically can be yanked (the cover just flips up)... although usually it is the enclosures that fail first, and not the drive. They usually run about $380 for 4tb.
l
Click to expand...

Be careful with those 4TB drives. If they are showing up as a single 4TB drive, that means they are raid 0 and if either drive fails, you lose all of the data. If feasible, it is much safer to use the drives as a pair of 2TB drives, so you only lose half the data if one dies.
 
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