Photo storage on drives, How long until you replace your drives?

[dimme]

My setup is as follows... iMac workstation with in process photo library on external SSD. Second external SSD with main photo archive (10,000 plus images). These drives get backed up automatically to Mac min server once a day. Server data drive is raid1. Photos are also backed up to back blaze. In addition there are 3 backups done on a as needed schedule and one is keeper off site.
I tend to replace the server drives every two years. The system is also monitored with DriveDX smart monitoring tool.
I just received an alert that the main photo archive SSD is having issues. I plan to replace the drive which is about 18 months old. This got me thinking, if I have a corruption on this main drive it could cascade through my whole backup system.
How often do you jokes replace your storage media?
Do you see any weakness or room for improvement in my system.
Thanks...

 

[glenthompson]

Sounds pretty solid. Hope you don’t consider the RAID duplication as another backup as it’s for fault tolerance. A corrupt file on one drive is also corrupt on the other. I like to think about the different disaster scenarios my backups protect against and how the backup strategy will mitigate any problems. The three main risks I like to address are HW/SW failures, loss (theft, fire, tornado, etc.), and stupid user tricks (deleting files, viruses, letting the kids play with your system).

 

[dimme]

Sounds pretty solid. Hope you don’t consider the RAID duplication as another backup as it’s for fault tolerance. A corrupt file on one drive is also corrupt on the other. I like to think about the different disaster scenarios my backups protect against and how the backup strategy will mitigate any problems. The three main risks I like to address are HW/SW failures, loss (theft, fire, tornado, etc.), and stupid user tricks (deleting files, viruses, letting the kids play with your system).

I agree with your commit about raid. But even if that drive was backed up daily with Superduper or rcync won't a corrupt file on one drive is also corrupt on the other. This is what I feel is the weak link in my setup.

 

[oblomow]

The photos are stored on my Macbook. This is regularly sent to a Time Machine disk. The laptop data is also copied daily (incrementally) to a server that stores the data on a ZFS mirrored fileysystem. The disks are replaced every 5 years (or earlier when the sanity check complains).

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I also have a cloud backup of critical files. I know cloud shouldn’t be your only backup, but it can always be another one. That way if you lost all of your local disks in a catastrophe, you would still have a copy somewhere entirely different that you could redownload whenever you got back up and running. pcloud is a great option, where a one-time purchase can get you 500GB+ for life, and the client works on any OS and has easy folder syncing. It’s typically not priced very expensive either.

 

[r.harris1]

The photos are stored on my Macbook. This is regularly sent to a Time Machine disk. The laptop data is also copied daily (incrementally) to a server that stores the data on a ZFS mirrored fileysystem. The disks are replaced every 5 years (or earlier when the sanity check complains).

This is the very nice thing about having a Time Machine (or other "snapshot in time") backup strategy in the mix. If I corrupt a file today, I can go back to the last snapshot I have and get it (assuming the file was written).

 

[someoldguy]

Both my iMacs have been hacked to have an NVME boot drive and a SATA documents/images drive . Boot drives are backed up via Time Machine , Documents/images backed up to an external via CCC .
My PC has a similar setup with the documents/images folders backing up to 2 internal hard drives via bvckup . Documents/images are shared between one of the iMacs and the PC via a portable drive connected to a usb hub and accessed via a switch box. This external gets changed out with another identical drive every few months . The changed out drive gets put in a small Pelican case along with a drive containing the software installers for both PC and Mac ; labelled with the date , and put out in my garage , which is well separate from my house . Disk replacement on the pc , and externals every few years ; given the headache of cutting open an iMac , I'll just wait until something goes belly up . They're ssd's so might last a long while . No 'Cloud ' for me.

 

[Clix Pix]

My system is fairly simple and straightforward. I have one set of backups on external SSDs which go to my bank safe deposit box on a regular rotating monthly cycle, and I keep two redundant sets at home, both on older external HDD (the older archival stuff) and external SSD. This works for me. If I worked in an office where I had my own desk I would also keep a set there, but that's not the case since I am retired.

I don't use Time Machine; never trusted it for some reason. It's just as easy for me to regularly back up things manually, and I have the time to spend with that, too. I don't usually back up every day, it is more like every week unless I have something important (usually documents rather than images) that needs to be kept safe, and in that case I back up immediately and also get a set to the safe deposit box immediately as well.

I've been making the transition to external SSDs from external HDDs over the past several years and as the prices have come down on external SSDs and the capacities getting larger I buy a new one and shuffle things around accordingly. At the end of each year I move the current year's images and files from the drives I keep at my desk to the archival drives, and free up the current ones to begin the new year. So in less than a week I'll be working on that process!

