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Hey Photographers, how much disk storage do you have on your computer?
- Thread starter Renderz
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Boot Drive (no photos, only apps and OS X)
"Sean" 160 GB
RAID 1 (all of my files, including photos docs, movies, music)
"Pierce" 320 GB
"Daniel" 320 GB
Ext. Backup 1 (backup of all files)
"George" 500GB
Ext. Backup 2 (backup of some files, now dead)
"Timothy" 100GB
TOTAL 1300 GB or 1.3 TB
You shouldn't need 2TB of space, unless you're leaving a lot unoccupied (which is smart, considering the golden size right now is either 500 GB or 750 GB). I'd estimate that, with a relatively light shooting schedule (avg. 200 photo/wk school year, 75/wk summer), I only have 40gb of photos over the past year (plus about 20 from previous, even lighter years).
"Sean" 160 GB
RAID 1 (all of my files, including photos docs, movies, music)
"Pierce" 320 GB
"Daniel" 320 GB
Ext. Backup 1 (backup of all files)
"George" 500GB
Ext. Backup 2 (backup of some files, now dead)
"Timothy" 100GB
TOTAL 1300 GB or 1.3 TB
You shouldn't need 2TB of space, unless you're leaving a lot unoccupied (which is smart, considering the golden size right now is either 500 GB or 750 GB). I'd estimate that, with a relatively light shooting schedule (avg. 200 photo/wk school year, 75/wk summer), I only have 40gb of photos over the past year (plus about 20 from previous, even lighter years).
you guys got a lot of storage, i have to say.
my situation is:
-250gb in macbook
-250gb external
-60gb external
the photos are stored on the macbook and a backup sits on the 60gb drive.
Right now I have 40gb of photos, but space on the external is running out, so: need more drives.
my situation is:
-250gb in macbook
-250gb external
-60gb external
the photos are stored on the macbook and a backup sits on the 60gb drive.
Right now I have 40gb of photos, but space on the external is running out, so: need more drives.
good backup procedure
If you are triple backing up, then good on you. I have just a tich (is that a word?) over 5TB on and connected to my macpro, including a 1tb drive that I keep off site. I can fit almost all my images on that 1TB with the exception of couple hundred gigs of images I won't cry about if I lose. I separate my family images from my professional images and I have double redundancy of my boot drive so I can keep a current backup going as well as a "last known good" boot drive so I don't end up automatically backing up the latest quicktime problem from Apple and find myself unable to get all the way back to a good, stable situation. I have moved my user folder off my boot drive and I feel good about that. I'm pretty bomb-proof with the exception of work done in the last week or two that may not be off-site backed up. When I go on vacation or travel it's a great feeling to know that I can be robbed or the house can burn down and my life's work is still safe. I will be happy when I can get 2tb drives.
If you are triple backing up, then good on you. I have just a tich (is that a word?) over 5TB on and connected to my macpro, including a 1tb drive that I keep off site. I can fit almost all my images on that 1TB with the exception of couple hundred gigs of images I won't cry about if I lose. I separate my family images from my professional images and I have double redundancy of my boot drive so I can keep a current backup going as well as a "last known good" boot drive so I don't end up automatically backing up the latest quicktime problem from Apple and find myself unable to get all the way back to a good, stable situation. I have moved my user folder off my boot drive and I feel good about that. I'm pretty bomb-proof with the exception of work done in the last week or two that may not be off-site backed up. When I go on vacation or travel it's a great feeling to know that I can be robbed or the house can burn down and my life's work is still safe. I will be happy when I can get 2tb drives.
The USB ports on most NAS devices are only for connecting to external drives and printers, so you can't use them to hook up to your computer.
It sounds like you need a Drobo with the network adaptor.
Lets see
Main Comp MacPro
320GB Main Drive - (No Photos)
400GB Secondary - (Current Photos)
1TB Work Drive - (Current Backup and Archived Photos)
400 GB External - (Backup - no photos)
2nd Comp PM G4
160GB Main - (No Photos)
400GB Secondary - (Backup of 400GB on MacPro)
1TB Work Drive - (Backup of Main 1TB)
Airport Extreme
400GB - (No Photos)
400 GB and 1TB drives copy over to 2nd comp nightly using ChronoSync.
Considering I shoot roughly 100000 photos a year I will probably be getting a few more 1TB drives before the end of the year, and a few external so I can have an off site backup.
Main Comp MacPro
320GB Main Drive - (No Photos)
400GB Secondary - (Current Photos)
1TB Work Drive - (Current Backup and Archived Photos)
400 GB External - (Backup - no photos)
2nd Comp PM G4
160GB Main - (No Photos)
400GB Secondary - (Backup of 400GB on MacPro)
1TB Work Drive - (Backup of Main 1TB)
Airport Extreme
400GB - (No Photos)
400 GB and 1TB drives copy over to 2nd comp nightly using ChronoSync.
Considering I shoot roughly 100000 photos a year I will probably be getting a few more 1TB drives before the end of the year, and a few external so I can have an off site backup.
I looked at the drobo... it ain't cheap and I have to buy the Drobo network adaptor seperatly for another £150 ($300US)
iMac with 500GB internal, no photos, just apps and some unimportant documents
300GB external (30,000 photos)
750GB external (backup of 30,000 photos)
looking to getting two 1TB external drives that I will keep at separtate sites because my photos are outgrowing that 300GB drive.
300GB external (30,000 photos)
750GB external (backup of 30,000 photos)
looking to getting two 1TB external drives that I will keep at separtate sites because my photos are outgrowing that 300GB drive.
