Comments on: Photo Backup: Working Drives

By: ZozoCalypso

ZozoCalypso — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:13:02 +0000

Another consideration is whether to invest in Server/Enterprise Grade Hard Drives as opposed standard Consumer Grade.

And one must also consider that the latest and highest capacity HD’s on the market have a historical tendency to be more prone to failure. Due to pushing mechanical tolerances.

Personally, I am amassing a huge database (1.4TB and counting) of RAW photos and Photoshop files, and would like to invest in two Server Grade internal 1.5TB SATA HD’s, but not sure whether it’s worth the cost and risk.

Any opinions?

By: Photo Backup: Internal Hard Drive

Photo Backup: Internal Hard Drive — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:52:42 +0000

[...] the last big part of this series, we talked about working drives — the various options and their strengths and weaknesses. In the next few sections, [...]

By: Pixinfo.com blog - Blog Archive - Az adatvesztés elleni védelem lehetőségei

Pixinfo.com blog - Blog Archive - Az adatvesztés elleni védelem lehetőségei — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:33:47 +0000

[...] Bővebben [...]

By: Bomba56

Bomba56 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:25:08 +0000

Very useful information with interesting photographs, you only missed two versions of drives: RAID-5 and RAID-0. In general, a good blog

By: Irish gifts

Irish gifts — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:40:01 +0000

I like the external portable for photos and data. Automatically backs up once per day, and I take it home when the day is over. No fear of fire or theft.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:41:30 +0000

If you want to look at internal RAID drives, be aware that the onboard RAID controllers found on many motherboards are not true hardware RAID - they actually provide a form of software RAID, so it’s not giving you true hardware redundancy.

By: Donk

Donk — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:31:19 +0000

Yes, I think you missed two options:
- two internal drives with a raid controler as a RAID-5
- two internal drives with a raid controler as a RAID-0
I use the latter which gives me a high speed. Ofcourse it is less secure than a single drive, but that is solved via a backup (on a eSATA-drive)

By: libeco

libeco — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:24:28 +0000

I think it all depends on the kind of things you do with pictures. A professional will probably spend more than an amateur. As an amateur two 500GB external USB hard drives is more than enough for me. The cost is hardly higher than an internal drive here in Holland. Prices around €100 for both 1GB internal and external is not that bad.

But I once heard someone say something about cleaning your own sensor versus having it done by a specialised company which also applies to backups I think: “when you spend a lot of money on camera gear to get great pictures, it’s probably worth it to spend some on good cleaning too.”

By: Raymond

Raymond — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:24:31 +0000

Beware of cheap RAID controllers though. Nothing against RAID, I’ve used it for years at the data center level but there is a reason that something like an HP Smart Array P800 Controller costs $900 while a noname one costs $30.

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:23:30 +0000

@Niels, good point on the RAID controller — you don’t have to have a tower to utilize this functionality. I’ve been tempted to get one for my internal drives.

@Zig True, the Buffalo towers offer networking capabilities. I touched on this a bit in the tower section, but I probably should’ve mentioned it specifically. I’m thinking that most of the groups I went over in this article deserve their own articles to discuss the capabilities and options.

@Luis Yeah, some of the towers are now including this option… I think a few of the Buffalo towers have these eSATA connections. While they’re still not as fast as an internal drive, they’re certainly much faster than USB connections. But like you said, you still have to have that connection on your computer — not many do.