Backing up Your Mac - Long Term Archiving

In addition to daily backups to protect work in progress, you should also be doing long term archiving of all your images and critical files. Unlike daily backups where you can access your backed up data quickly because it is plugged in to your computer, if you don't break your backups up, your backup system can be unwieldy if you are making it search and update 2TB of data every day.

How often you should perform long term archiving depends upon how many photos you shoot and how much space you are taking up on your hard drives.

I tend do to do archiving once a month. Doing it monthly keeps the number of images manageable and while I am archiving, I also compile everything for quarterly copyright sumbisison. I look through the images, delete anything that there is no use for (out of focus, mis-fires, etc.) and I burn everything else (from the raw shoots) to two DVD's (two copies of the same images.)

I also use a program called CD Finder to catalog all of the DVD's that I've burned so that I can search for photos using the database it builds. It is just another way to keep track of images.

One set of DVD's is stored on-site in my office closet in an acid-free box designed for the storage of CD's and DVD's. The other set of DVD's is stored off-site in a similar set of boxes. Both sets are stored in a cool, dark and dry location that isn't prone to big shifts in temperature or humidity.

After I burn the two DVD's, I move the files over to a hard drive that is only used for archiving. At the end of the year, I duplicate the hard drive (two copies of the same data) and put one hard drive in my safe deposit box at my bank, and the other with my off-site set of DVD's.

At the end of the year, I also burn DVD's and copy to the hard drive(s) all of my published images from the year, clips, copies of everything submitted for copyright (and copies of the submitted thumbnails) and anything else photo related that would fall within the year.

I reason I archive to hard drives as well as DVD's is because it is much easier to manage the data on a hard drive. If all of the data on my RAID got corrupted, it would be much easier to restore it from a few hard drive than from hundreds of DVD's that would have to be read one at a time.

The reason I archive to DVD's is because they are cost effective and allow me to do incremental archiving of images in smaller batches that I can then move to my off-site more quickly instead of waiting until the end of the year to distribute my backups.

There is still some debate about the lifetime of DVD's. If you burn quality disks, and verify the data, you should be in good shape. Most disks that go "bad" are bad because of scratches or they were left in the sun, or some other environmental cause.

You should store your archive DVD's in good hard cases (DVD's can get scratched in those cheap little paper sleeves) and use CD safe pens to write on them. You should store them in some sort of container designed for storing disks and keep them in a dry, dark, cool place. This will help extend the life considerably.

I figure that before I get close to the lifespan of a DVD, we will be archiving on something with 10 times the capacity... look at the transition from CD's to DVD's. So I am not fretting over the lifetime of the DVD's.

I would also advise that you not store your original files and all of your backups in the same place. Living in San Diego, wildfires are a constant threat, and there were a number of photographers that not only suffered the loss of their homes during the fires, but also lost all their photos and backups because they were all stored on-site. Spread your backups out so that if something catastrophic happens, you have other backups to rely on that are kept in other places.

You can even partner with another photographer to keep a copy of their backups and in exchange they store a copy of your backups.

The other thing that I use (and really love) as part of my archiving strategy is an external RAID where I also store every digital photo I've ever shot and all of my scanned film images, too. I use a Firmtek 4 bay RAID which I've been really happy with. I have 750GB drives in mine, and I am not sure I could live without it now.

The ability to have instant access to every image I've ever shot without even getting up from my chair is awesome. It has saved me hours of time that I used to spend pulling archived DVD's, getting the images off of them and then refiling them every time I had a photo request from a client. Using a RAID also reduces the risk of damaging your archive DVD's. Since the RAID is plugged into your computer, Spotlight catalogs the disks which makes it really easy to search for images.

Another advantage of using a RAID is that you can mirror the drives. Just like the name implies, one drives is a mirror image of the other. When you add or subtract files, those changes are made on both drives at the same time. When one of the drives in the mirror fails, you can pop in a new drive and the RAID will copy all the data back over to the new drive and you have no down time.

I use SoftRAID to run my Firmtek box (vs. Apple's built in RAID control.) It gives me more flexibility in how I set things up, and also gives you warnings if there are any problems with the disks in the RAID.

RAID is not a replacement for good archival backups, however. The problem with using a RAID is that if the data becomes corrupt or gets deleted, that change will be on both the original disk and the mirror (since they are the same) so having other good backups is critical. The mirroring is only protection against hardware failure, not data corruption.

Now is a great time to come up with your own archiving plan and start backing things up.

Backing up Your Mac - Short Term Backups

Backing up your Mac is important. Hard drives fail, software can mess stuff up, or a rogue four-year-old can go from playing Reader Rabbit to putting desktop files in the trash and emptying it because the unnamed child liked the satisfying sound the computer made as they trashed each file.

No matter how it happens, data loss can range from being a simple annoyance to a very expensive business-altering-disaster depending upon how well your data is backed up.

And there are a lot of people that don't back up. Some are lucky and haven't had a problem...yet. But it is not a question of will you suffer a data loss at some point, it is just a question of when.

One thing that proves that point is the number of companies that exist to recover failed hard drives. Here is a Google search on "Hard Drive Recovery." The reason there are that many companies in business is because there are a lot of people who suddenly discover their data is hosed and don't have any backups so they have no choice but to shell out to try to save their data.

Most of these companies are reputable and do good work, but you can expect to pay thousands of dollars to recover your hard drive and depending upon why it failed you could get all of your data back as one giant folder with all the files contained on the drive. You then get to spend days figuring out what they are and where they go. Or you could end up with little or nothing off the bad drive like this poor guy's experience. Needless to say, it could be a really bad and expensive situation.

