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dmille6

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 20, 2012
25
57
hi, i'm trying to find the best way to approach a backup problem. advice and opinions would be greatly appreciated. (i hope i can make this make sense)

i am a photographer, i have been for years.. i have ALOT of photos from a high MP camera. my photo library is pushing about 3 tb at this point. I have an iMac at the house with a drobo 5d attached for backup. it works fine. i've been using crashplan.com as a cloud storage based backup solution. it works great too.. but its begining to really struggle with 3tb of storage being backed up. indexing, and syncing this amount of files takes forever (over 24 hours). i also kinda feel bad i'm taking advantage of a 50.00 a year unlimtied backup service. So i'm looking at other options for offsite backup.

i do the all of my work from a macbook pro laptop. the imac at home is basically used as a backup server.

my workflow is:
i download the photos from my camera to my laptop. process them on laptop.. when i'm done editing, i transfer the finished/edited photos to my imac/drobo.

what i'd like to do is put a mac mini (used off ebay it doesnt need to be powerful) + large external drive in my office at work.

then set up a script using something like the "ControlPlane" to "see" when my laptop is in my office.. when i am at my office connect to this officebackup mac mini and copy my photos folder to the large external drive. The problem i see occuring is that it might take a few days wirelessly to copy my newly imported photos to the external drive... which is fine..

i guess my main question is: Is there a piece of software/utility that will pick up where it left off in a file transfer? if i need to transfer 10 or 20gb of images wirelessly it might take two days.. i'm only at work 8 hours a day.. so what happens when i pack up and head home? the file transfer will lose its connection.. how can i get my laptop to pick up where it left off on the previous days file trasnfer?

does that make sense? am i overcomplicating a simple problem?

thank you
Darrell Miller
darrellrhodesmiller@gmail.com
 

dmille6

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 20, 2012
25
57
let me clarify

let me clarify.. backup is probably the wrong word to use.

my laptop has 256gb hdd.. my photo library is 3tb.. so this is more a photo vault. i only keep the photos i'm working on currently on my laptop, the rest is moved to a redundant storage array (a drobo 5d) at my home.

so i need some way to copy/transfer files to a file server in my office wirelessly. i need some method to tranfser files to this file server.. and if it doesnt complete while i'm at work..it'll pick up where it left off copying the next time i'm in the office.

does that make sense?
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,244
127
Portland, OR
Darrell,

Have you looked at Crashplan+ ability to back up to multiple locations? Those locations can be other computers that you own... or those of friends.

My recommendation.

  1. Continue your current workflow to get your photos to your iMac... where it is backed up to your Drobo and to Crashplan Central.
  2. Set up a second Crashplan destination to your Mac Mini at work.
Now your entire photo library will be backed up to your Mac Mini in the office.

You have not stated if you want to "use" the photos at your office... or simply "store" them. If you want to use them... you could alway run a restore operation from that backup to your Mac Mini.

As I am sure that you know... CP+ will pick up where it leaves off if the connection is lost.

One potential problem is the setup of your work network. If it does not allow access from outside a firewall, then this might not work without managing the network.

/Jim
 
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