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Photo Storage

R

rpearlberg

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
This probably isn't the right forum, so please move if needed.

What is the best way to store photos and free up space on my MBP?

Is there a way to store them in the cloud and then delete them from my hard drive? Should I use an external Hard Drive? Right now they are all in iPhoto.

Thanks!
 
rpearlberg said:
This probably isn't the right forum, so please move if needed.

What is the best way to store photos and free up space on my MBP?

Is there a way to store them in the cloud and then delete them from my hard drive? Should I use an external Hard Drive? Right now they are all in iPhoto.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

How much space is taken up with your iPhoto library at the moment?

Best you plan on having them in 2-3 locations in any case to guard against loss. I have my full 566GB library on my MBP, on a TM at home and on another TM at my office.

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Meister said:
sounds like a plan 🙂
Click to expand...

Any single drive solution will lose that library at some point....
 
Meister said:
How?
Click to expand...

simonsi is referring to the fact all hard drives will fail eventually.

Having the data backed up on discrete media, and perhaps even in multiple locations, decreases the possibility of total catastrophic loss.

You need to read up on TM. If you need incremental backups, it is the right tool. It is also fully integrated into the operating system. I can't fault it other than not my needing the feature set and it is resource intensive.

My preference is to use Carbon Copy Cloner, which performs a Unix rsync and is very fast. It simply (if configured as such) copies the entire drive and leaves you with an image from which you can quickly build a new drive or restore from.

chmodme
 
chmodme said:
simonsi is referring to the fact all hard drives will fail eventually.
Click to expand...
hdd are a spinning magnetic platter. The information is stored as binary code by magnetizing the sectors.
Unless you are using a giant magnet to erase it, a hdd will never fail on you.
If it breaks for some reason, the info on it can always be recovered.
I haven't had a single hd fail on me in 25 years.
 
Meister said:
hdd are a spinning magnetic platter. The information is stored as binary code by magnetizing the sectors.
Unless you are using a giant magnet to erase it, a hdd will never fail on you.
If it breaks for some reason, the info on it can always be recovered.
I haven't had a single hd fail on me in 25 years.
Click to expand...




I don't seek condescension. Sorry to waste your valuable time.
 
Meister said:
hdd are a spinning magnetic platter. The information is stored as binary code by magnetizing the sectors.
Unless you are using a giant magnet to erase it, a hdd will never fail on you.
If it breaks for some reason, the info on it can always be recovered.
I haven't had a single hd fail on me in 25 years.
Click to expand...

Then you have been very careful and very lucky. The world is full of people who aren't so fortunate.

HDDs can and do fail without warning. One type of failure is an HDI - that means a crash of the heads into the magnetic layer - that can, does and will cause data loss, spray the magnetic layer around the inside of the disk enclosure and there is NO way to get that data back.

That i can assure you is my professional opinion having first dealt with mainframe disk crashes some 30yrs ago.

EVERY disk will fail eventually, there are a variety of failure types with a variety of implications of the data. By all means play a lottery with your own data but please don't advise anyone else that their data can "always be recovered", that is simply not so.
 
simonsi said:
One type of failure is an HDI - that means a crash of the heads into the magnetic layer - that can, does and will cause data loss, spray the magnetic layer around the inside of the disk enclosure and there is NO way to get that data back.
Click to expand...
that is interesting info. How common is this incident? I doubt that crashing the needle would cause extensive loss.

You are right that backing up important data is advised in either case!
 
Meister said:
hdd are a spinning magnetic platter. The information is stored as binary code by magnetizing the sectors.
Click to expand...

True

Meister said:
Unless you are using a giant magnet to erase it, a hdd will never fail on you.
Click to expand...

False

Meister said:
If it breaks for some reason, the info on it can always be recovered.
Click to expand...

False

Meister said:
I haven't had a single hd fail on me in 25 years.
Click to expand...

Could be true.

That is truly some of the worst advice I've read in ages. It's such bad advice it makes me wonder if someone isn't just being sarcastic.

If you value your data, just ignore that particular post and make regular backups. Hard drives can and do fail. The data isn't always recoverable. Sometimes it's bad enough that even professional recovery services can't do anything. I've seen it happen at work. I've seen it happen at home.
 
MEJHarrison said:
True

False

False

Could be true.

That is truly some of the worst advice I've read in ages. It's such bad advice it makes me wonder if someone isn't just being sarcastic.

If you value your data, just ignore that particular post and make regular backups. Hard drives can and do fail. The data isn't always recoverable. Sometimes it's bad enough that even professional recovery services can't do anything. I've seen it happen at work. I've seen it happen at home.
Click to expand...
I wasnt sarcastic. I am honestly curious how often failures occure that would damage the platter beyond recovery. I have honestly never heard or experienced anything like it. From my knowledge its very hard to get rid of the data on these old hdds unless your name is Walter White and you can organize an industrial size magnet.
 
Meister said:
hdd are a spinning magnetic platter. The information is stored as binary code by magnetizing the sectors.
Unless you are using a giant magnet to erase it, a hdd will never fail on you.
If it breaks for some reason, the info on it can always be recovered.
I haven't had a single hd fail on me in 25 years.
Click to expand...

