LindaChaplin Loc: South Dakota

Hi Friends. I hope the holidays were great for everyone. Sounds like folks found a few new "toys" under the tree this year. I have a question related to storage and backup. EHDs are known to fail...as several folks have said. I'm wondering if anyone uses a service like Carbonite to back up their photos in place of an EHD. I realize that you pay Carbonite a monthly service fee, but I'm wondering if just using such a service makes more sense than buying external hard drives which may or may not fail, at some point. I use Lightroom almost exclusively. Will Carbonite make it simple to access photos which can then be edited in LR? Thanks for the expert help.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I'm certainly no one's idea of an "expert" but I don't trust someone else to care for my stuff so I have two externals.
Yes they fail from time to time so I ask... what about "cloud"
failures? I'd rather have all my stuff right here.

Dave R. Loc: PNW

Here are some previous inquiries for carbonite. Hopefully you can glean out the information you need.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/search.jsp?q=carbonite&u=&s=0

:thumbup:

Big Bill Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Your last sentence indicates you want to use something like Carbonite as a remote storage. I think there may be some confusion here.
Carbonite is a backup solution, not a remote storage solution. Using something like Carbonite as storage can work, but it's a very slow way to do it, especially compared to an EHD.
Will EHDs fail eventually? Yes. Used as storage devices, backups are still essential.
Can EHDs be used as backup solutions? They will do that very well. But storage and backups serve very different purposes.

Carbonite is a very well liked backup solution. Having said that, I don't like it, because it doesn't do the kind of backup I like.
I prefer an image instead of a data backup. An image copies everything on a drive in an image file. Everything includes the OS and your applications, which Carbonite won't do. This means that if your C: drive fails, after fixing the problem, you need to install your OS (and all of its updates), then all of your apps (do you still have the discs they came on?), plus their updates, and then you can get your data restored.
With an image, after fixing the problem, I can simply restore the image, and everything is there, just as it was when I made the image.

Is an image on an EHD better than something like Carbonite?
My opinion is that there's really no comparison. Cloud backups are very slow, and are restricted to data only.
Concern about an EHD failure is easily assuaged with multiple EHDs (they are relatively cheap). But even with only one EHD, if it fails, there's only a problem if your internal drive fails also, which doesn't happen very often. In that case, cloud storage can save your data.

Again, it seems like you're looking for storage instead of backup, so an EHD wins that one, hands down.

Newsbob Loc: SF Bay Area

The one BIG difference is that Carbonite is off-site, so if something were to happen to your house, your data would still survive.

Of course, you could use an EHD and give it to a friend and achieve the same result, as long as you remember to keep updating the EHD at your friend's house, whereas Carbonite automatically keeps backing up.

Carbonite is very slow and a large number of files can take days or even weeks to back up. And as Big Bill described, not all files are included.

You can get free backup of your photos through Amazon Prime.

I'm insecure and use both Carbonite and an EHD.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

If you're interested in cloud-like on your own hardware. You can set it up just about anywhere and axcess it anywhere you have internet abilities.

That's great if you want to send big files to a friend. Just give them a password and they can also download, (and upload), things just like you.

Check out Pogoplug. (www.pogoplug.com) they are super cheap in price and should do what you want.

They say you should make backups and let a friend store them in case your house burns up and by setting one of these up at a friends house, you have the best of both worlds.

Mine is about five years old and I think they added wifi to the newer versions.

Looking through my older stuff, I came across my Pogoplug Pro and will probably consider reusing it.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

On line storage is just that, storage. It is good for long term preservation (archiving) not for editing.

Also regardless of the service you use you must pay a rental fee otherwise everything is simply gone. The result is that even as archiving this can quickly degenerate onto a burden.

Addressing the External HDD failures. If you use these drives as backup they seldom fail as they are not used all that much compared to regular ones (they are connected only during the back-up and hopefully never for restore ~ Ah!). Beside, why would you want a slow connection (USB) to work with in the first place?

Basically you have three types of files, even if they are all images:
1) 'Live' one, those you use to create whatever
2) 'Back-up' For the 'live' images
3) 'Archived' For your final product and your originals.

