How Do You Archive Your Photos and Videos?

[purdnost]

I have close to 200k photos and videos that I would like to be able to easily access anytime, as opposed to keeping them all on an external drive where I have them, but never look at them. I also like the idea of having a backup, should anything ever happen to my local drive.

So far, the process of organizing and uploading my library has been a big headache. For one, Apple Photos does not handle uploading large libraries well at all. On top of that, there seems to be no way to easily manage duplicates once photos are in the cloud. I'm also paying for the 2 TB iCloud storage plan, but I feel like I don't access old photos enough to warrant the monthly fee.

I'm very curious as to how you all manage your libraries. What do you sync with the cloud? What do you store locally? What's on your device? What software works for you?

 

[mollyc]

I have a NAS where I keep any photo older than from the current calendar year. I can access it via the web if I need. At present I do not have any cloud storage, other than a smugmug account that gets finished jpegs to share with my extended family. I do back up my NAS to a second external once a month or so.

 

[akash.nu]

I’ve gone full on cloud. iCloud across all devices. Plus NAS.

 

[MCAsan]

You can always burn DVDs if you have a drive. Had to beat the cost and reliability.

 

[jeyf]

li have a NAS box on my home network and put my photo's there

actually i own two and run local backups
a Drobo and a QNAP. Another manufacturer is Synology.

the down side to this is Apple's rendition of SMB is quirky bad some times. Definitely it is not industrial strength reliability. Access SMB with a 'command k'.

SMB is a internet protocol thingy that connects (mounts) the NAS to the local Finder. so looks like "SMB://myNASbox"

 

[steveash]

I keep my archive on an always connected large external RAID. Everything is backed up instantly to Backblaze for off-site security.

 

[robgendreau]

I use Lr.

I have photos on the boot drive and two externals.

Those are backed up to two TM backups (dead simple; one is stored offsite in case of fire, etc). And to the cloud (I use Spider Oak).

The Lr catalogs are similar backed up, but at any given time I actually have one other TM backup (just because of the way it works, making one on exit).

I probably have some other stuff knocking around just in Adobe's cloud or some rando stuff in Photos from the rare times I use the Apple camera, but I don't bother doing anything else with those.

 

[Clix Pix]

Older archives are on spinner/platter drives and current-year are on G-Drive external SSDs. Each month I swap the current drive from my just-updated one at home to the one that is in the bank safe deposit box and bring the latter home to update it. I also have a 5 TB portable external spinner drive in the bank safe deposit box, too, with my archived images, and its mate at home. Come the end of this year and the beginning of the new year I'll be updating the one at home pretty soon and then swapping it out with the one in the bank.....

However, I have the feeling that probably that 5 TB capacity has now been outgrown, and if that is the case, I'll need to do something different. They don't make portables yet that are 8 or 10 TB and my two 8 TB that I use at home for everything are too large to fit into the safe deposit box. I am still thinking about how to move forward with this process, what changes or improvements, different strategic approach I could make in the new year but haven't come up with any great ideas yet. Well, sure, I could get a larger safe deposit box and just throw one of my current 8 TB drives in there..... . I don't really need a NAS and when I am away from home I do not leave my computers turned on; only the machine with which I am traveling gets used during the time I am on a trip. I am not real keen on the idea of uploading a bunch of files to the cloud, so have not signed up for any of those services, although I do use iCloud for a few files.

 

[tizeye]

I have a combination but my first preference is something I control and not some 3rd party. Not photos, but I had a bad experience where I worked developing a client management system per corporate guidelines setting up and storing on the mainframe. Came in one morning and mine and my co-works work was gone. Turns out, some computer tech at HQ a 1000 miles away decided he needed space on the mainframe and...poof! Had similar with Zenfolio which I used for photo delivery until decided it was too expensive and quit, however, during that same time a local photo club also has an account and some member in the process of leaving, intended to delete his files, but deleted the entire clubs. It was in the window where Zenfolio could recover the archive, however it was photos only that archived and not the subfolders and unaware of who the photographer was. Took forever to sort it out.

