Photographs are all about memories. And memories are hard to recreate. That’s why I devote so much effort to making sure that my images are disaster-proof.
My backup strategy is I always keep two versions in two different platforms. Oftentimes it is one version in my computer and another version in an external hard drive, which is a firewire-attached 2nd-generation Drobo. I also have a Netgear Readynas NV+ as a network attached storage device (NAS) as my archive device.
After uploading the images into my computer, I immediately back it up into the Drobo. I don’t delete the files in the compact flash until this is done.
If I need space in my computer, I move the files into the NAS. Thus I will have one version in the Drobo and another in the NAS. I can delete the version in my computer.
The one thing I like about both the Drobo and the Readynas is that it is easily expandable. If I am running out of disk space in those devices, I can remove one disk and pop in another higher capacity disk with no loss of data. Plus these devices alert me of any disk trouble.
Why a Drobo AND a Readynas? I have heard bad things about the Drobo, like data corruption, so I am not going to risk everything in one platform. So if the Drobo goes south, at least I have the data in a Readynas. That is one thing I learned in my many years in IT—for critical processes, don’t put your eggs in one basket.
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