# Hard Drives For my Images



## jal72 (Jan 3, 2009)

I would like to get some recommendations from people here.  What are you using to store your images?  I have a Macbook Pro and travel a lot so i need portability.  I also like the idea of Raid protection.  Anybody using the G/Safe?  I'm currently sitting at 15'GB of images.  I shoot everything RAW so that number has been climbing steadily.  

Josh


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 3, 2009)

Depends what you mean by portable really.

I have not used the G/Safe, But I do use Macs.
I have used Qnap kit and every thing else listed here, but I would not call them all truly portable. 

Qnap 2 Drives run RAID 1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168221'7''2

Or a simpler option:

2 x Lacie rugged drives running superduper or Chronosync to keep them in sync. The Lacie rugged USB drives are the only real portable option.

Drives:
http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=1''36

Software:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html

or something bigger (drive).
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1'963

Drobo2 is another option.

http://www.drobo.com/

You can always provide inverter power from batteries on site if you really mean portable (no grid electricity supply).


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## jal72 (Jan 3, 2009)

i thought that the drobo isn't a solution as its a network drive?  can you connect a drobo via firewire or usb?


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 3, 2009)

Drobo is a desktop attached storage unit, if you do not use drobo share.
Firewire  or USB, it is just another drive.
You are right, LR doesn't "do" network drives.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jan 3, 2009)

I wouldn't rely on RAID1 as your only backup.  This is a good example why: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1355618/journalspace_is_no_more.html?cat=15

I'd go with Sid's recommendation of Chronosync - at least you can see what's changing.  I also tend to keep an 'original' copy on DVD offsite.


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## Richard Earney (Jan 5, 2009)

Also you might prefer to use Firewire 4'' or 8'' as they will be faster for transfer than USB 2!


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## calaf (Jan 7, 2009)

*RAID 1 issue*

I have been looking at how best to store images and this thread seems an appropriate place to add my thoughts and issues.

After 12 months of the digital age, my hard drive was filling up rapidly and I felt that I needed to make some progress in both storage and back up.

I did read a comment that to store the photos on an external drive, holding the Lightroom content on the main PC might be an appropriate way forward. There seemed to be merit in this approach and I have purchased, mainly because it was available locally, a My Book World dual drive. What drew me to it was the possibility of converting the drive to RAID 1 so that if I stored the pictures on the drive, a mirror back up would be available in the event of a crash.

I have thus relocated the images to the drive and updated the folders to point to the new Drive K. However, the new drive is not consistent, sometimes pointing to Drive K and sometimes to Drive L. I am assuming that this is to balance the load on the drives. 

In practice this means that Lightroom is unable to locate the pictures when the drive is swapping itself around. Clearly this makes life very difficult. Unless I can find a way for the drive consistently to point to K, this option really is flawed. I will be speaking with a teccy friend in the next couple of days for his thoughts, but at the moment, I feel that I would be better served adding another drive to the PC, and using the external drive as a system back up. which is not quite what I had hoped.

The My Book seems to get some bad press, but I always tend to think that the people who have had problems will generally comment rather than those who have been satisfied, but in this instance, I (currently) feel that I should perhaps have looked at the criticism, although the issue I have is different from the comments about the software and speed that dominate other things I have read.

I will of course be pleased to receive comments and suggestions!


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## Victoria Bampton (Jan 7, 2009)

Hi Chris

Have you manually set the drive letter in disk management?  I just have vague recollections of it working better for me in the past, particularly when windows externals kept swapping letters.


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## calaf (Jan 8, 2009)

*My Book World Edition 11*

I have tried all I can with this drive.

First of all I cannot pretend that I am a technical wizard. However I have followed advice from Victoria and my teccy friend.

At the end of this process I have boxed up the "Book" and I shall be returning it to the vendor.

I felt that the software (Mionet) that is needed to run the system was slowing things down on the system and the back up process was very slow.

I did assign a static ip address to it as one possibility to resolve the swapping of drive letters in mid session, mapping the drive but in practice all one could map was a "PUBLIC" folder in the drive rather than the drive itself, which I suppose in time I could have learned to live with, especially as it did not require the Mionet software when configured simply as network attached storage. I was able to create separate folders in that drive, but the clincher was made when i tried to copy all the images (jpgs) back to another USB powered drive that I have, (just in case). Just as well that I had already done this, as I got an error message to tell me that the format was not recognised. I am puzzled by this. If I exported to the Book as jpg, what happened to make these unreadable on their return? What would be the case if the drive crashed big style and I was looking to put the images on a replacement product, not another Book?

All in all this has been a bad experience, one that I now feel merits comment on a forum such as this. I am not a whinger, as I hope can be seen from my earlier post, but I do feel other readers need at least to be aware of my experience if looking at this product.

Although much more expensive, I was looking at a G-Safe on the net earlier today. Is it worth three times the cost of the Book. If it works, yes, but other recommendations are welcomed!


