Photographer’s back-up strategy

Murphy’s Law states “If it can go wrong, it will“. Gough’s Law adds that “If it can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time“.

I shan’t labour the necessity of back-ups because most photographers are probably already acutely aware of the need to have some redundancy built-in to their workflow. However, if you’re not already on top of your back-ups then I hope this post might offer some pointers.

My own workflow has evolved over a number of years yet the crucial elements of my back-up strategy have remained constant. I know from experience that my workflow needs to include steps to create back-ups that are:

• Reliable
• Robust
• Regular

This post will discuss the particular workflow I use and I apologise to PC users as some of the solutions I talk about may be Mac only. If anybody knows PC-alternatives to the Mac solutions, please leave details in the comments.

Testing

Perhaps the best way to identify potential flaws in your own back-up system is to simulate a disaster and to temporarily lose your current back-up devices or media one-by-one and then see how quickly you can return to a normal working state without them. If you back-up to CD, what happens if you lose that CD? Do you have another source for those files? CDs are notoriously fragile and may well be the least robust storage method. What happens if you switch off an external hard-drive? Do you have another drive with those files in place? What happens if your computer grinds to a halt one morning? Do you have a replacement to hand or a means of quickly getting one? What about the files stored on the internal hard-drive? If that’s well and truly fried, which happens more often than you might imagine, how will you replace those files?

The problem with back-ups is that the first time we pay real attention to them might be when we’re trying to recover important files, by which time the opportunity to create some redundancy has long since passed. Unfortunately, the one and only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that every CD, DVD, hard drive and storage device will fail sooner or later, taking your treasured images with them if you haven’t planned for the inevitable.

Principles

When working out my back-up strategy, I wanted to achieve a set up that would give me lots of redundancy options for image files and also allow me to keep interruptions to an absolute minimum if a storage device failed. I needed to:

• Have geographically independent back-ups of my original RAW files, the equivalent of my “negatives”.
• Keep downtime to a minimum if a device holding my working (DNG) files was to fail
• Have online versions of image files, completely independent from my own operation
• Have complete, bootable copies of my computer operating system

Workflow

This is my workflow, step-by-step. The flowchart above will help you follow the process (opens in a new tab/window).

1. Shoot RAW
   My CF cards are numbered and used sequentially. I don’t format until the card is in the camera so that the RAW files remain intact for as long as possible. I use cards sequentially because it appeals to my sense of order but also so that I can identify persistently troublesome cards.
2. Back-up CF cards to 250Gb Hyperdrive Colorspace O in the field
   I stick my CF cards into the Hyperdrive almost as soon as they come out of the camera and leave it in my bag, backing-up one card as I fill the next. It’s a quick and easy way to create an immediate back-up when I’m working. The Hyperdrive has worked well but I find it a little clunky to navigate. If I was buying again I would probably go for a device without a screen display. I rarely view pictures on the Hyperdrive and some of the Jobo devices are smaller, lighter and would probably suit my needs more effectively.
3. Import to Lightroom, creating DNG files and backing-up RAW
   I use Lightroom’s Import dialogue to create DNG files and to back-up RAW files. Even this early on in my workflow I already have four copies of each file, three RAW and one DNG.
   I use Freecom Tough Drives when I’m travelling. They’re encased in tough rubber, have shock-resistant casing around the drive and come with a built-in USB connection.
   Back in the office, I have two LaCie 500Gb drives that are set up in a RAID 1 array. Wikipedia will explain RAID arrays better than I can but basically, RAID 1 works by mirroring one drive to the other. I see the pair as a single drive, reading from and writing to them as a single unit. However, if one fails then I can continue working on the other until the faulty drive is replaced, at which point the mirrored array is automatically re-built. Because I’m effectively using two hard-drives as one, software can read and write much more quickly as it has access to two spinning drives containing identical information. On a Firewire 800 daisy-chain connection, these drives are Billy Whizz!
4. Upload JPEGs to Photoshelter
   When I’ve finished processing files in Lightroom/Photoshop, I upload full-size, high-quality JPEGs to my Photoshelter account. There’s obviously a great advantage in having files off-site and Photoshelter have their own, geographically independent, back-ups in place. The other great advantage of Photoshelter is that I can grant my clients access to files from anywhere in the world and never need to have the physical files with me. I can even access the account through my BlackBerry and have given immediate access to hi-res files from the back of a taxi and, on one occasion, from a boat in the middle of a lake in Cumbria. This is what I like to call “leveraging the technology”.

