Hey man, I don't think you're backing up enough.

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

You’re right. I only have 3 copies of every single RAW photo I took during your wedding in 2013. ;)

@jbivphotography

5 жыл бұрын

LOL

Thank you so much for this. Restarting my NAS journey as a photographer now

Just a thought as an archivist on storing SD cards in your glove box. Unless you have a climate-controlled garage they may be being exposed to excessive temperature swings that will degrade them faster over time. Even when you're just out and about that'll add wear over time. Same for your outdoor office, unless it's climate controlled/insulated to keep a steady temperature you'll be subjecting the drives to extremes of heat and cold and the potential for moisture to creep in.

Wedding Photographer here I was also thinking, "1 location should be find as long it's on two places". Definitely getting backups for my backups. Great video!

Found you on one of Eric's videos... Love the content! FYI, if you have Amazon Prime, Amazon Photos gives you UNLIMITED storage for photos. And that includes RAW. It also has an app so you can schedule the backups while you sleep. It might be the perfect layer of backup instead of dozens of USB drives gathering dust that are difficult to store. Just to share my process for home backup (background in IT): 1) My desktop has installed an OS drive-SSD, "Workbench Drive"-SSD and Dual HDDs (Western Digital RED - designed for NAS and 24/7 operation). 2) I get home, download the files to the "Workbench Drive". I use a single SSD for this because it's just for current projects I'm working on and it's incredibly fast. Once I'm done with a project, folder is backed up and manually emptied after 90 days of delivery. 3) Since I don't like/trust RAID home solutions (too many headaches and troubles over the years), I run a script using "Free File Sync" which takes every file from the "Workbench Drive" and copies it to both HDD backup drives. After setting it up, it just takes one click to backup everything. 4) Then a scheduled task, or manually triggered, uploads every single RAW file to Amazon Photos using the Amazon app. 5) Once both backup HDDs are full, I put them in a storage case, get another set and start filling them up again. The cases make them easy to stack and to keep them clean and dry. If you have a Mac or any laptop, keeping you from having physical cheap HDDs, you can also use something like Mediasonic USB Hard Drive Enclosure and use the USB-C connection for fast transfer. This way you don't need RAID and you actually control the backup process on multiple drives. Instead of dual, you could have unlimited redundancy if two seems like not enough. If you have it connected to a home server computer, you can also share it in the home network/cloud. If you're on the go, instead of accessing your home server, which depends on whether or not you have internet and still limited by upload speeds from home, you can download directly from Amazon Photos which has servers running with 99.99% up-time and better bandwidth to download your photos. Last but not least, if you wanna be extremely safe, Dropbox Business offers unlimited storage for everything, not just photos, for about $1,000 a year (3 licenses - could split with people). Between that service and Amazon Photos, you could nuke the entire country and still have your photos haha Anyways, just thought I'd share. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the process since there are many ways to tweak it for everyone's workflow. Cheers!

@dnazeri229

4 жыл бұрын

Hi there, do you know if Amazon photos keeps unlimited at full Rez?

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

FWIW, keeping professional work on their service has been against their terms of service in the past. I’m not sure if they updated it, but if it still is against the TOS, I wouldn’t consider it a reliable solution.

@dnazeri229

4 жыл бұрын

Benj Haisch Thanks Benj (though you weren't replying to me directly) just stumbled across your channel for back-up solutions. Great stuff!

Awesome stuff man! So good to have a system in place!

Thank you!!! I’ve watched so many videos but yours made it seem so easy! Would love to see a update video to this if anything has upgraded or changed. Thanks again

Crazy! Nice to know your workflow! Man, you've got my respect. Benj, show us your equipments, and what you do before the wedding as preparing yourself to start your wedding photoshoot.

Great video! I take copies of all my work and store it in a post office box as well as at my office.

Very helpful. Great video man!

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Yo, thanks Sam! Was heading to watch your medium format in LA video now!

So helpful, once again! Thx Benj

Awesome advice! I really appreciate it. One thing I do that might be helpful to others is I do keep one of my backup drives for the current season in a fire safe box just in case. Hopefully, it will be just another layer of protection in the worst case scenario.

VERY, VERY, WELL DONE VIDEO!!!!!

I gave this a quick thumbs up, as soon as I saw you decided to talk about backups. I have a great simple system....my Triple Drive process. I would say you have done a great job covering your bases!

