What’s a good backup strategy for a photo library beyond Time Capsule or external drives?
Asked 11/1/2010
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I currently use a Time Capsule to back up my photo library, but I’m wondering what else I should do for better protection. Should I add cloud backup, a second external drive, or an offsite copy? I want to make sure my photos are protected not only from drive failure, but also from accidental deletion and disasters like theft or fire. What backup approach works well for photographers?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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I have two hard drive backups but no online backup as my ISP counts uploads and I'd rather not spend mountains of time waiting for gigabytes of RAW files to back up. This, I suppose, would be a subjective preference, whereas hard drive backup is essential.
This is my setup. The 1TB hard drive is backed up using Time Machine, and the 750GB is backed up using Carbon Copy Cloner. I've found in the past that Time Machine has skipped random important files or changes which should have been backed up, resulting in lost data, to which I responded by adding a second non-Time Machine backup.
If you really want, you could do a weekly offsite backup. Bring a large external in, do the backup then take to it a friend's or relative's place to store.
Originally by user609. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user609
15y ago
0
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A solid photo backup plan should protect against three main risks: drive/computer failure, accidental deletion, and loss of your whole location from theft, fire, or similar damage.
Based on the answers, the safest practical approach is to keep more than one local backup and at least one offsite backup. Time Machine/Time Capsule is useful, but one responder noted it had missed some files before, so a second independent backup such as a full cloned drive adds protection.
A good setup is:
- your main photo storage
- one local backup drive
- one separate backup kept offsite
For offsite protection, you can rotate two external drives: keep one at home and one at work, with a friend, or at a relative’s house, then swap them weekly. That covers both hardware failure and disasters affecting your home.
Online backup can also help, but for large RAW libraries it may be slow or impractical depending on upload limits and bandwidth. If cloud backup is difficult, rotating external drives offsite is still a strong solution.
In short: don’t rely on only one backup system, and make sure one copy is always somewhere else.
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