   Photoshelter also lets me transfer files to my own ISP account using their own, high-bandwidth connection. I upload the JPEGs to Photoshelter, where I have a 1 terrabyte account, and then automatically forward copies to an archive on my own web service. Should Photoshelter ever do a Digital Railroad and shut-down in a matter of days, I won’t need to panic as I have duplicates of all those hi-res files already online.

5. Archive RAW files
   When I’ve finished processing, I’ll archive my original RAW files onto two DVDs, which are then stored in different locations.

Because the smaller external hard drives, including the 250Gb Hyperdrive will inevitably fill up one day, I treat those as temporary storage solutions and consider the following to be my permanent files:

• Original RAW - Duplicate DVDs
• DNG (with original RAW and metadata embedded) - RAID 1 drives
• Hi-res JPEGs (with embedded metadata) - Photoshelter and my ISP

Operating System and System Files

As well as making sure that your image files are backed-up in a robust manner, you’ll also want to make sure that you can recover from a system failure with the minimum of fuss. If your computer starts to choke then you need to have the digital equivalent of the Heimlich Manoeuver ready to put into action.

Apple’s Time Machine solution is terrific in my opinion. I’ve attached a 500Gb drive and this is devoted to Time Machine back-ups. It’s nearly filling up now but I have pretty much every version of every file I’ve worked on since Feb ‘08. The ability to go back in time and to recover old files has proved to be invaluable and given that Time Machine works effortlessly in the background, I’d recommend it to all Mac users.

Shirt Pocket’s SuperDuper software is just that: Super Duper. It gives you a fully-bootable backup of your Mac system. So, should the worst happen and you computer fails to boot properly or develops a software-induced fault, you simply plug-in your SuperDuper drive, hold down the [alt] key as the computer starts-up and it can be prompted to boot from the SuperDuper drive. Genius! There’s a free trial download available so get it, install and run it today. It might just save your life!

The other great advantage of SuperDuper is that is creates an easily accessible clone of your entire system. Because it will now work seamlessly with Time Machine, I have been able to partition a large LaCie Rugged Drive into three. One partition carries my SuperDuper backup, one carries my Time Machine backups and the third carries original versions of vital software, like Lightrom and Photoshop. I can carry this with me on trips and have a portable yet comprehensive back-up solution in my bag.

Expect the unexpected

With Murphy’s Law in mind, we know that every piece of kit we have is likely to fail at some time. Luckily, a little bit of planning can save an awful lot of hassle further down the line and I really recommend that you take a quick look at your back-up practices and try to identify potentially fragile areas. All of these solutions are inexpensive and reasonably quick to implement so there’s really no excuse for not doing having a robust system in place by Monday morning.

Lastly, check your insurance policy. Are your drives and CDs covered under your Home Insurance? Will your policy provide replacements or cover the cost of potentially expensive data recovery exercises. If you’re a professional and have a pro policy, will it reimburse you for any interruptions to your business caused by data loss? Will it cover the costs of replacement gear and pay you for your time as you set up a new system?

The subject of system and image back-ups is not, let’s be honest, the most rivetting one in the world and coming, as I do, from a world of Risk Assessments and Disaster Recovery exercises it’s not a topic that I want to dwell on. Yet, crucially, it’s something that can quickly be taken care of and the investment of a small amount of time and money now will, I promise, save you a whole load of time, expense and heartache further down the road. Now at least if you lose all your hard work you won’t be able to say that I didn’t warn you.