I use an NAS as primary active backup, avoiding anything cloud based. Then there is a tiered level of organization.
1. Personal - On the primary drive in the computer, and since the NAS is also at home, have a USB hard drive dedicated to archiving periodically updated and stored off-site in storage.
2. Clients - Have master folder by year for all client work, keeping 2 years plus current (2017, 2018, and 2019) on the computer which being on the same drive as the personal also auto backs up on the NAS. On January 1 will create the 2020 folder. At the same time wall also delete the 2017 folder from Lightroom (Important step!) while retaining on hard drive. Then transfer the files to a different usb Hard Drive dedicated to clients and store it off site but fully accessible if I need it. Then delete the 2017 folder from both the computer and NAS.

 

[jeyf]

However, I have the feeling that probably that 5 TB capacity has now been outgrown ...
Actually 5TB is a LARGE amount of personal data. Especially for business pdf file stuff. Maybe if you do a lot of 4k/8K video work it would not be sufficient. the nice thing about a NAS box spinning rust is you can always opt for the next gen larger drive as the old ones fill up or die off. Not all the drives have to match

I don't really need a NAS and when I am away from home I do not leave my computers turned on; only the machine with which I am traveling gets used during the time I am on a trip.
Setup your home computer to timeout sleep and "wake on lan".
I have a VPN between my home office and my mobile effort. This gives me secure access to everything at home.
I also bought a small UPS from Target to make sure everything is best effort reliable.

I am not real keen on the idea of uploading a bunch of files to the cloud, so have not signed up for any of those services, although I do use iCloud for a few files.
good move actually.
You might consider installing a local backup manager that organizes and encrypts your home files into the cloud for backup. In a pinch, if you really really need to restore a lost file just how reliable would this setup be? What is the value in backing up something if it requires a super human effort (and ten phone calls) to restore. I own 2 local NAS boxes and use ChronoSync. I might research into leaving 1of2 NAS boxes at a friends home with a VPN connection into my home office.

 

[iMi]

You can always burn DVDs if you have a drive. Had to beat the cost and reliability.

If you go that route, you may as well use a stone and a chisel. 200,000 images and videos would require a massive amount of DVD drives. There are faster and more efficient ways to handle this problem. If I remember correctly a DVD holds less than 5GB of data. If the OP wants to replace his 2TB storage he’ll need a minimum of 400 discs. Sounds like a headache.

 

[BasilFawlty]

I have close to 200k photos and videos that I would like to be able to easily access anytime, as opposed to keeping them all on an external drive where I have them, but never look at them. I also like the idea of having a backup, should anything ever happen to my local drive.

So far, the process of organizing and uploading my library has been a big headache. For one, Apple Photos does not handle uploading large libraries well at all. On top of that, there seems to be no way to easily manage duplicates once photos are in the cloud. I'm also paying for the 2 TB iCloud storage plan, but I feel like I don't access old photos enough to warrant the monthly fee.

I'm very curious as to how you all manage your libraries. What do you sync with the cloud? What do you store locally? What's on your device? What software works for you?

I store all my photos on an external 4TB portable drive and organize them using Scott Kelby's "SLIM" (Simplified Lightroom Image Management) system. I do two automatic backups - one, using Carbon Copy Cloner that backs up to an 8TB WD MyCloud RAID. I also use Backblaze cloud backup to continuously backup my 4TB, which is always connected to my computer.

 

[kallisti]

I have my LR library stored on a 4TB portable external SSD. When I'm working on photos I just plug it into my MBP. It's small, light, fast, and doesn't require an external power supply. In theory I could plug it into whatever computer I'm working with, though in practice I use my MBP for just about everything.

I have a second 4TB portable external SSD that I regularly clone from the above drive for a second backup copy to keep at home.

I have a third 4TB portable external SSD that I clone from my main external drive and keep at work for a third backup that is off-site.

One advantage of using the external SSD drive option for me is that I never have to purchase a new MBP solely for storage reasons. I may have other reasons to purchase a new MBP, but the growing size of my photo library will never enter into the calculation. Having said that, I just ordered the new 16" MBP. But the decision to upgrade my Mid-2017 MBP had more to do with my hatred of the butterfly keyboard (along with other upgrades) and nothing to do with a need for more storage .

