Digital storage survival strategies
In the days of film, a hard drive crash was unlikely to put you out of business. But in a digital world, a crash can quickly turn into a full-blown catastrophe. Nikki McLennan spoke with photographers about their strategies and tools to ensure their digital assets, and their businesses, are safe.
Roll the dice
Failing to deliver images for any commissioned assignment, be it a wedding, an advertising campaign or a birth, is not only going to hurt your business financially, but can damage your reputation and cause significant stress. For working photographers, photos and videos are their most valuable assets. And most have experienced data loss at some point or another in their working life. Yet many are unsure of how, and even when, to backup effectively. For some, talk of digital asset management, data strategies, and backup regimes is geek heaven, while for others, it’s unfathomable hell. The only real and effective insurance policy against a catastrophe is an excellent backup regime.
As a working professional, or in fact anyone that assigns any worth whatsoever to what they create, not having a solid data management strategy, backed by the appropriate equipment and systems, is not only irresponsible, it’s negligent, and failure to do so can harm or even destroy their livelihood.
Cloud storage options
The Cloud is up there somewhere, but is it reliable enough to store your commissioned work? With so many options, with varying features, price, and storage capacities, photographers are spoilt for choice. Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Box and Google Drive are the most popular, and best-rated services. They also offer free storage. Others services such as LiveDrive, SugarSync, and Mozy require a credit card in order to use past a trial period. In any case, professional photographers agree that cloud systems are useful for storing an up to date copy of your portfolio or for smartphone images.
All online storage providers rely on 256-bit SSL encryption, which is sometimes referred to as “Bank Grade” security. Most photographers are unlikely to place a significant value on this unless they’re also uploading business sensitive or personal information. Either way, the encryption makes it harder for anyone to get at their images too.
Plenty of people back up to the Cloud, with the obvious advantage of being able to access your files from any phone, tablet or computer that’s connected to the Internet. Some might see the cost associated with the services as a disadvantage, however they are relatively insignificant in terms of the peace of mind they can provide. For those seeking even greater peace of mind, the ability to store your information on your very own Cloud in the form of a network attached storage (NAS) drive, that can be accessed from anywhere, and backed up to another hard drive that can be stored elsewhere is rather appealing. QNAP, Western Digital and others, offer several solutions aimed at photographers.
The inevitable crash
Someone who has first-hand experience with hard drive crashes is Brisbane-based photographer, William Long, the 2013 AIPP Commercial Photographer of the Year. “When people rely on just one hard drive, it absolutely stuns me,” he admits. “I have had my own hellish experiences with burn-outs and power peaks. Some people say I am obsessed by storage strategies, but I would say that I now have a system which is reliable,” he says. “On cable I am choked, although it’s capable of uploading substantial amounts. For me, the Cloud is not a workable operation; I would rather have backup here and also have an off-site backup, which is essentially an external hard drive that gets swapped on a weekly basis. The principle is good if you have staff, with a regular time set aside to do this. When uploading client’s files to Dropbox, I find it just it takes too long, and is not useful for working photographers. You are better off spending the time to do a weekly backup,” Long says.
Brooklyn-based photographer, Tod Seelie has experienced several hard drive failures. With clients as diverse as New York City Opera to Red Bull, it is critical that he has effective systems in place. “The last hard drive failure I had was barely a blip for me. I realised the drive had gone bad, swapped it out with a new one, ran my backup software while I was sleeping and was back to normal,” he says. “The first major failure I had was borderline catastrophic as I did not have a backup. When recovery was done on the drive, I was only able to recover files up to a certain size, so a lot of my larger files were lost forever while a lot of low value web-res versions were easily recovered.”
Greater reliability
The technology in good old hard disk drives (HDD) is now pretty old school. And we’ve certainly come a long way from the first example, released in 1956, which used fifty 24-inch platters to store just under 4MB! And while the capacities of these types of drives continues to expand, with 4TB drives now commonplace, and much larger drive capacities not far away, the physical mechanics of how these drives operates means that they’re susceptible to failure. And failure means a minor or major hard drive crash. If you are relying on HDDs, their relatively low cost to replace means that you should seriously consider replacing older drives, as a matter of habit, before they fail.
