File sizes & backups

[KWilles]

The R5 RAW files are huge and with the camera burst speeds being so fast, it takes no time at all to end up with huge files to download. Downloading really isn’t the problem but safe backup is! What kinds of backup services seem to work? I know I can save to an additional external hard drive while downloading via Adobe Bridge but are any users using a cloud backup service that efficiently and cost-effectively saves RAW files? JPGs aren’t the issue. RAW files are...

 

[dmiller68]

Honestly, I just use Microsoft One Drive. Family Plan is $100 and you get 6TB of storage. So I just have it back them up automatically. I do have a 8TB Western Digital network drive I also backup to.

 

[TMac99]

I use an online backup service called Back Blaze. It wasn’t too expensive and there is no size limit for how much you can store. It works painlessly in the background, so you never notice it’s running.

 

[Ed Cordes]

My work flow has been JBOD (just a bunch of disks) for years. I have a 4 TB drive in my tower which holds the current 3 years' images. I have a small HD bay tower with four 2TB drives that has my entire 75,000 image library, including a back up of the images on my computer tower. Then, I back this up to a 6 TB drive I store at my old office for an off site back up. This 6 TB drive is 2/3 full and will soon need to be upgraded. The small 4 bay tower will soon be upgraded. I am in control of what is backed up. I never back up anything unless I am sure the files are clean (not infected or corrupted). Large HDs are cheap today. I like to rely on this rather than a third party cloud service. So, I can buy a new 10 TB drive for about the cost of 1 1/2 year's cloud service.

 

[brianh]

I use two external hard disks and back up daily to both using SyncBackFree, a free backup and restore solution which allows scheduled tasks to be run. SyncBackFree does delta copies so only files that have changed or are new are backup up cutting down the amount of time it takes to perform the backup. I also have a spare external disk that I back up to about once a fortnight. This isk is taken off line after the backup in case of a malware attack. I do not use third party cloud services. I don't trust them enough to keep my data safe.

 

[Suzq]

I know this is a little less tech savvy --- I have a Mac Computer and use Photos as my photo manager. I keep my photo libraries on an external hard drive in duplicate. There is an easy way to copy libraries using a third party software called Photos Manager, but I've found that it's just as easy for me to download the photos twice - once to my Main Library and once to my Backup Library. I create a new library each year - as shooting RAW plus JPG, especially with the R5, takes a lot of space. Drives are relatively cheap now --and the bigger ones can hold multiple huge libraries. I like knowing I have control of my photos and that they are always on hand. -- Drives can fail -- so having a backup copy is critical. And, I replace drives that are over five years old. I keep photos that I'm working on - on my hard drive where they are backed up by Time Machine. Once I get a finished photo, I copy it over to the Photos Library on the EHD.