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VikingPhotography · 07-08-2006, 21:07

With HDD storeage capacity being at its lowest cost per GB for years, there's really no reason not to set up a mirrored RAID array in your computers.

On the offchance that there are less tech savvy people here:

A detailed guide to RAID technology

I use two RAID arrays in my PC; a RAID 0 array for things like games and software that I want to run quickly - for this I use a pair of 200GB S-ATA drives, acting effectively as one fast 400GB drive.

For my photo archive, I use a pair of 750GB S-ATA drives in RAID 1 array... anything written to archive drive is mirrored to an identical HDD.

My last line of defence (which is actually my first) is that all my shots are backed up in duplcate to DVD-R media. Whenever I get back from a critical shoot, the contents of my CF cards are copied to two different DVD discs. One stays in my house as on-site backup, the other goes to my brother-in-laws place as an off-site backup.

Oh, and at least once every two years you should refresh your optical back-ups to prevent data loss through media decay... transfer everything in duplicate to new media, then shred the old stuff once you've verified it's all okay.

07-08-2006, 21:07	#8 (permalink)
VikingPhotography Forum Regular Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Just south of Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 801	Re: Digital cameras 'not backed up' With HDD storeage capacity being at its lowest cost per GB for years, there's really no reason not to set up a mirrored RAID array in your computers. On the offchance that there are less tech savvy people here: A detailed guide to RAID technology I use two RAID arrays in my PC; a RAID 0 array for things like games and software that I want to run quickly - for this I use a pair of 200GB S-ATA drives, acting effectively as one fast 400GB drive. For my photo archive, I use a pair of 750GB S-ATA drives in RAID 1 array... anything written to archive drive is mirrored to an identical HDD. My last line of defence (which is actually my first) is that all my shots are backed up in duplcate to DVD-R media. Whenever I get back from a critical shoot, the contents of my CF cards are copied to two different DVD discs. One stays in my house as on-site backup, the other goes to my brother-in-laws place as an off-site backup. Oh, and at least once every two years you should refresh your optical back-ups to prevent data loss through media decay... transfer everything in duplicate to new media, then shred the old stuff once you've verified it's all okay.