External hard-drive advice please

[Barney]

Forgive me members for I have sinned (and continue to sin), for I have no file back up. None whatsoever. After a few scary moments when I've thought my PC has died I've finally come round to the fact that I need to back my photos up. I have an 80GB external drive which I can use for all my other files, but what I'm hoping to be able to do is this:

Buy two external hard-drives, use one as my main store for photos and have my PC/future netbook or laptop access it whenever I need to work on photos, and use the other as my back-up photo drive. I'd like the first drive to be portable so that when I'm away shooting I can upload all my shots to it and have the Lightroom directory on there.

Firstly, will my plan succeed? Will my PC be able to access the external hard-drive fast enough so that I don't get incredibly frustrated by the slowness of it all?

Secondly, what should I be looking for in these external drives?

I should add that I'm taking my PC into a local PC repair shop to have it looked over, serviced etc to help it to run a wee bit quicker. It's a Dell c3-4 years old, but was top of the range when I got it so it should have another couple of years left in it.

TIA
NN

[Bettina]

I have about 3TB of external hard disks and my laptop (Sony Vaio) happily accesses the files without any problems. Most photographers only have a handful of photos on their computers, all files will normally go on external drives.

I've mainly been using LaCie drives and I'm quite happy with them (touch wood)! As regards the portable drive, there are some out there like Freecom's ToughDrive had can withstand knocks and bumps. I'm thinking of getting one for my holidays.

[jchrisc]

I agree with Bettina.

The only real problem I have had with an external drive concerned one that actually used two separate drives inside a single case. The software used to make them look like a single drive gave trouble almost immediately and I returned the device.

My most recent external drive purchases are by Iomega and they work well.

The other thing you might look at is a hard disk adapter (Maplins sell them) that let you connect any available bare hard drive - SATA, IDE, 3.5" or 2.5"

[Stevet]

I have been using a Western Digital 'passport' external USB drive on a daily basis for many months now and have had no problems - powered from USB so no adapter to carry, fits easily in a shirt pocket.
Mine is 250GB, 320GB are available for around £65 from amazon (google wd passport 320gb). You could even buy two different colours to easily differentiate them!

HTH

[Barney]

Thanks all. I've seen the LaCie "rugged" range, but I'm not sure how much extra protection they'd afford over a normal portable drive. I do like the look of the Western Digital, very compact so ideal for use with a netbook, and not too badly priced either.

My only concern would be would something that compact be fast enough to work with Lightroom and all my files, many of which will now be big D3 files?

[Wodge]

From my limited experience, the rugged range offer slightly more protection. They are more likely to survive being in my clumsy hands for example, as, amongst other things, the external casing and internal configuration offers more protection for the delicate platters etc if dropped on the floor. However, I wouldn't recommend testing that with any hard drive!

As to being fast enough, that has always been my issue. My use of external drives has been limited to back up medium rather than a working drive (and so I am sure others can quote performance better than I).

One option worth bearing in mind (for the future, as current prices are astronomic for small capacities) are Solid State Drives (SSD). The transfer rates of these can be quite phenomenal, and as there aren't any moving parts they are more robust. They may be the way forward, but I accept that they won't meet everyone's requirements now.

Paul

[hech54]

ALL of my photos go to an external drive. NEVER had any issues with a lack of access speed when working with the photos in either Photoshop or Image Composer.
I also occasionally back up my "Pictures" folder(the one on my external) to DVD-R media for extra safe-keeping. I use a freebie program called DVDSpan for that job since my Pictures folder is over 9GB in size.
Normally the only time you will have access-speed issues is when you have too many USB devices working at the same time. there IS a limit(speed/power wise)....especially on older systems....and older systems with less than USB 2.0 built-in.

[Wodge]

There is a point worth noting (although I am sure everyone has realised this!) that if all pictures are stored on a portable hard drive they still need to be backed up to another medium (another drive, DVD etc) as hech54 does. And on that note many thanks for the pointer to DVDSpan which from the description will make my life a lot easier!

[Gordon_McGeachie]

There is a point worth noting (although I am sure everyone has realised this!) that if all pictures are stored on a portable hard drive they still need to be backed up to another medium (another drive, DVD etc) as hech54 does. And on that note many thanks for the pointer to DVDSpan which from the description will make my life a lot easier!

I now back all my pictures onto 2 (500gb)external drives, and at the end of the year, they get burned to DVD.

As more pictures are added to the pc, I immediately back them to the external drives, this system seems to work for me..........

[IvorETower]

2 years or so ago, I bought a Packard-Bell 250GB external USB drive. It came with software that automatically runs a scheduled backup for you... you just set which directories you want backed up, and the time you want the backup prog to run, and the frequency (daily, weekly, hourly etc).
It proved a boon when my 3 year old XP machine failed last week. 100GB+ of photos copied across to my new Vista (spit) PC in around 2 hours, along with a load of other data. All I seem to have lost is my Firefox bookmarks although someone has posted an answer to my question on this in another thread.
If you are going to get an external drive as a backup, I cannot stress too much just how useful an automatic backup program will be to you

[Barney]

If you are going to get an external drive as a backup, I cannot stress too much just how useful an automatic backup program will be to you

Thanks, I've already got the dirve I'm going to use for my PC files, it's the external dirve I'm going to use for my photos and photo back-ups I'm looking for.

