[mou] Digiscoping discussion

Wed Feb 20 14:55:49 CST 2008

Like Jaxi I have multiple backups including a RAID 5 which I added several
months ago as well as a 750 GB external which automatically backs up all the
new items on my desktop at 2 AM each day. I back up some on DVDs,  but there
comes a time when I¹d like to spend a little time shooting rather than
managing my computer. I am looking forward to more affordable solid state
hard drives which presumably will be less susceptible to crashing and have a
lengthy shelf life.
-- 
Bernard P. Friel
Web Page - http://www.wampy.com  ;  http://www.agpix.com/bernardpfriel

http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=1113

From: "Fagyal, Chris E (US SSA)" <christopher.e.fagyal at baesystems.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:10:18 -0600
To: MOU <mou-net at moumn.org>
Conversation: [mou] Digiscoping discussion
Subject: Re: [mou] Digiscoping discussion

Gail and all,

You will get a wide variety of responses on this but I'll try to sum up some
of the main ones with pro's/con's, in order of what I feel is the most
desirable and stable to the least desirable

1)       The most desirable, and the most expensive short term, but most
stable long term would be a Raid solution.  The simplest of these would be a
Raid 1 solution (Raid 5 would even be more desirable, but again more
expensive as you need a 3rd drive), preferably in an external enclosure with
supporting hardware.  I purchased a raid enclosure that supports 2 drives
and has extensive hardware and software on the back-end including such
things as firewalls etc.  My system is a NAS (Network attached storage) Raid
1 system with 2 500G Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives in it set up in a Raid
1 configuration.  What this means is simply this:  The two drives are
mirrored such that if one fails or has issues, it can easily be swapped out
and replaced with another drive, and the raid system will re-mirror that
drive to be identical to the drive which did not fail.  In this case you
would have to have 2 drives fail at exactly the same time to end up
potentially losing data, which is a very rare thing to have happen.  NAS,
for those who don't know, is one way to have storage in a system that is
totally disconnected (i.e. no USB/Firewire/etc) from your main PC but still
allows transport of files between PC and the NAS through giga-bit ethernet.
The system I have comes with a hardware firewall and user accounts etc,
providing security and blocking unintended access.  The cost to get
something such as this, if you want a NAS solution is probably 150-200$ for
2 500G drives and then 300-500$ for the NAS Raid enclosure.  If you just
want to put two USB drives in a raid configuration, you can probably get an
enclosure that would support this without all of the bells and whistles for
much cheaper.  The nice aspect of the NAS that I have is that I can plug it
directly into my router (which also has a hardware firewall in it), and be
able to access my NAS from any PC in my house, wirelessly.  All I need to do
is mount the NAS and log into the drive with my user account and password.
2)       Second most desirable would be USB/Firewire external hard drives.
You could have 1 to many of these and either just have 1 drive with all of
your images, or possibly 2 drives that both contain all of the same images
(so that you have a backup of your backup) if such is desired. This is a
less "complicated" (though the first solution, though it sounds complex, is
really quite easy to work with), and less expensive, but also less resistant
to failure, as if the drive fails, you may lose images, as happened to me
when I had an external drive fail.  I would recommend, if you go this route,
to stick with Western Digital or Seagate external drives.  I would recommend
against Maxtor, Lacie, and most other external drives.
3)       Probably relatively least desirable, though not horrible, would be
DVD or CD backups.  The issue here is DVD's and CD's have a half-life, and
eventually, over an unknown period of time, the media will degrade and
eventually become unreadable.  There are "archival-quality" DVD's that
advertise being able to archive data for "100 years" or some such.  The
issue, from a peace of mind standpoint, is that we don't really know if that
is an "advertisement" or if it is in fact true, as we don't have enough real
data yet to back that up, with DVD writable media only having been readily
available for 3-5 years.

My current strategy encompasses two of the 3 options listed above.  I have
everything archived on DVD archival media, and I have a Raid 1 NAS solution
as well.   Many professional photographers also have copies stored offsite
as well (at a place of work, in a safety deposit box in a bank, or what
not).  I have not done that as of yet.

Chris Fagyal

  Senior Software Engineer

  BAE Systems - Armament Systems

   Fridley, MN

  (763)572-5320

From: mou-net-bounces at moumn.org [mailto:mou-net-bounces at moumn.org] On Behalf
Of Gail Wieberdink
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:43 AM
To: MOU
Subject: Re: [mou] Digiscoping discussion

I really want to thank everyone for all the really good information that has
been shared on this topic!  I spent a lot of time thinking about going to a
digital SLR camera but in the end decided against it.  The posts here have
made me feel even more strongly that for myself, that was the right
decision.  I have a 5.1 megapixel point and shoot camera with a 12X zoom.  I
have an additional 1.7 telephoto lens attachment and a close-up lens.  For
the most part, I've been pretty satisfied with what I have.  I have a few
framed 8 x 10's hanging on the walls, but generally, I print very few photos
but instead enjoy looking at them on the computer.   My camera equipment is
pretty light so it is not a burden to take along on bird hikes.

With so many photographers going digital these days, what do you find is the
best way/place to store the images? I've  used both CDs and DVDs and have
thought about getting a portable hard drive.  But all these things seem to
have a life span and perhaps soon CDs and DVDs will be obsolete.  So, what
do all you photographers do with your digital images to preserve/protect
them?

Gail 

Gail Wieberdink

wieber64 at comcast.net

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