Solid state drives (SSD), on the other hand, store data using motionless technology in the form of flash memory, as opposed the spinning disk platters in HDD. Given the method that data is stored and retrieved on SSD, they’re not only much faster, and more durable, but also more expensive. And if high capacity is a critical factor for you, SSD might not prove to be the solution you’re seeking. You’re going to be paying considerably more for a 1TB SSD than a 4TB HDD, but like anything related to storage and memory, with time, capacities will increase, and cost will decrease.
Data recovery
Data Detect is a Sydney-based company that specialises in data recovery and advising clients on the best practices for disaster prevention. “The most important thing is two copies of data at all times. It’s about discipline, making sure you have two copies just in case something goes wrong, which inevitably causes panic, loss of revenue and ultimately loss of reputation”, a spokesperson says. “In most cases that we see, the safest method to backup your data, based on date, is to a RAID system where data redundancy is factored in.” With such large capacity, low-cost HDD available, mirroring the RAID system to another HDD is certainly something worth considering.
Data recovery is an expensive and time-consuming exercise, which can cost thousands of dollars. Los Angeles-based celebrity photographer, Jim Jordan recalls with horror the time that his RAID system crashed. The recovery fees were around $30,000, with another $20,000 in lost productivity and employee wages. While 80% was recovered, it came back as “a mosh posh of images, like they had been thrown into a bucket and sloshed around,” he says. “We had to go through and rename and re-categorise which was incredibly tedious and time-consuming.” Jordan suggests that people should backup photos weekly, and daily if they do much retouching. And a backup of the backup is probably not such a bad idea either. On location, he carries Seagate 2TB portable drives, and systematically saves data to these drives before he’s even back in the studio. He stresses the importance of only keeping the files that you need.
Jordan’s main backup system is a large capacity Xyratex RAID consisting of twelve 3TB Seagate internal hard drives. “This gives me an automatic backup of every file in my archive, so I don’t have to worry about how current my backup is,” he says. “I have a Drobo Pro loaded with 3TB Seagate hard drives, which serves as a backup of my backup,” he says. “I also have two sets of hard drives for the Drobo, and one set is always kept off-site”.
A NAS solution
QNAP Technological Consultant Robert Wang also recommends either RAID1 or RAID5 storage protection, for the prevention of single HDD failure file loss. RAID0 is inadequate for photographers looking to build data redundancy into their workflow, because with this configuration, data simply spans across two drives, rather than being mirrored, or replicated. QNAP’s TVS-463 NAS has proven to be a popular choice for photographers. What it does that a single external HDD cannot is the option of providing expanding storage space. The 4-bay QNAP TVS-463 can store up to 32TB of data compared to a typical 2TB for a 2.5” external drive. This capacity can be further expanded to up to 160TB with the UX-800P QNAP expansion enclosures.
A NAS solution is definitely worth considering. Relying on RAID1, for a two-drive set-up, or RAID5 for a four-drive setup means that if any single HDD fails, it will have no significant impact on your business. The networked drive also means that not only can you connect multiple machines to it, but that data can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection.
Krystle Wright, the 2015 AIPP Sports Photographer of the Year, is someone who needs reliable and portable storage, as she is always working in extreme conditions. “Upgrading my storage system into a streamlined operation has been the most valuable thing I’ve done for my business,” she admits. “Previously, I used to think I could get away with multiple hard drives from different brands and somehow have organised chaos.” But she found that the approach was not ideal, and opened up the opportunity to lose work, which happened eventually. Wright made the jump over to Western Digital NAS setup. “I can now update from anywhere on the road and keep my files all in the one central location, along with secondary backup elsewhere. The fact that I can connect while on the road is making my process a whole lot easier to maintain,” she says.
