That's really sad, Charles. It's the sort of thing I worry about and
have worked hard to make sure never happens.
I never delete any photographs off my working drive until I am certain
I have at least two verified backups on external storage, preferably
three.
I use Time Machine's backup onto a 1T drive primarily as my running
backup of day to day things.
For the photo archives, I have a pair of 2T RAIDs that I synchronize
with the primary system using ChronoSync .. $30 from
http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html
It is a very configurable and easy to use synchronization utility. I
have it email me back an explicit log of everything that it did when
it runs the daily synchronizations, which I review afterwards to be
certain.
I strongly recommend building a backup system like this for your
photographs. High capacity disk storage systems are so inexpensive
nowadays ... Buy TWO big drives and write the same backup to each
using software to make it consistent. Set it to run every day, at
least, automatically. The risk of making errors and losing stuff is
greatly reduced when you build an automated system to do the job. And
maintain it with frequent inspection.
Godfrey
On Jan 1, 2009, at 9:08 AM, Charles Robinson wrote:
I fumbled my backup routine.... and now it's too late.
Normally, each month of images is in a separate folder on my
harddrive. As space gets tight, I backup the folder to three
different locations: A "disk image" out on an external harddrive,
and two different DVD backups (one folder of discs at home, the
other at work).
Earlier this year, I did some of this shuffling while at work (my
first mistake) and I lost focus. I created a blank disk image to
put all of the images into... and then got distracted. Seeing that
I had the disk image out on the external harddrive, I burned DVD
copies of that image and filed them.
I had, however, neglected a key step - putting any files into that
disk image.
(Those of you with Macs know there are two ways to go about making a
disk image - either an empty "CD/DVD Master" into which you can drop
things, or "create disk image from folder". For the life of me I
don't know why I didn't do it the last way - disk image from folder
- as that would have copied everything in there as part of the
creation).
Well, fast-forward to yesterday when I'm poking through my Lightroom
library. Lightroom thought that my 2008_May images were still on
the harddrive (they were not) so I went to tell LR that the images
were now on this disk over here.... but that disk image was empty.
In a stunning triple oversight, the two DVD images were perfect
duplicates of the empty disc image.
My Time Machine backups only go back to early November - which is
long after I nuked the directory from my harddrive. SO! The only
images I have from my daughter's wedding (and countless other
events) are the ones I have put online. I'm disappointed and angry
and mad and have nowhere to direct that energy.
This is just a tale of caution. Be consistent. Check your
backups. Make sure you really know what you have where. (sigh). I
just had to tell someone who might understand just how disappointing
this all is to me.
-Charles
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