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## Victoria Bampton (Jan 8, 2009)

Thanks for updating us on your experience Chris, it certainly is a strange problem.  I do hope you get on better with your next attempt!


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## calaf (Jan 10, 2009)

I find myself really getting quite twitchy folllowing my experience with the My Book World Edition.
Current viewing on the net is a Hypertec Firestorm. Are there any Forum members with any experience?
Information on the net is sketchy, but it seems to have less quirkiness than "MBW"


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## jal72 (Jan 10, 2009)

I have been using LaCie hard drives.  recently i upgrade from a small 16'GB pocket drive to a LaCie 32'GB Rugged drive.  I like keeping my collection on a portable drive.  For back up i'm currently running a software called SilverKeeper.  It does a nightly back up of all my drives to my TeraStation (by Buffalo).  The TeraStation is a 1TB Raid drive. I the TeraStation set to Raid protect and it is networkable.  That makes it a large NAS.  I can loose upto 2 of the 4 drives in the TeraStation before i loose all my content.  Also i make a monthly backup and put that on a 3rd Hard Drive that then goes back to my safety deposit box at the bank.  So if i were to loose both my main drive and the NAS then i have a fail safe that is only up to 1 month old.  

I guess there are lots of ways to work but so far this is what i'm doing.  I would like to hear other options/ideas.  

Hope this helps Chris.

J


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 10, 2009)

Silverkeeper is not the best software (yes it is free).

Best Mac options, Chronosync or SuperDuper.

No I am not on commission 

A question, are you running OSX 1'.4.11 for a very good reason, or do you need to update your sig'?


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## jal72 (Jan 10, 2009)

don't want to risk upgrading issues to 1'.5.  i don't get much working downtime for an upgrade and need my laptop to work 1''%.  during summer i may upgrade.  I just bought a new macbook pro. I will have that soon and may use that for LR.


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 10, 2009)

jal72 said:


> don't want to risk upgrading issues to 1'.5.  i don't get much working downtime for an upgrade and need my laptop to work 1''%.  during summer i may upgrade.  I just bought a new macbook pro. I will have that soon and may use that for LR.



Valid reason to my mind. 
BTW The new MBP = excellent, had my new one for about 6-8 weeks, nice improvement. Yes I did buy the 24" LED display 

Just a thought, for safer less worrying upgrades.

Connect a usb drive that is as big or bigger than the laptop drive.
It will be formatted - so it must not contain useful data.
Clone the laptop drive to the external drive (Superduper does this very easily).
Disconnect.

Run the OSX upgrade, and test your applications. 
If you have a problem you can boot from the external drive and restore the original data to the laptop drive.

If you are really paranoid, you can take two clones before you do anything.

There are plenty of ways to do this, just one example is provided.


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## Andrew Hayton (Jan 10, 2009)

Sid-EOS said:


> Silverkeeper is not the best software (yes it is free).
> 
> Best Mac options, Chronosync or SuperDuper.
> 
> ...



Another one is Carbon Copy Cloner


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 10, 2009)

Andrew Hayton said:


> Another one is Carbon Copy Cloner



Yes, there are quite a few capable applications available.

No bias here, you can get CCC from HERE.


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## jal72 (Jan 10, 2009)

not really the  same topic but i thought i would share a recent Hard Drive disaster with you all.  I have been using Hoodman CF cards since i got my camera and just on Tuesday i was out shooting a squirrel in my yard.  I looked at the images in the camera and like what i saw.  I pulled the card out for a download that i was going to do later at night.  When i put the card in later at night it was not found by the computer at all.  I tried everything to make it work, no luck.  i put it back in the camera and tried to re-format it the card no luck.  next day i call the manufacture and they tell me to send it in.  Next day they call and tell me the card is dead.  No way to recover the images.  For my troubles they sent me a replacement card.  mine was 4GB they upgraded me to the new RAW card 3''x speed at 8GB and they replaced my 2nd card so it wouldn't go bad.  Customer service was great and turn around was great.  Now if only i could get my images back, then that would have been great...

Check out Hoodman if your in the market for CF or SD cards.  
J


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 11, 2009)

Always good to hear about good service.

Pity the card failed in the first place though.


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## Denis Pagé (Jan 11, 2009)

Sid-EOS said:


> Yes, there are quite a few capable applications available.
> 
> No bias here, you can get CCC from HERE.


For the others to know...

Just tryed it. Saddly, it doesn't work for me as my FAT32 DATA drive is greyed out in the choices. It just offer me the choice of backing up my HFS drives.


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 11, 2009)

Hmm, wonderful :(

So you tried CCC, Chronosync and SD?


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## Denis Pagé (Jan 11, 2009)

Sid-EOS said:


> Hmm, wonderful :(
> 
> So you tried CCC, Chronosync and SD?


CCC only for now. Have to try Time Machine then I will see if I need something else.


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## Sid-EOS (Jan 12, 2009)

I have seen some software run real slow when trying to backup FAT disks.
I'm not sure if SD will sort FAT volumes.


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