2.5 (three external FW 800 drives) TB and ever growing - thinking about moving to a Drobo solution http://www.drobo.com/Products/drobo.html
termina3,
A 1 day project can easily take 10gb if you shoot large raw from a pro camera, and save different versions of workfiles in uncompressed format. Even if the output are just dozens of picture.
I have a few terabytes. People need backup strategy. I use externals for backup, turning those on only for copying files to them. (after ejecting, you should wait 10 or more seconds to make sure the HD has spin down before powering off).
A 1 day project can easily take 10gb if you shoot large raw from a pro camera, and save different versions of workfiles in uncompressed format. Even if the output are just dozens of picture.
I have a few terabytes. People need backup strategy. I use externals for backup, turning those on only for copying files to them. (after ejecting, you should wait 10 or more seconds to make sure the HD has spin down before powering off).
a) I don't shoot raw, but 1000 exposures on L Fine JPEG on my D300 is about 6GB (200 exposures/week = 1.2 GB/week; numbers still don't follow. something is wrong about my calculations)
b) That's exactly why my jaw dropped (I thought I had many, many more photos) when I looked up those numbers on my computer (turned out I missed a file, so add 20GB--but still). I did further research, I only have ~24K photos to work with, most of which were taken by a D70; obviously this pales in comparison to many, many pros.
Have you looked at "drobo"? Get that and the "Drobo Share" thing too. The new verson of drobo has firewire and old one was USB only. Old versions are being sold at discount now. http://www.drobo.com/
The other option I was thinking about was to build one. Get a PC chassis trhat holds 6 or more SATA drives and a low-power mainborad. Run BSD Unix on it and you'd have a very powerful file server. Antec makes some nearly silent cases with good cooling. But then you add up the cost and the cost to kep it powered up 24x7 and then things like Drobo start to look better even if a PC chassis running Solaris with a ZFS files system would be 100X more capable
I use a 500GB external drive for my on-line data and then I have a 750GB drive for Time Machine. I have other 320 and 500 GB drives that I rotate for backups using either Aperture's vaults or "rsync". I'm filling this up and will have to move to something else soon.
I've yet to find an afordable NAS fast enough to use as a primary storage device. By fast enough I mean one that can make use of gigabit Ethernet. I'll likely just move up to a FW800 1TB external for primary storage and something like Drobo as my Time Machine disk and then all my 320, 500 and 750 drives as rotating off site backups.
I've yet to find an afordable NAS fast enough to use as a primary storage device. By fast enough I mean one that can make use of gigabit Ethernet. I'll likely just move up to a FW800 1TB external for primary storage and something like Drobo as my Time Machine disk and then all my 320, 500 and 750 drives as rotating off site backups.
My MBPs HD is 200GB but i don't store anything on that so I won't count that.
My primary drive(for most current photos) is a 250GB bus-powered FW800 HD. Older shots are stored on a desktop 1TB FW800 drive. All shots are backed up to a 1TB NAS.
I also have a 320GB FW800 drive for TM of just my MBP HD and a new 500GB eSATA drive that has yet to be put into commission because my MBP kernel panicked twice when I had the esata card in which it has never done before without it and hasn't done it since I took out the card. I am deciding what to do.
My primary drive(for most current photos) is a 250GB bus-powered FW800 HD. Older shots are stored on a desktop 1TB FW800 drive. All shots are backed up to a 1TB NAS.
I also have a 320GB FW800 drive for TM of just my MBP HD and a new 500GB eSATA drive that has yet to be put into commission because my MBP kernel panicked twice when I had the esata card in which it has never done before without it and hasn't done it since I took out the card. I am deciding what to do.
My Drobo has 2 - 500GB drives and 2 - 160GB drives in it. That gives me about 760GB of storage. It's about 80% full and almost all of it is photos.
I'll start shopping for deals on a pair of 750GBs or 1TBs to relace the 160's soon.
I'll start shopping for deals on a pair of 750GBs or 1TBs to relace the 160's soon.
The cost is a concern that I see with it too...with and without the NAS adaptor.
I just picked up a FW800 2-spindle (RAID-1) case from Other World Computing for under $100.
As such, the advantage that a drobo would essentially provide (for $500 vs 2 * $100) is flexibility, such as to be able to use mixed drives.
But with two-disk based RAID-1's, one would only have to match in pairs anyway, and considering that that $300 for the drobo will buy a pair of 750GB drives today, I'm having a hard time being convinced to spend so much for "future" flexibility.
For example, for the price of a "bare" drobo, from OWC, I can buy a NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 with dual 1TB drives already installed. Or a Buffalo TeraStation with 1TB (probably 0.5 after RAID).
So what are all of the highly compelling features on the drobo that make it a better value in comparison and context?
-hh
I like the idea of the 4 bay system, but in my mind it's just not enough. My old synology 106e is only single bay, but I can do many other things with it such as run a PHP server (currently testing Joomla), an ftp server, A Bittorrent downloader etc...
Drobo is supposedly bringing out DroboApps but that is not a proven development platform yet, so for now I'm consider Synology systems more.
Drobo is supposedly bringing out DroboApps but that is not a proven development platform yet, so for now I'm consider Synology systems more.
Just an internal 80gb on the MBP and a 250gb external but im planning to upgrade the MBP drive myself (I have experience working on computers) to either a 500gb or a 320gb. I just started shooting raw lately and my space is dwindling. Only 2.3gb left! 
