Backup your files!!

Just a friendly reminder to always back up your files.

I just got back from vacation. I sat down at my computer yesterday morning and tried to turn on my computer. The logo for my motherboard came up as it normally does but then, instead of loading up Windows 7 it asked me to boot Windows from a disk/DVD. Long story short, I've spent the last day and a half trying to identify the problem and....I have a dead SSD. Fortunately, I only use my SSD (OCZ Agility 3) for programs and store my photos and other files on HD drives. So, my photos should be fine, and even if the problem is wider spread than I currently think, I have 3 different external backups.

But, as I think about it, Lightroom was one of the programs stored on my SSD. And I am beginning to think that I have lost my library, and Lightroom settings.

So, moral of the story, back up your files....RAW, jpeg, and record of post-processing. I hadn't thought of the last one. Maybe it was saved on a HD, I'll see in a day or two once I get my computer back up and running.

Thankfully, I do have all my RAW and jpeg files.

Glad to hear [most] of your important files were backed up. :-)

Yeah, my main hard drive died about a month ago. It's always a pain (There goes one of my Elements 12 licenses! I wonder if/when Adobe will fix the licensing for the CC subscriptions to allow for dead drives/systems? It barely makes sense for a yearly released product. For a subscription, it's horrible, and will burn a lot of customers eventually.)

I made the switch to iMac. Backup is super easy on a Mac, but I'm not sure if TimeMachine is configurable enough for complex backups, ie: Backing up specific drives to specific other drives, so I can keep system backups separate from my photography backups... I'll have to dig into that sooner or later, preferably before another drive dies.

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Originally Posted by Sean Setters

Glad to hear [most] of your important files were backed up. :-)

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That is pretty much where I am at. The losing the record of my edits is a loss, but, ultimately, I have the output jegs and if I go back for additional tweaks, it will only be for a file here or there. So I can start from the original file and make those edits again.

I've been reading up on SSDs and come across two general theories. OCZ apparently has had a high failure rate starting ~2010. I bought mine in 2011. Also, apparently SSDs are susceptible to power losses. Not necessarily surges, but I found a couple of comments online where power failures are hard on SSDs. The only poster that was specific stated that controllers, especially older controllers, could become corrupted if power is lost while the SSD was in use. Of course, we lose power several times a year and I can recall losing power a few months ago when working at the computer.

The upside, I just bought a larger and faster SSD. :) Oh, and since I am going to be updating my computer, I added the 8-core processer upgrade I have wanted (Lightroom regularly maxes out my current quad-core). I held off on two more sticks of RAM. Maybe later ;)

I have my files backed up twice on to two external drives and the LR file backed up with them on those drives. Came real close to losing all not to long ago, so I hear what you are saying.

A seemingly small setting change within LightRoom that is very useful for backup and archival purposes is to keep the catalogue with the images. Breaking up the catalogue into smaller bites also helps keep the file size down so LR starts and runs faster as well...

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Originally Posted by jrw

A seemingly small setting change within LightRoom that is very useful for backup and archival purposes is to keep the catalogue with the images. Breaking up the catalogue into smaller bites also helps keep the file size down so LR starts and runs faster as well...

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Once I get my computer back up and running I'll look into doing that. If it isn't obvious, I may need to trouble you for some guidance....

Since my wife and I both shoot, and both have a habit of occasionally editing each others' photos, we treat each job as a unique Lightroom catalog. Somewhere along the line, I learned that if I open up LR, then create a new catalog in my normal LRJobs folder, and then go INTO the folder created by LR for said catalog, and put the originals in there, I can happily move that job folder around and never have to rediscover the path to the originals. In other words, for a job SAMPLE, I'd end up with a directory structure like: /home/peety/LRJobs/SAMPLE/Originals/Card1/blahblah.CR2

For our recent cruise, I've set up separate jobs for each day, and two days actually got two if not three separate jobs per day. That makes copying the jobs to separate drives easier. For an upcoming Sports Photography Workshop I'm attending, I'll build LR jobs per event before flying to the city, and create my Originals folder thereafter. As I ingest the raw files, I'll put them directly into the Originals bucket, and let my scripts sync the jobs over to multiple HDs on the fly. :)

Does LR export sidecar files? That's how I save my edits in DxO, rather than in the catalog. The sidecar files (one per image, same name different extension) just get stored with the images, backed up with them, etc.

that's some scary stuff man! besides two local backups, i also use a cloud storage system called Backblaze. I think i pay $5 a month; I hope to never use them to bail me out, but the small price for piece of mind is worth it to me. Also while not intended to be used for backup, Flickr is another storage system if I ever get desperate. Great reminder Kayaker, E.

They did a survey a few years back and Males rated a computer crash as more distressing than a relationship breakup. I will leave it to others to comment on the truthfulness of this survey.:rolleyes:

Using a NAS (so that you have local redundancy) as your main source of long term storage is critical. These units are cheap and can provide you with both speed of access and redundancy for photos, videos, music, documents etc.

Once you have redundancy you then need a backup strategy. This can be either another NAS (in another location), tape or even one or more external drives (taken offsite).

Adobe have been pushing Cloud Services as the answer. For those who use Adobe products a lot, are well aware of their lack of even the most basic forms of support. They have always been very happy to take your money (in the case of Australia about 3 times what you pay in the US) but they have never been willing to help when things don't work as expected.

If you also read the Terms & Conditions for Cloud Services they state they Adobe does not guarantee that they will not loose all of your data. This means that you will still need to provide a backup.... if the data is important.

So if you want a long and happy relationship with your computer, think about how you will feel if you loose everything?

I store my raw files and my Lightroom catalog on an external drive. I copy the drive to a second drive, and then use CrashPlan to copy everything to the cloud.

Loosing your hard drive stinks. I had the same problem last year but I am anal about backing up my files now that it has happened a couple times. The two times before I wasn't that into photography and it was more documents.

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

Does LR export sidecar files? That's how I save my edits in DxO, rather than in the catalog. The sidecar files (one per image, same name different extension) just get stored with the images, backed up with them, etc.

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Yes LR does. I ran into a similar situation last year and found the little button to make the sidecar files. If you open up the catalog settings in the LR header, you can either check or uncheck the write directly into XMP file. I like that because I can open them up in Camera Raw if I am in a pinch and all of my stuff is there. Plus, I don't have to worry about constantly backing up my catalog to make sure the file has all of the adjustments.

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Originally Posted by Raid

They did a survey a few years back and Males rated a computer crash as more distressing than a relationship breakup. I will leave it to others to comment on the truthfulness of this survey.:rolleyes:

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Ha....and here I thought the movie "Her" was science fiction.

A quick update. I looked into a service to recover the data. The "economy" quote was a range of $700-$2,500, if they are even successful, with it likely being in the $1,000-$2,000 range. That is with the "OCZ" discount. The "economy" range is lower than their other services as it is their slowest service. If you want faster, you pay more (they were saying it could be several weeks).

Just something to consider against the cost of a back up system.

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Originally Posted by Kayaker72

Just something to consider against the cost of a back up system.

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Storage is relatively cheap, and automated solutions are available. I got a great deal on LaCie Rugged bus-powered FW800/USB3 drives, and bought a bunch of them. I do regular full clones of my internal SSD (960 GB) to a pair of external drives, and I backup just my photo/video library to another pair (the idea being I can delete videos/movies if I need to recover space on my internal drive, which would delete them from the backup clones, too). I also have a couple of spare drives, just in case.