[Digikam-users] On backing up

[Paul Verizzo]

Having almost lost a big box of photos to a fire in 1988, and many hard 
drives dying over the years, call me paranoid.  Pardon me if I weigh in 
on this somewhat off topic topic, but it is a passion of mine.  While my 
experiences and practices are for Windows, surely the open source 
community has similar options.

Backing up once a month is fine if  you don't shoot anything in a 
month!  Anytime I off load a camera to the computer, it gets backed up 
right away.  /You hard drive WILL fail.  Maybe not tomorrow, but 
eventually!  /And I don't erase the camera card until those new images 
are in a third location.

I have a second drive on the computer for backups.  I just saw several 
local vendors selling 2 TB USB drives for $100.  Cost is no longer an 
issue.  I use a simple command box program called xxcopy.  A few 
keystrokes, off it goes.  I can either merely add new material (/bu) or 
clone the second drive to mirror the first (/clone).

Once upon a time I kept a hard drive in my car and I would clone it at 
least twice a month -  if I remembered!. 

For over a year I've been using Carbonite service.  For $55/year, 
unlimited storage, automatic backing up, and off site retrieval.  
Usually in minutes, my new images are WAY off site.  OK, now I can erase 
the camera card.  One time I very accidentally erased, yes, my photo 
folder from both my primary and secondary hard drives while cleaning 
things up!   In twelve hours it was all restored from Carbonite.  It's 
not just fire or hard ware failure, there is the human component. 

Maybe there is a Linux equivalent of Carbonite, or you can use your own 
web hosting space to hold the back up. 

When I went on vacation this month, I took my second hard drive to my 
sister's in a plastic food box.  My house could burn down (see opening 
sentence) and I would still have two copies of everything.  If I were to 
ever lose all my (digital, there are still analog) photos, and my 
writings, I think I'd shoot myself.

I hope this possibly saves a disaster for someone.  Short of nuclear 
demolition, I think my photos are safe.

Paul