Now if you really like to live dangerously, you can try what this guy did and rebuild the drive hardware, but it's not something I would suggest.

So if you aren't actively backing up, the first thing that you need to figure what data should be backed up. Things that usually fall into this category should include your photos (duh), invoicing, documents, estimates, contacts, calendars, bookkeeping, software installers and serial number, music, movies, passwords, and anything else that you would be lost without. Many of these items reside in your User folder, but double check that things aren't parked in other parts of your hard drive(s) that should be backed up.

There are two types of backup you need to think about; short-term and long-term.

Your short-term backups are for day to day backup of files that you use all the time and things that are important. If they stop working or disappear, you can go back to the version from yesterday, or the days prior and get back to a working copy of the file. Programs like Backup (for 10.4 or 10.5 users) and Time Machine (for 10.5 users) are best for this type of backup.

If you are on a desktop Mac, you can designate on of your other internal drives* as a backup. I prefer using an external drive so that if that machine dies, you can unplug the external drive and plug it into another Mac, and immediately recover the data you need until your main Mac is fixed.

One thing you never want to do is use your main (boot) drive or any partitions on it for backups. If you do that and the drive fails, there go your files and your backups. The same goes for any other drive that has critical info on it. You want the backup on a separate drive from where your originals are stored.

With Apple's Backup, you have to do a little work to decide what you want backed up and how often you want it backed up, but once you've done that it pretty much will run automatically in the background at the scheduled times. I like to have Backup run early in the morning (like 2am) when I am most likely not sitting at my computer, but I also set my computer to never go to sleep. If you have your computer sleep when you aren't using it and this happens during a scheduled backup time, it will run the scheduled backup next time your Mac is awake.

When the drive is full it will stop backing up and let you know that you need to replace the drive or erase it and start over. External hard drives are inexpensive enough that I would strongly suggest buying another drive, unplug the old one, label the dates archived on it, plug in the new one and safely store the old one just in case you ever need any of the data on it.

With Time Machine, you just tell the computer which drives you want backed up and it will do hourly backups to make sure everything is where it is supposed to be. After a few days it condenses things to one backup per day, and if you go back a month or two, it condenses them weekly. The idea being that most likely if you lose something, you will know it pretty quickly and be able to recover the most recent version of the missing file(s) but if you are going back weeks, it is probably a file that is not being updated frequently anyways.

One thing that Time Machine will eventually do if you are not careful is start delete your oldest backups when the backup hard drive gets full. Before it gets full, I suggest replacing it with a new drive and store the old one after labeling it with the dates archived on it... just in case.

Another type of backup that can be a good idea is a network backup. The easiest way is through Backup and your .Mac account. Due to space and network limitations, I only back up things like invoices and other must-have files that I would be really sunk without, but if my office burned down, I would have the data available to start rebuilding things.

But please, please, please back up your Mac. Stop reading and do it now! Well, you can finish this post, first, I suppose. There is only one paragraph left.

A good external hard drive can be bought for around $100 and Backup is free if you have a .Mac account. Time Machine is free if you have 10.5 installed on your computer. There is really no good reason to not back up, but there are plenty of reasons for regret if you don't.

A few more freebies that I like

Happy New Year! More free Mac stuff - enjoy!

If you use a MacBook Pro or a Powerbook with a backlit keyboard, this is for you. Labtick is a cool free app that allows you to adjust the backlight level on the laptop (and overrule the sometimes erratic ambient light settings that the laptop chooses.) (10.4 and 10.5 friendly)

Mactracker is a great program. It is a list of every Mac ever made and the specs to go along with them. When I am trying to help someone figure out how much RAM they can put in the PowerMac 9500, it comes in real handy... it is also fun to look at the specs of the first Macs compared to where we are now. They also have added Apple iPods, keyboards, displays and just about every other Apple branded item to the database. (10.4 and 10.5 friendly)

Monolingual is a free utility that will remove all of the other languages installed on your computer. If you are running low on memory, this can free up some space. A lot of progams install a whole boatload of languages even though most of us never get away from English on our Macs. I would suggest backing up your machine before running this... just in case.

This last one is a program that I stumbled across and it looks like it could be fun to play with. It is called MacOSaiX and does what the name sounds like... makes mosaics out of your photos. (It is supposed to be 10.4 and 10.5 friendly)

TSA and batteries... an update

It turns out that DC based photographer Greg Mathieson has been working behind the scenes to get this mess sorted out. Here is an email he sent out this morning (Dec 31) regarding the progress he has made towards this fix:

I just got off a conference call with TSA,DOT and DOE and all the powers that be and they are currently going to rewrite the regulation in that there will be no limit on how many batteries can be carried aboard an aircraft. It seems that the PAO putting out the release and notice did not get the facts right in that the issue is the Watt hours, per each individual battery and not that of the combined amount of power or lithium content. What they are trying to prohibit or restrict is that of a single size battery exceeding a set about of lithium, such as a 130WH battery or greater. Only the larger space power batteries that stand alone next to a laptop provide that type of power and some camera crew batteries do as well.

It's recommended though that once the new press release and notice is put out by TSA and DOT that members carry a copy if they are carrying large quantities of batteries onboard an aircraft. Just in the event some TSA guy never got the word or is reading the old notice.

All the best for a happy new year,

Greg E. Mathieson
MAI Photo News Agency, Inc.

So hopefully a new memo will be out soon that will get this straightened out. When it is released, I will post it here.

One lingering concern... it still remains to be seen what this means for photographers that travel with portable light kits that rely on heavy-duty batteries for power....