You have been very lucky. Hard drives do fail.

And yes, most of them can be recovered with some serious cash outlay. Having a secondary backup is always a good idea.

----------
rpearlberg said:
Thanks. So store them on the external and then I can delete from my MBP?
Click to expand...

You need to think of you external hard drive as a desk drawer.
And, the drive on our MBP as another desk drawer.

If you take a piece of paper out of the first drawer, and make a copy (xerox it) and put that copy in the other drawer, then you now have two of that document. You can delete one or the other. Unless you want to have another copy.
 
Meister said:
I wasnt sarcastic. I am honestly curious how often failures occure that would damage the platter beyond recovery. I have honestly never heard or experienced anything like it. From my knowledge its very hard to get rid of the data on these old hdds unless your name is Walter White and you can organize an industrial size magnet.
Click to expand...

lol - I can only do that, and tell you that you are a VERY lucky man!!!

In the last 30 years with computers I have had a number of HDDs fail on me. The worst one was in a 6 disc NAS, and I was on vacation whilst it happened. I was SMSed that one HDD was down, and the Raid was running unprotected - not a very nice feeling...

Raid1, 5, 6, and 10 are specifically made to deliver redundancy to the common user.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_failure
 
Killerbob said:
lol - I can only do that, and tell you that you are a VERY lucky man!!!
Click to expand...
I might add that I do have a system backup with TM, but I was oblivious to the high failure rate of hdds.
Still, most of the time the data can be fairly easy recovered, but its somewhat costy.
 
Meister said:
that is interesting info. How common is this incident? I doubt that crashing the needle would cause extensive loss.

You are right that backing up important data is advised in either case!
Click to expand...

Crashing the head damages both the magnetic layer (some data loss), and also trashes the read/write head - which makes that HDD unreadable hence all data is lost as it must all be read by the same head (assuming a single-platter drive).

Do you have a lot of experience in repairs within the disk enclosure? The only recovery services I have seen that go beyond what the average user can achieve work by replacing any serviceable components/boards outside the disk enclosure (i.e. the bit that doesn't require a clean room environment). That normally requires another identical HDD to be cannabalised for parts....for domestic data that is normally commercially unviable and in any case should not be relied upon to replace a backup solution in any way.
 
simonsi said:
Crashing the head damages both the magnetic layer (some data loss), and also trashes the read/write head - which makes that HDD unreadable hence all data is lost as it must all be read by the same head (assuming a single-platter drive).

Do you have a lot of experience in repairs within the disk enclosure? The only recovery services I have seen that go beyond what the average user can achieve work by replacing any serviceable components/boards outside the disk enclosure (i.e. the bit that doesn't require a clean room environment). That normally requires another identical HDD to be cannabalised for parts....for domestic data that is normally commercially unviable and in any case should not be relied upon to replace a backup solution in any way.
Click to expand...
I have no personal experience with recovering hd data.
I think I stand corrected and a backup is always advisable.
I do know companies who recover hd data from totaly destroyed drives, but they are expensive.
 
nostresshere said:
And yes, most of them can be recovered with some serious cash outlay.
Click to expand...


That might be true for most. But I remember my company shelling out 10's of thousands of dollars and we only recovered maybe 70% of the data.

To put that in more perspective, it was the '90s, a small startup (less than 10 people at the time) and we were of course making regular backups. I was doing something one night and the database got corrupted. When we called the other guy about the backups, we were informed that the backups were slowing the system down too much and that he had turned them off months earlier. Needless to say, he wasn't with the company for too much longer. And from that point forward, we started reporting percentage changes to our customers rather than hard numbers (i.e. your customer base grew 15% last month!)

In my own personal experience, I've had more times I couldn't recover all the data than the times I could. Half those times absolutely nothing could be retrieved. Complete failure.
 
Then there are of course people that backup for no reason.

I know of a few business people that were doing database backups every week, or daily in one case. In each case, they had to use those backups when their HDD crashed (or stolen in one case) - only to find out the backups were worthless. Just garbage.

I have since learned to do at least some spot checking of backups to make sure they were worth something.
 
nostresshere said:
I have since learned to do at least some spot checking of backups to make sure they were worth something.
Click to expand...

Too true - in fact backups are worthless, it is the restore that you need to work.

----------
Meister said:
I might add that I do have a system backup with TM, but I was oblivious to the high failure rate of hdds.
Still, most of the time the data can be fairly easy recovered, but its somewhat costy.
Click to expand...

There are two kinds of HDD failure:
1. A mechanical failure, drive motor, accessing mechanism in the sealed drive, head/disk crash.

2. Electronics external to the sealed drive.

Common sense tells you it is the mechanical assembly that will wear out and gives ultimate certainty to the HDD failing at some point. Only VERY expensively can those issues be dealt with as components within the sealed disk enclosure need to be accessed.

External (to the sealed enclosure), electronic components fail on the normal bathtub-curve of electronic component failure (high-low-high).

I suspect the "fairly easy" group you are referring to are essentially data corruption errors which can still be painful but mostly the data is intact, it just needs finding - even if the logical tables recording where the files are on the disk is lost, you can scan the disk with suitable software and find files - especially if you know what kind of file you are looking for.
 
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