Typing this post I had to delete several |b| keystrokes as they almost always double (or triple), several |p| keystrokes as they sometimes double, several |.| keystrokes as they often double, go back and add several |w| keystrokes as they don't register unless I really mash on the |w| key, and add some |spacebar| keystrokes as they sometimes register and sometimes don't. I can't wait to have a machine that I can actually touch type on where I don't have to go back and edit everything I type after the fact . But that's a separate issue that is way off-topic .

 

[Ledgem]

Surprisingly to me, I "only" have 57,000 photos and 4,000 videos, all of which take up around 1.5 TB. I thought it was much more than that.

My solution is similar to mollyc's, except instead of a NAS (network attached storage) unit I went with a DAS (direct attached). If you're not familiar with them, NAS and DAS units are boxes that have multiple bays for hard drives. They act like one large drive, but intelligently sort your data across all of the hard drives, and also calculate what's called parity data from which lost parts of files can be regenerated in the event that one hard drive fails. I went with a Drobo 5C (USB-connected, five-bay unit) that gives me a bit over 9 TB of drive space to work with, given my current configuration (four 3 TB drives and one 1.5 TB drive). I can easily expand it by swapping drives out with larger-capacity drives; the unit reportedly can handle up to 64 TB.

There are two main benefits of a NAS or DAS. The first is more professional, which is that your data is always available even in the event of a drive failure. (You can also configure many of these units to continue operating with two drives down, but you'll lose usable space to even more parity data for this benefit.) Recovery is as simple as inserting a replacement drive and allowing the unit to spread the data across the new drive again, a process that slows the unit down but doesn't prevent you from accessing your data. The second benefit is easy expandability. If I snag a nice, much larger hard drive during holiday sales, I'll pull out the 1.5 TB drive and replace it; the Drobo will handle moving the data around on its own, and I won't have to do a thing. It's like having one huge, ever-expanding hard drive.

Even though it's a benefit that a single hard drive failure doesn't take out your data, a NAS or DAS does not represent a backup of your data. It's also still not 100% fail-proof. Failures of NAS or DAS units don't usually result in data loss - usually people can just move the hard drives to a new working one and continue on as if nothing ever happened - but you're still not protected if something catastrophic were to happen, such as if the unit and all of the drives in it suffered an electric surge (haven't heard of it happening but it probably could), or if there were a fire or flood. You could theoretically get a second NAS or DAS and mirror it, but that's a lot of data to be mirroring, and an expensive proposition. Not to mention it still doesn't cover you from physical disasters.

The backup solution I've gone with is an online backup service called Backblaze. They only cover one computer at a time, but they will back up unlimited data from any drives connected to that computer (although I don't think they cover networked drives, so this is only helpful for a DAS, not a NAS). Their pricing is some of the best for these types of services on top of that. The initial backup is long, particularly when you have as much data as I have (beyond my photo/video library), and of course it requires that you have a decent internet connection, but once the initial backup is done it's pretty quick with updated data. They're also a really cool company. If you're interested in hard drives and have read longevity reports on certain makes and models, there's a good chance you've read data from their published reports based on hard drive longevity in their data centers, whether you realized it or not. They raised their prices about a year ago and wrote a really nice message to their users explaining why; nearly every comment I saw written in response was supportive and offered that they could raise it even further and they'd still have loyal customers. It was how I felt, too. Having that offsite backup is wonderful peace of mind, especially when you have a lot of data and all of your data is on a single device. As far as recovery options go, you can do it over the internet, or if you'd need it fast and don't have a fast internet connection, they can load your data onto hard drives and ship them to you. It's nice flexibility.

If you have any questions about NAS/DAS units, Drobo, or Backblaze, I'd be happy to write more about them.

 

[Clix Pix]

I have my LR library stored on a 4TB portable external SSD. When I'm working on photos I just plug it into my MBP. It's small, light, fast, and doesn't require an external power supply. In theory I could plug it into whatever computer I'm working with, though in practice I use my MBP for just about everything.

I have a second 4TB portable external SSD that I regularly clone from the above drive for a second backup copy to keep at home.