Great content. I found this video when searching synology as that is what i've decided on as a back-up system. The value of backing up is really brought to the forefront when upgrading to a new pc as i am currently doing. Great idea about using offline backup for lightroom catalogues as well, that will save me some time syncing my lightroom catalog between laptop and pc. Bit by bit i will get it all figured out :)

great profesional advice, thank you for sharing. More of this.

this is awesome! thanks for sharing, man!

This is sound advice dude! thank you

I've had multiple hard drives fail me. Now I back up on two external HDs but I store them both at my house! Need to look into those other things you mentioned.Thanks!

Thanks so much for this mate!

Thanks Benj!

Good video. I shoot fashion shots mostly on location, and often internationally, so I have an even more obsessive approach. I use a MBP 2011 with 2-Drives internally (1-SSD As main & 1-HDD as Time-machine). Tethered to the MBP results in 2-copies to the same devise, but I then I have Carbon Copy Cloner write copies to 2-External travel drives. In the hotel, overnight a copy goes to iCloud & Dropbox. Flight home, MBP, external disk #1 & #2 in separate bags. An automatic extra backup is to my RAID5 drive attached to my MacMini Server housed in a 3rd party data center via the Dropbox desktop synch. So as many as 7-copies. Once I am home, I import the files from one of the external drives to my MacPro which has a RAID1 internal setup. Once verified, the MBP copies, and the externals are cleared. In the end, the copies are reduced to 3-copies in two physically separated areas. Time consuming, but automatic, and safe.

Solid advice!

LOVED this! Ive got a synology on the way and am actually excited to get a workflow for this down. (Ive been using backblaze for years as well and love them). Id love to see a video about your editing workflow.. Not the actual editing but what you do when you copy files from cameras and how you organize the files and folders and such. Thanks!

Regarding SD cards, they can be fragile. I have had bent pins and destroyed cards before, but luckily never in a wedding. In that sense compact flash cards were always more sturdy. So I never took the SD cards out of the camera. I download through USB 3 to the computer. Then back up to my local NAS. Then backup that NAS.

awesome video man!

thanks Ben!

THANK YOU!!!!!

I love your channel! :)

Hey Benj! Thanks so much for this video - helped me think through my storage system a little more thoroughly. Quick question - do you think it'd be worth the extra money to have SSD drives in your Synology or do you feel like it isn't worth the cost?

Ben thanks so much for this! I have a pile of random hard drives just as you described and I really need to tackle it. There is enough data on them to fill a whole NAS system. So what do you if you run out of room? Can you add more drives to it or do you buy a second synology unit?

Great video! My process is very similar. But I use 2 NAS devices -- one with spinning drives and the other with SSD drives. My main desktop has two copies of everything on both SSD (where I work) and spinning (that's replicated from the SSD). I keep an additional copies in a fire-safe at home and in a fire-safe at a family member's house. Those are only updated every few months.

Dude this is perfect! Why do you consider Backblaze an emergency backup and does your Synology back up to the cloud with something like Backblaze B2?

Hi Benj, useless to say I love your work, both photography and helping other photographers! I'm already investing in a few things you've mentioned in your video. Thanks A couple of questions about this - Do you bring your laptop to every wedding? I'm afraid it will get stolen or ruined - Did you actually put ALL your work inside 30tb? Once full? - If you create one catalog per event which one do you keep in Dropbox? - Once you've created the first backup in the 2 hard drives, then, where do you do your editing? I mean, do you make a 3rd backup in your Nas once home and work from that? I've missed that step. Thanks again! You're awesome!

This is great stuff here. Very thorough. Questions: 1) When do you rename your raw/dng files? 2) Do you backup your time machine backups to backblaze as well? 3) Every had problems with catalog on dropbox? I once emailed Julieanne Kost at Adobe asking about leaving the catalog on dropbox, and to my surprise she responded. She said it was degrading to the catalog and she wouldn't recommend it. *granted that was many years ago* I've always wanted to do it though for multiple location reasons like yourself.

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Interesting, yeah the catalogs are only really getting uploaded to dropbox as they still are on my computer locally and still getting uploaded to Backblaze as well. I name my raw files by the client names

Hi Ben, excellent video and run down on back up, thanks. I'm looking at the same solution - wedding photographer here in the UK with a mass of old drives etc. Any tips for 2021? I went onto the Synology site and went through the selector and it recommends DS418 but you had the DS918. The latest there is the DS920, so I'm still unsure as the best one. I've been advised that the drives should be SSD. I assume they can be part of the solution? Cheers in advance for any update!