To protect and preserve
Photographers, and anyone that works with digital media, need to be prepared for failure of their hard drives. “It’s not a question of if a drive will fail, but when,” says Seelie. “So having an updated redundant copy is a necessity. The other thing a lot of people I know don’t take seriously is off-site storage. If you were to lose every hard drive in your home, in the case of a fire or theft, would you still have a copy of all of your data?” he asks. On face value, Cloud storage appears to be a promising solution, but with the massive size of a typical photographer’s archive, it’s only likely to be practical for non-image storage.
Seelie uses what he jokingly refers to as a ‘trinity’ setup. “I have 4TB Seagate desktop drives in triplicate. One is connected to my computer as a working drive, a second one is daisy-chained to it as a backup drive (a DIY version of RAID1), and a third version is stored off-site,” he says. “This also allows me to easily take a set of my drives with me when I am travelling for months at a time.”
What’s around the corner?
The storage solutions of the future will be determined by what the market demands and two of the bigger focuses these days are around capacity and mobility. Jordan has found that not only are storage devices much quieter than they used to be, but that they also don’t generate as much heat, and can be kept at room temperature. Previously, he had to use air conditioning to ensure the optimal performance of the equipment.
QNAP’s first completely mobile NAS device, the QGenie, is battery powered and wireless so it can be taken anywhere. It also fits in your pocket yet provides powerful functions such as file storage, a functional power bank and allows Internet sharing. Future models promise larger storage capacities, with the current model offering 32GB of SSD storage. Users can download images off an SD card and store them on the QGenie for sharing with others.
NAS versus external HDDs
When you use an external HDD, you are stuck with a fixed capacity and you can’t share files easily, due to the need to plug in and then eject the drive. Undeniably, NAS is just a far better solution. NAS also has the capability to expand capacity, which is imperative for photographers whose data storage requirements continue to grow as camera manufacturers put larger and larger sensors into their bodies, and photographers start shooting 4K video. The idea of backing up to DVD and Blu-ray is just not practical until 1TB discs become available, suggests William Long. The fact that you can access images from multiple machines on the network, or from anywhere via an Internet connection are also important advantages. And the data redundancy built in, by using RAID1 or RAID5 means added peace of mind.
Demystifying technology for the general public
Perth-based wedding specialist, James Simmons believes in client education to help demystify the widespread ignorance about how easily work can disappear. Everyone wants digital files, but do they know how to protect them? He prints a postcard through Momento Pro that serves a dual purpose. One side is a simple thank you message; the other provides helpful tips which outline six simple steps to master photo storage. Simmons suggest copying images to your computer, as well as two other hard drives – one of which you should ask a trusted colleague or friend to keep safe. He also believes that printing images is one of the safest ways to ensure you have a copy, stating that “technology breaks down over time, but prints will age with you”. In an age when clients are demanding digital files, they need to take some responsibility for protecting their investment.
Top tips for safer storage
Like exercise, developing a system requires discipline and strategy. The first place to start is to have a system and to make sure that you follow it. Step one is to name your files descriptively and apply keywords and metadata. Organising folders in Lightroom or Aperture with the name and date is crucial. Jordan advises photographers to edit their shoots as much as possible, “and only keep the photos that you need.” Seelie recommends off-site backups. “You could have a decent setup by just using two separate drives and a trustworthy automatic duplication program,” he says. “However, that would leave you susceptible to fire or theft without an additional off-site option. By having a third drive that you update regularly and leave at a friend’s house or in a safety deposit box you should be pretty well covered for whatever may come your way.”
Disciplined in data
Three decades ago, an organised, systematic filing cabinet of slides and film was what was required of a working professional. But you really had to look after that one copy. These days, there is an abundance of storage solutions for photographers, but in order for them to be successful and best support the business when a crash occurs, effective systems and practices need to be in place and followed. The “it won’t happen to me” mentality is the simplest way to ensure that a hard drive crash has a major impact on your business. Avoiding a catastrophe comes with adequate research into the hardware, systems and backup regimes that can best support you operation.
We are fortunate to be able to easily make additional copies of our work. The hardest part is deciding on which system suits your needs, and being disciplined with regular back-ups performed. No matter how good the hardware is, it can’t last forever, so having a plan in place for inevitable crashes is the best insurance you can have.