I have a third 4TB portable external SSD that I clone from my main external drive and keep at work for a third backup that is off-site.

One advantage of using the external SSD drive option for me is that I never have to purchase a new MBP solely for storage reasons. I may have other reasons to purchase a new MBP, but the growing size of my photo library will never enter into the calculation. Having said that, I just ordered the new 16" MBP. But the decision to upgrade my Mid-2017 MBP had more to do with my hatred of the butterfly keyboard (along with other upgrades) and nothing to do with a need for more storage .

Typing this post I had to delete several |b| keystrokes as they almost always double (or triple), several |p| keystrokes as they sometimes double, several |.| keystrokes as they often double, go back and add several |w| keystrokes as they don't register unless I really mash on the |w| key, and add some |spacebar| keystrokes as they sometimes register and sometimes don't. I can't wait to have a machine that I can actually touch type on where I don't have to go back and edit everything I type after the fact . But that's a separate issue that is way off-topic .

Are the 4TB portable external SSDs the ones made by Glyph? I've thought about getting one of those or maybe two.....

 

[Michael Scrip]

If I remember correctly a DVD holds less than 5GB of data. If the OP wants to replace his 2TB storage he’ll need a minimum of 400 discs. Sounds like a headache.

Or... it would only take 40 Blu-Ray discs...

 

[NaimNut]

Main Apple Photos Library on a Samsung X5/TH3 and synced with iCloud. I have about 350gigs worth of video/pics.

 

[GalileoSeven]

I have 2 WD MyPassports - one functioning as the main photo repository (organized via Lightroom) and the other as a backup of it.

 

[kallisti]

Are the 4TB portable external SSDs the ones made by Glyph? I've thought about getting one of those or maybe two.....

Yes. I love them.

 

[Clix Pix]

Yes. I love them.

I will have to check them out further -- I know Amazon has them (or has had, anyway) available for ordering....

 

[||\||]

I keep everything local. HDDs are a fully mature technology and pretty much all one needs for local storage in 2019. These drives can last 8, 10 years - probably more if accessed infrequently as a backup disk.

 

[Ledgem]

I keep everything local. HDDs are a fully mature technology and pretty much all one needs for local storage in 2019. These drives can last 8, 10 years - probably more if accessed infrequently as a backup disk.

Don't let them sit unused for too long, though, or the reader arm can become locked up. I had a few hard drives sitting for a bit over a year unused, and when I recently powered them all up one drive failed to show up. There's no clicking; I'm fairly certain that the arm is jammed from disuse.

 

[jeyf]

spinning rust seems to have no future!

 

[kallisti]

I will have to check them out further -- I know Amazon has them (or has had, anyway) available for ordering....

One of my backups wasn't with an SSD external drive, but instead with a LaCie Rugged RAID Pro 4TB external HDD (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DNKM55D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It is quite slow.

I just replaced it with another Glyph Atom RAID 4TB external SSD (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NDM3YZX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). The Glyph drives are an order of magnitude faster.

Including 2 screenshots of the final screen after the cloning was complete using Carbon Copy Cloner. The times aren't completely reflective of the transfer speed of the drives as there is an initial step of preparing the files for transfer that gets included in the final time but doesn't reflect actual data transfer speeds. Having said that, the Glyph drives are much, much faster than the LaCie HDD.

The first image reflects a full clone of my LR library onto a Glyph drive. The second image reflects an update from the last time I cloned the LaCie drive (thus it was a 2.46TB data transfer taking 02:22:56 hours for the Glyph drive compared to a 106GB data transfer taking 01:48:01 hours with the LaCie drive).

 

[Clix Pix]

Thanks! I long ago gave up on LaCie external HDD, as they kinked out on me more than once, and I decided that those drives were just unreliable for whatever reason.

For me now, yes, SSD is the way to go, both internally in my machine and externally with external SSD..... I love my Samsung T5s and X5s, but they are limited by their 2 TB capacity. As we approach the new year of 2020, over this next month of December I will be spending some time reorganizing and re-evaluating my current setup and undoubtedly making some changes, especially now that I've got a new camera and will be shooting more anyway.....
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