An ideal file workflow should be:
1) capture the scene
2) transfer to working folder
3) copy original to the archive
4) Work on 'live original'
5) backup as per your method
6) Save final product to the archive

You are using:
1) Camera card
2) Computer internal drive(s)
3) Archive drive (you need to select what is the best media)
4) Backup drives (rotating drives the latest is to be kept off site for safety)

Newsbob Loc: SF Bay Area

There is another similar system called Transporter, which I use. It lets you decide which files you want to store. You can then view those files remotely even if your computer is turned off, as long as you have wireless access. I have mine hooked up to a 3TB EHD.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

I have the best of both worlds. I have a cloud, with instant backup. I use this Western Digital MyCloud Mirror: http://amzn.com/B014LE5D6Q

Twin 4TB drives that can be operated as one large 8TB drive, or as a RAID (what I do) that saves all files on both drives so that one drive is a perfect mirror of the other. If one drive does go bad, it can be hot-swapped with a new drive and the RAID will automatically rebuild from the existing good drive. It's like having a continuous backup at all times.

But, just as an added layer of protection, since I would not relish the thought of loosing my images in a house fire, I also backup everything once a week on an iOSafe fireproof (and water proof) hard drive that is secured (lock-bolted) to my very heavy oak desk.

http://amzn.com/B00AIY9658

anotherview Loc: California

My experience with Carbonite as an online backup service, even with a fast Internet connection: It takes weeks, or longer, to back up several terabytes of images. After several weeks of this process, I ended it.

Now I use redundant external hard drives for backup. So I have two copies of all images.

I use SyncToy to copy hard drive one to hard drive two.

Simple but effective.

I do eventually want to have a backup system using some form of RAID which can handle up to 10 terabytes of image storage. But I can never find a straightforward evaluation of such systems. All online opinions seem tainted by sales talk and hype. Or the techies become involved and talk past me while apparently ignoring or downplaying significant shortcomings in the software, in the hardware, or in actual use. So I cannot trust these biased views.

For now, my use of 2 or 3 external hard drives for backup will have to do.

Happy New Year!

jim quist Loc: Missouri

I'm leery about this whole "cloud" thing.

You can get a Zenfolio account and for about $10.00 a month have unlimited storage.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

Whats the difference? You're still storing your images off-site. Zenfolio is essentially a cloud storage system.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I do most work on the desktop with an external on it for backup. I also use Carbonite to backup (in case something happens to whole computer or the house). I usually have the photos on the laptop also, but can get to them on the desktop via the router. I can also get photos/documents from Carbonite when traveling if need be. The external drive makes retrieval immediate. If you have to retrieve ALL, then it will take much longer to get them from the cloud, but they still exist.

Your Carbonite backup will run faster if the computer is "wired" to the router. Mine that is backed up by Carbonite is not. The wireless backups take longer because the files are encrypted to get to the router, and the wireless is also slower than wired. Believe me, you don't want to wait to send 5 Gig of data wirelessly over the router. I usually copy to a thumb drive and take it to the desktop if I have a lot to transfer. A "portable" (USB powered) external would be nicer.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

The 'cloud' came from Novell, who used it to explain their concept* of the WAN.

Now 'cloud' means internet storage.

Call is Adobe, Micsoroft, Amazon, Zenfolio, whatever, IT IS internet.

It means time, bandwidth, two payments, one to access internet (ISP) and one to 'store'.

Advantages:
- Reliability (these guys do redundant continuous backup).
Disadvantage: Takes time to load/upload
- No media issue (HDD failing, scratched disk)
- Long term solution to growing collection.

Disadvantages:
- Cost (can from 'free' to fee based; monthly/annual will go up over time NOT IF)
- Limitation of access in some cases (Volume of traffic, not speed)
- Interruption of services (company going out of business for the smaller guys)
- Loss of everything if you cannot keep-up paying. There is a delay before erasing but never count on that.

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* Started with Novel 5, in 1997, if I recall correctly.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

To me, "cloud" means "off-site".