ABJanes Loc: Jersey Boy now Virginia

Well I took my new D7100 to Europe for 17 days and had a ball. Shot large fine jpeg's but now my (6) year old MacBook Pro with a 250GB hard drive is full up. I want to shoot in raw but need some help on an easy to understand method versus a Rand Computer with 1,700TB and 5 backups that is portable yet cost effective. Right now I need a hardware solution and just buying a new MacBook Pro with 1TB is not it and bags full of drives? Is this really the best the industry has to offer? Lightroom and/or PS plus NIK is next. I was fortunate on the trip that I ran into a seasoned guy who helped me learn more about shooting in Manual (night shots & cathedrals). I need a KISS approach hear that is easy on the pocketbook. I have never run a computer using an auxiliary drive and like to have my photos at hand when I travel to show family & friends. In newbie language what might you all suggest? I am paranoid about losing data (stolen computer once) and run a 2TB Time Capsule to backup two MacBook Pros (mine & wife's). Right now I load my photos into my Mac with iPhoto and it goes into my iPhoto "Photo Library" how do you run this or even Lightroom or PS with files that are on the auxiliary drive versus the primary hard drive? How do you backup an auxiliary hard drive to another auxiliary hard drive? I have read many of the "photo storage" topics but much of it seems like Greek, don't know the lingo. Thanks so much! "crawl, walk, run, sprint" I am at crawl. My wife is ready to divorce me when I stay up all night reading....Yikes. I was up till 1:00AM on the ship taking night shots in Budapest testing my new found knowledge in Manual. I have read the D7100 Factory Manual and studied Darrell Young's Mastering the Nikon D7100 cover to cover and it is starting to stick in my 68 year old ram. I am truly pumped to keep going on.

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Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you are using Lightroom, you can always use 2 external drives - one as your main drive where you will keep your Lightroom catalog, previews and images, and another that will be synced every evening. I am not that familiar with what software is available for Mac, but in the Windows world you have some free applications, that can do this - I use SyncBack which does backup, sync and all sorts of other data duplication based on rules and a schedule. Using Lightroom will also let you launch Photoshop or other external editing programs, and let you create simple slide shows.

If you want everything in one box, you can always get a Sager PC laptop and purchase multiple drives - an SSD for system/boot, and two 1TB mechanical drives, along with 32 gb ram, or less with the option to add later. I think it will still be cheaper than a maxed out Macbook Pro, and it will be faster and have greater capacity. I am an IT professional, and have recommended this company's computers to many photoshop users, and they are very happy with the build quality and the customer service, as well as the value.

DesertRat71 Loc: Arizona

I use BackBlaze to back up data on my iMac hard drive. The caveat is that you need an Internet connection. Other than that, there's no muss, no fuss, and data is backed up automatically in the background and it's off site. Check them out: www.backblaze.com

If you decide to go with an Internet backup steer clear of Carbonite as they throttle after a set amount is backed up. As a photographer shooting raw files you'll hit that ceiling soon and will never catch up as you'll be adding files faster than Carbonite backs them up.

I can't speak to restoring files with BackBlaze as I've not done that yet.

Capture48 Loc: Arizona

Unfortunately it's not as simple as you want it to be. Anytime everything is all in one place you are at risk. Taking a photo is now only about 10% of the business, the rest is about data security, blogging, FB pages marketing and many other things.

There is no need for 5 backup drives. It can be as simple as one copy of your data on-site and one copy off site.

Perhaps this blog I wrote will clear up a few backup myths and give you an idea or two

http://www.capture48.com/Backup-Truths/

ABJanes Loc: Jersey Boy now Virginia

I am surprised that more photography professionals are not embracing the Sager technology. Thank You!

ABJanes Loc: Jersey Boy now Virginia

Interesting comment about RAID performance from the Apple Support Community but I am sure you know much more about such things. I find the Time Capsule to be a very cost effective and realtime backup solution.

Csound1
Jul 29, 2014 11:38 AM
in response to allynfromva
If and when you upgrade to a new Mac an SSD would be the most compelling choice, but for now I am less positive about that choice. Your current Mac may last a long time but statistically it's in the second half of it now.

When you replace it the the HDD that you put in it now can be taken out and used as external storage, in a Thunderbolt or USB3 enclosure it will run at its full speed.

Raid arrays (esp Raid 0) are unreliable and should not be used as a boot drive or as a data drive without regular backup.