Image Database Size...

[elmo_2006]

Seasons Greetings!!!!


Just to change things up a bit, just curious as to how large your image database is and what your backup consists of (equipment, type of redundancy etc.). It seems that once again my *mirrored* drive setup has failed and I

[Sean Setters]

Honestly, my backups are on Flickr. The only images I care deeply about are posted there. I only keep the others around just in case a client loses their original disc (which has only happened once). The drive is 1 TB, and it isn't full yet--but it's been filling up fast.

[Richard Lane]

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<span>...curious as to how large your image database is and what your backup consists of (equipment, type of redundancy etc.). It seems that once again my *mirrored* drive setup has failed and I'm in the process of restoring my drive to it's original settings.


<span>Emilio

I'm over 2TB, but I've got a lot of house cleaning on my hard drive that I need to tend to.


<span>I use Time Machine (which can also handle system recovery) for continuous backup every hour automatically, or I can run it instantly right after I finish a project or an import. Then I have an external drive with data files only (images, music, videos, and documents) that I keep offsite. However, you have to remember to actually do it every so often. People should not rely on time machine only, I'm sure we've all heard of fire, theft and floods, but that is not the only reason. Time Machine gets written over, it's not permanent. You can't go back 2 years if you had to, some people can't even go back 2 months depending on the size of their drive. Time Machine is like chalk on a blackboard, you can read it as long as it's there, but once it gets erased and written over, fuggedaboutit!


<span><span><span><span>Online backup is a great idea too. <span>The more you could take out the human element the better.


<span>RAID 1 mirrored is good for storage, especially if it's for external storage where it is the only drive that contains the data. I hope people get this concept, so I am going to say it again. If you have your data on your internal drive and then back it up to an external drive then you have it backed up once, which is fine. If you run out of room on your internal drive and then you purchase an external drive for extra space, then you have to make sure that the external drive is also backed up to another external drive, or you can buy an external RAID 1 Mirrored Backup Drive, where the two drives are in one case and they mirror each other, so you will have 2 copies. Also be aware that some companies may have the default RAID 0, and then you need to reconfigure to RAID-1.


<span>For archiving your data that is stored on your internal drive I prefer 2 separate external backup drives. You can leave one onsite and take the other one offsite. I also find that RAID adds an extra element of failure, sometimes the RAID software can become corrupted, sometimes the RAID hardware card will fail, I've also seen the power supply to the enclosure fail, so now you can't access the drives but your data is safe until you can get another power supply.


<span>I hope everyone is aware never to use RAID 0 for a backup storage device, even though you get double the space, if one drive fails then you lose everything. You also have twice the chance of drive failure, since their are 2 drives responsible for the striped set.


<span>An external Western Digital (WD) 4TB RAID Drive costs $479 now when you use it in the preferred safer RAID 1 mirrored configuration, then you will only get 2TB. Instead of this setup, you can buy a WD 2TB Drive for $179 if you buy two of them, then you would have spent $360 for 4TB of storage, instead of $479 for 2TB's of storage. Now, you will have 2 enclosures with 2 separate power supplies, one offsite and the other onsite.


<span>RAID has it's place, as long as you understand it's limitations, it represents continuous redundancy or expensive external archival backups with half the space.


<span>If you have 2 less expensive smaller single drives then you could leave one backup offsite and the other one onsite, and then rotate them. This way one of them will always be offsite.





Rich
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[Daniel Browning]

Images are about 1.5 TB. Storage is 15 1TB disks and 18 2TB disks, arranged into three 6TB RAID-5 arrays: primary, backup, and off-site backup. (I do a lot of videography and short films.)


Each 6TB RAID-5 array costs about $500:


Four 2TB disks ($90/each)


Mediasonic 4-bay Enclosure ($110)


Although I use WD Caviar Black 2TB drives for $180, not the $90 cheap-o drives. They are all Linux software RAID, so the performance, reliability, and long-term safety is great. Unfortunately, Windows and Mac have terrible software raid implementations, so most people can