Backup Solution for Photography Studio

[lupin]

Previously we have always backed up our photos on DVDs... I know it's not very professional, but back then we really didn't have the time and resources to install a more sophisticated system.

Over time we have found out that we take photographs much faster than we can burn them into DVDs. We want to start looking into more sophisticated, more automated backup system (instead of manually burning DVDs). I guess we're not that experienced in this area, and we don't even know where to start looking..

Raid systems? Norton Ghost? Anything else?

 

[CalvinHobbes]

How much data are you talking about? A tape backup system might be a good idea.

 

[Woody419]

Fred Langa has a 12 part article on backup procedures and options.

 

[lupin]

Just a little under one terrabyte perhaps?

 

[lupin]

Thanks Woody419, I'm reading it ..

 

[lupin]

It seems Fred Langa's article is no more sophisticated than what we're doing right now... very manual.

I'm thinking of something more automatic, so we don't have to currently remind ourself to backup our stuff. That can be very unmanageable in a busy office.

 

[Woody419]

Fred has scripts at the end of the article, that when set up properly, will use the task scheduler to automatically backup your data at whatever time you want.

Fred wrote: "So, I developed a way to give each newly-created backup file a unique, date-oriented name, and to auto-compress the backup file into a space-efficient, password-protected Zip file"

Set the computer to run the batch file at 4:00am, when hopefully you are not working, and your computer is then ready for the next day. You could also set the batch file to run at shutdown if you don't want to leave the computer on all night.

 

[Woody419]

Another tool to try:

Replicator by Karen Kenworthy.

Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network. Files larger than 2 GB are supported.

Options include repeated copies at intervals as short as a few minutes, or as long as several months, copy only files that have changed, and the replication of file deletions.

New features allow you to specify which files should not be copied, and also which days a file should be skipped!