I think you're right about auto programmes, but Lightroom prompts me to back up everytime I switch it on so I presume that I can use this to back my photos up?

[digitravel]

Ive had a Lacie rugged for 2 years now and its done its share of travelling and does just what it needs to do. I also take an Epson P2000 as well that Ive had for even longer, although a netbook would be great to replace that with. One to view on and one to use as storage. They both work really well.

[Learning]

All drives eventually fail. You really need at least two external drives and preferably more that are used in a backup scheme. The backup drives are not part of your main file store. Normally all but one will not be connected to the PC.
If your PC has an empty drive bay why not add an extra internal drive and use that for your working directories.
Before getting your PC anywhere near a technician I suggest that you buy a couple of large capacity external USB drives and a copy of Norton Ghost. Expect a full disc image of your PC, including verification, to take many hours. My own 120 GB disk takes about 6 hours and I let full backups run overnight every month or so and after major updates to software.
As well as the ghosted images I keep copies of all pictures on a permanently connected external drive and keep that up to date incrementally. That process just takes a few minutes and I do it manually for the files I have been working on. If you are using Nikon Transfer to get files from your cards then it can be set to load into two locations simultaneously. I set one location on my internal drive and one on the permanent external drive. Before you get confidant with Norton Ghost you may find it reassuring to make a manual copy of your picture directories onto the new drives.
All this may seem over the top. Part of my last job was to work as SA for servers holding thousands of drawings, an Oracle database, and the home directories of over 100 colleagues. In those days we used tape cartridges for backups which ran every night using software designed for commercial use. I follow the same principles using 3 external disks.

[hech54]

I suggest that you buy a couple of large capacity external USB drives and a copy of Norton Ghost. Expect a full disc image of your PC, including verification, to take many hours. My own 120 GB disk takes about 6 hours and I let full backups run overnight every month or so and after major updates to software.

Indeed. Another "tactic" of mine I failed to mention.
On my external drive(same drive as my pictures)...I also have two Ghost images. One of my system immediately after the initial build/XP install.....and another immediately after installing my favorite "must have" programs and programs that required me to look back through my records to find the activation keys and such.
I actually don't have Norton Ghost installed on my C Drive anymore....but I do have the images....Norton can be booted from the installation CD.
I also have he Ghost images from my previous computer as well....and the Ghost image from my wife's laptop.
I also kept the two drives from my previous computer as well.

Yea...I'm a data whore.
I lost many of my son's birth pictures due to a crash....NEVER again.

[Benchista]

I was going to suggest an extra internal drive for the images, but it doesn't meet the spec of being portable for use with a laptop then. What I've done is to use a network drive for backup and external drives for storage for precisely that reason.

[hech54]

I was going to suggest an extra internal drive for the images, but it doesn't meet the spec of being portable for use with a laptop then. What I've done is to use a network drive for backup and external drives for storage for precisely that reason.

My extra internal is for my "video" work. Access speed is vital to editing/enhancing video.

[Norman]

I think you're right about auto programs, but Lightroom prompts me to back up everytime I switch it on so I presume that I can use this to back my photos up?

Lightroom only backs up your catalog not the image files. You should keep the catalog on a local (internal) disk to aid speed of searching and generating thumbnails etc. When Lightroom prompts you that you need to backup specify the remote disk and create a folder on there for the backup. Be aware that Lightroom creates a complete backup every time it runs. They are dated so you can delete the oldest, perhaps keeping the most recent two or three.

Edit --- Lightroom will allow you to create an extra (backup) copy of your image files as you import them though. These can go to your backup disk.

[Learning]

I understand that some people have had problems getting Ghost to work. Some find it very good. I have had no problems by backing up to an external disk but forcing Ghost to break the image into pieces which would fit onto DVDs. By good fortune I have accidently avoided file size problems associated with FAT32 file systems on the external drive.

[DaveS]

I have an external eSATA enclosure with removable hard drives. At the moment I have a 1TB drive, but can plug others in at need eg a drive with the school's Carol Service files. As for speed I use it for editing DCVProHD footage at 100Mbps without any hiccups. I also have 3 250 GB USB drives (2 LaCie, and a G-Tech), but am a little leary of them since loosing a load of footage when I foolishly sent my laptop into hibernate without disconnecting them first. When I powered up I found two dead drives, and even after using recovery software still lost more than 50 GB of irreplaceable footage. Not good. The eSATA appears to be the way to go.
On some video forums, LaCie have a less than shining rep, whereas G-Tech are often recommended.
Dave