Do you need a backup?

[2many]

I always have a backup when out shooting pictures, its not all that good but its there in case I need it. a little Pentax A40 p&s.

Now how about computer backups, here are some reasons it would be good to backup some of the info on your computer.

1. You wake up on Sunday Morning and the power supply in your computer fails. upon further investigation it took just about everything else with it including the hard drives.

2. You wont have to get in the car, and go searching for a new computer and spending money you had saved for the next attack of LBA. Or in my case the BIGMA.

3. You wont have to see what you managed to upload to different photo sites of your work and try to recover some of it.



Oh yes all of the above is true happened to me this morning, a beautiful day for a drive in the country taking pictures, ruined by a crashed computer.

[superakuma]

Sorry to hear that.

As far as a camera back up, do I need one? No. Do I have one? Yes. I use my trusty Fuji F40fd as a backup camera or when I don't want to carry my K100D with me.

As far as computer back-up I go kinda crazy with it.

I have 4 hard drive inside my computer.
2 harddrive run as ONE hard drive, RAID 0 for performance. Since that is my OS drive, I don't really store much in there, but I do store my current photos. My 3rd hard drive, a 320GB seagate hard drive is my MAIN storage hard drive. This is where I store all of my photos, musics, document and stuff like that. My 4th internal hard drivem a 500GB seagate drive is my BACK up drive. This is the drive that I back up my files every other month or so. The drive is in there but it is not plugged, I only plug it in when I back things up. Reason why? Read #1 at 2many's Post.

On top of that I have a 500GB EXTERNAL that I have connected to my computer. This is my master back up drive that I keep in a different room. My wife also use this too.

On top of that, I also burn backups of my photos, music on a DVD and store them at a friend's house.

Is it overkill? Some would say so. But anyone who experiance getting caught off guard when you computers goes out, can relate to it.

Also I deal with this stuff almost every week since people call me to fix there computer.
:blah:

Let me know if I can assist you in finding/building a new computer.

[albreca]

Hi Terry,

sorry to hear that this happened.

I am doing backups of my pics every week on CD or DVD.(maybe because i am an IT guy)
For computer backup, i am mainly on my company Laptop.
At home there is another PC for myself, where all the pics go onto.
And i have one old machine in the cellar, which maybe setup as fileserver in the next months (the only thing i don't know is how to find the time to this)
And if PC crashes my two kids have a PC each and my wife has a laptop.

So for PC backup i am pretty well stuffed.

My next things to buy is beside a Tamron 70-300 is a decent flatscreen for the desktop at home and an external harddisk, cause i fear i am doing much more pics with the K100 than with my Oly Superzoom. and i don't want to spill my harddisk on my company laptop

bye alex

[vIZnquest]

That is unfortuante news and hopefully your hard drive can be retrievable somehow.

Back-ups of your original files should be made as soon as possible and an external hard drive is one option but should not be the only source.

Copies should be burned onto DVD's or CD's and stored in at least two places. One place should be with family or friends who do not live in the same area as you do. It would do no good to have back-ups made in the same dwelling or town albeit that a natural disaster comes about.

Overkill some would say but one never knows and it all really depends on how important your files are to you.

Take Care,

Tom

[lesmore49]

I use my Panasonic Lumix DMC8 LC , with Leica lens, no less, as the backup to my Pentax K10D.

[ennacac]

Here is mine with its custom carrying case!

As for the computer, I back up on two different HD's both external, although I really have never had a HD crash with any of my Mac's, but never say never.



Tom

[bigdawg]

I still have my Kodak DX6490 as a camera back up but my photos go to CD as soon as possible. Then I store some here at my house and also in a safety deposit box at the Bank. I plan on getting a Fire safe soon for storage at home. Very sorry to hear your system went down. Last time that happened to me I had a one week intensive go at getting everything back the way I like it in my new computer. You learn from your mistakes and hopfully never repeat them. Good luck on the recovery! Safety deposit box is not real cheap and I will soon let my Daughters keep copies of my photos as I plan on getting them a fire safe for next Christmas. Then I will have four copies of all my photos! Over 24,000 Taken with the K10D and counting since this time last year.

Dawg

[mtngal]

I can relate to that - though once my computer turned out to be repairable, and the other time the computer was toast, but they retrieved what few pictures I had on it.

As far as cameras, I have both the K10 and the K100. As far as computers, there's my husband's computer (used to be mine) which is quite limited but will run PS6. I have an external hard drive and back up pictures to CD/DVD. No one but me will miss them if they all disappear, and since mine are pretty much just snaps anyway, I figure that's good enough back-up. If I were a pro it would be different, and I do have some albums on-line, but for the most part, it's not going to be earth shattering if my thousands of flower pictures disappear.

As a final precaution, my computer is a laptop and my CD/DVD back-ups are in such a place that they can be quickly thrown in a box in case of evacuation. My non-every day photo kithas gottenmore spread out - I really should do something about consolidating them so they, too, could be quickly grabbed.

[2many]

Ive got the computer problem solved, 500gb external drive and 120gb portable media drive that slides into the front of the computer case. Will start backing up the good shots on CD/DVD.

Harriett, As an experienced evacuater, I had to do it 4 times in one summer a couple years ago. I have everything ready to go and it only takes me about 15 minutes to pack it all up.

2 22inch monitors go face down on towels in the trunk, onon side is a large plastic storage bin containingnecessary food items and emergency stove. on other side are two desktop computers. all wrapped in towels and blankets that might be needed. On top of all of these go clothes. Back seat has the cooler and all the camera equipment, oh I forgot my Son also has the bug and STILL lives with me. All connecting cables for two computers are in a small plastic box on the floor.

I used this setup when I went to Biloxi to get away from some Hurricane and it worked great. Hotel had wireless, bet the maids wondered what we were doing in there with two computers running 24/7, and at the time had a laptop from work as well, they were all going, and I was at the Casino. LOL

[superakuma]

After writing my first post I thought about doing online backup for some of my photos that I really can't afford to loose. I search a few online backup place to see which one is the best. Then I remember something that we offer at work, Costco. Yes I work at Costco and as you all know we offer 1 hour photo printing and online printing as well. I remember one of the photo guy telling me that you can store the photo files online for free.

I checked out costco's website and read the terms and conditions and he was right, you have UNLIMITED storage of your photos AT FULL RESOLUTION for free. The only catch is that you have to buy at least one picture a year from them. Which is about $.17 a print if you pick them up at the store. So pretty much you get unlimited photo storage at full res for $.17 a year. Well this is if you are a Costco member which is $50/year. I wouldn't sign up for Costco JUST for this service.

The only downside to this that I can see(besides $50/year if you are not a member already) is the way your organize your photos. It is not as "neat" as some of the other paid online photo storage place. Also you can only upload JPEG files.

I am not trying to promote costco just because I work there. I am just sharing something that I just found out that would help others on this board.

Personally, I wouldn't use this as your ONLY backup. But it don't hurt to have backs of your picture online right?