Storage Options
- This topic has 26 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated Feb 7, 2009 at 4:17 am by
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Based off the experience of others, I’d avoid LaCie drives. I do own one myself, but it’s an archival drive only, not for working off of. I know quite a few people who have had problems with them. I do use them as working drives at work and am not really a fan of how they run. Always needing to spin up, even if they are not in use, causing delays when I’m editing. It gets pretty frustrating, as I usually have 2 LaCies connected and both spin up at different times (usually when reviewing an edit with the director/producer).
http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramThat is a great observation as well. I guess all standalone externals have to spin up like that? One thing you hit on earlier in the thread was the backing up to DVD or CD – that, in my opinion, is a critical step. Then, if you really want to guarantee archival permanence –
1) remember the shelf life on the cheapo CD’s and DVD’s is said to be five years
2) buy archival gold blanks (yes outrageous)
3) only use markers intended for labeling and also “archival” – if you are using regular sharpies — all bets are off
4) store off site
In my workflow the second step is to burn an unedited copy of the RAWs and put it away. I am not going to worry about not being able to open them in xx years right now.shannon
PhotoShelter.com
The only true digital “archival” storage solution (unless of course the US experiences an EMP)
for a few hundred bucks a year you can have your images backed up on at least four servers in different parts of the country, plus sell your images right from your site.
I use externals, DVD’s etc to archive here at home, knowing that a few years from now, all that will be worthless. All of my finished images go on PhotoShelter, some available for sale, some just archived.
After the debacle with Digital Rail Road and the fact that they only gave a one day 10 hours notice for members to retrieve their personal archives, overlooking the fact that some pro’s were on assignments and away form the internet; I would never use an online storage service! What made this so bad is the fact that their was no warning, just a notice for those that logged in that day with a message giving them 10 hours to retrieve.
Multiple HDD’s, either manually mirrored or automated, is the best option. if one questions that amount of hassle or time involved, they must question the real importance of the shots.
For myself, I have multiple clones of each archive. Extreme paranoia, perhaps, but I made the mistake of migrating to temporarily open up short term storage, while on assignment. As luck would have it… The non-cloned hdd crashed during my return. Bad clusters prevented any recovery of aprox. 300GB in photography on it >:(.
Better to be extremely safe as opposed to extremely sorry…
Just hope Jack Bower saves the internet in time to keep your publicly stored data from being eaten by unfriendly types.
I am going to have to beg to differ with the words “the only true digital “archival” …” though. And if dollars matter, it just depends on the amount of data we are actually talking about I believe. Do you also believe that CD’s and DVD’s in the Archival Gold variety will also be useless in a few years? This is the first I have heard of media failure of that type, and worries me deeply. shannonAl they’re probably overfilled and just need a specialist to do a recovery job on them.
Morsie
nope they are 3/4 to half full…one rattled and then died and the other two wont power up …I did do a specialist job on the first one though ….Anderson style 😀 now it wont power up…..
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