 

[tizeye]

Daily backup to a NAS with imaging and back-date recovery function so can restore to date prior to corrupt file, malware or ransomware attack. That is in addition to the RAID setup in the NAS, which ironically, duplicates the backup on the RAID. Taking it a step further, I have free off-site cloud backup to a dedicated "sister" NAS on son's home network.

While I set it up last month, I did discover a problem on one of my computers. No problem with the large traditional harddrive that contains data, but rejected "full" backup as apparently some bad sectors or something on the SSD that had programs only - no data. Probably ought to get a new SSD and re-install only the programs I actually use, assuming unable to mirror...but would prefer a clean install anyway. This being a Windows machine, would probably need to buy another copy of Windows 10 (machine has the power, but not the features to handle Win 11) as no amount of groveling before the Microsoft gods will get them to validate an original OEM version on a new machine/harddrive.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

I prefer to backup to hard drives instead of SSDs, and have never replaced any of the hard drives. The drives I use don't have enclosures, and are SATA II and III. I have a USB-3 drive docking station I connect the SATA hard drives to, and the station powers the hard drives when I drag photos and files to it. Once I am done I disconnect the docking station, and then remove the hard drive and put it away.

 

[glenthompson]

I agree with your commit about raid. But even if that drive was backed up daily with Superduper or rcync won't a corrupt file on one drive is also corrupt on the other. This is what I feel is the weak link in my setup.

Versioning is the solution to that problem. Time Machine does it for you. It’s why I pay extra to BackBlaze to increase the versions from 30 days to a year.

 

[JamesMay82]

I prefer to backup to hard drives instead of SSDs, and have never replaced any of the hard drives. The drives I use don't have enclosures, and are SATA II and III. I have a USB-3 drive docking station I connect the SATA hard drives to, and the station powers the hard drives when I drag photos and files to it. Once I am done I disconnect the docking station, and then remove the hard drive and put it away.

what docking station do you have?

 

[AlaskaMoose]

what docking station do you have?

I use this one:

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)

www.amazon.com

However, you can buy a Seagate 2TB hard for drive for $74.00 at CostCo, and a 5TB one for $114.00. Also prefer the 2TB ones since I don't want to save too many photos on one drive. Hard drives are relatively inexpensive, so I save the same photos to at least two different hard drives, specially the SATA HDs I plug into the USB-3 dock above.

The SATA ones are too bulky for travel, but not bat at home since you can stack them on top of each other. The dock is self-powered. By the way, once I move the photo folders to the external hard drives, disconnect (eject) then, and put them away. This way I only use them when I need them for a few minutes, and the rest of the time they are stored away from the computer. I could be wrong, but I trust external hard drives a lot more than external SSDs for storing my photos, because an electronic glitch can wipe-out the entire drive.

 

[JamesMay82]

I use this one:

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)

www.amazon.com

dock.
However, you can buy a Seagate 2TB hard for drive for $74.00 at CostCo, and a 5TB one for $114.00. Also prefer the 2TB ones since I don't want to save too many photos on one drive. Hard drives are relatively inexpensive, so I save the same photos to at least two different hard drives, specially the SATA HDs I plug into the USB-3 dock above.

The SATA ones are too bulky for travel, but not bat at home since you can stack them on top of each other. The dock is self-powered. By the way, once I move the photo folders to the external hard drives, disconnect (eject) then, and put them away. This way I only use them when I need them for a few minutes, and the rest of the time they are stored away from the computer. I could be wrong, but I trust external hard drives a lot more than external SSDs for storing my photos, because an electronic glitch can wipe-out the entire drive.

Thanks it looks good but I must admit I do become a bit of a brand snob when it comes to enclosures. How come they are always unknown companies making them? I do wish a big brand would make one.. I will give that one a whirl though 👍

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Thanks it looks good but I must admit I do become a bit of a brand snob when it comes to enclosures. How come they are always unknown companies making them? I do wish a big brand would make one.. I will give that one a whirl though ?

Keep in mind that the dock above is not a hard drive enclosure, but a docking station (you plug SATA internal hard drives like the ones inside your computer to it). If you look at the images you will notice that there is a hard drive plugged into it already, but other images only show the dock station without a hard drive. These docking stations are found at computer repair shops. I like it because it has a cooling fan for keeping the hard drive cool when copying a lot of images, but a lot of people just use a dongle or cable, not a self powered station like this one. If you use a USB-3/SATA cable, then the hard drive uses power at the USB port of the computer. The cable does not have a cooling fan, however.