I use shotputpro to offload media from my SD cards and REDmags (hedge is similar) and use PostHaste to create my folder structures so it consistent between shoots.

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Nice thanks for sharing!

This is great man! huge props. Would love if you could explain a bit more about how you store/work from your LR catalogues. Do you store those locally (on your computer) while working from them? Or are they always living in dropbox like you described?

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, dude! They live on my local hard drive within that Dropbox folder that syncs, so I don’t need an internet connection to access them, but when I do, it will sync the latest updates to the cloud.

Great video. I’ve been using Synology for awhile now but as my backup. I’m probably going to make it my primary spot and backup to backblaze B2. One tip: instead of Dropbox for you catalog, check out Synology Drive. It’s like Dropbox but hosted on your nas.

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

Totally! I’m switching up a few things currently and that’s one of the things I’ll probably talk about in an update to this video that I’ll publish in the next month or two. Thanks, Erik!

Is DAS a good solid option for backup? Im torn between a NAS or a DAS and im in your shoes!

👌🏻

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks bro! Just trying to get in the vicinity of your level someday ;)

Curious to know why do you back up your photos to 2 external hard drive when you also have a NAS?

I enjoyed the video. I'm dealing with similar issues and re-evaluating my workflow. How do you feel about Backblaze vs. OneDrive? Any concerns about the company longterm? Any thoughts about QNap vs. Synology? Do you find CCC is worth it versus Disk Utility? Any suggestions for incremental backups, while you're working on a project, or for regular day to day document files?

Love this breakdown! Do you back up your NAS to the cloud through Backblaze as well?

@drob1994

3 жыл бұрын

Jk you answered this in another comment!

How do you handle film negative storage?

I’d be interested in you talking about where to start with all of this. I have one of those people that have tried to back up my stuff before but have lots of old hard drive sitting around. How do I even begin processing them? Where do I start what’s your advice?

Hi Benj! Great video man, thanksfor sharing. I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on one of these units and was curious about size. Do you have (4) 10tb drives equaling 40tb or is it 10tb with 4x redundancy. Also, are you able to use LR catalogs over the network or is that why you have your cats on dropbox. Sorry if you answered this already and thanks in advance man.

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

I have them in Dropbox because of the way they it syncs to the cloud. I have them on my local computers, but also syncing to the cloud. I’m sure I could do that with my Synology as well, I just haven’t tried it. I have them running at 30TB with a 10TB redundancy. 1:1 would be ideal (RAID 1 or 10) but I’d need to spend waaaaaay more money haha

Do you keep all the raw files from old weddings that you already got paid and so?

Thanks for this! I love the idea of putting your LR catalog in dropbox! I've got a few questions about Lightroom file handling: How many LR catalogs do you work with for all your work, and at what point in the process do you import your photos into Lightroom? Do you use Lightroom's import dialog to offload files from the sd card to the HD or do you manually drag and drop files in the finder from the sd folder to a hard drive folder? And which of your drives contains the file that Lightroom considers the "original" or the one it needs in order to export a full-res jpeg. Does that "original" ever change linked locations for you? I use just one LR catalog for all of my photos (about 400k) and I'm currently in the habit of letting LR copy, organize, import, and create smart previews of all my new files to my internal ssd straight off the sd card. Then time machine does its thing for as many drives as I choose. Works fine for awhile, but the biggest issue is when I need to offload those original files from my internal ssd to my archive drives to free up space. Since LR freaks out when you move files directly in the finder, it's tricky to make sure my edits stay linked to the originals, no matter what drive they are moved to. To keep from breaking the link to the original raw file, I've been having to move everything within Lightroom's file manager which I've found to be pretty slow, and eats up cpu performance that I'd rather be using to edit stuff. Is there a simple adjustment to my workflow that would simplify this and speed things up? Thanks and sorry for the long-winded comment!

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Oh man, such a list 😂 I try to make a new LR catalog for each wedding. I’ve had catalogs become corrupt before and would rather lose info for just one shoot than for all of them. I import using Photo Mechanic where I cull, rename, and time sync. That way once it gets imported into Lightroom, the file names will stay the same all the way through.

Hey Benj! Did you use any software to copy/clone files from all your external drives to your NAS when it got set up? I just set up my Synology (yay!!) and now have the daunting task of copying and archiving years of work! Thanks for the video, super helpful in my purchasing decision.

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

Just manually did it so I could make sure it was all organized. Took forever, but worth it ;)

Hey Benj! Thanks so much for the video! I have some followup questions :) What drive are you editing off, or do you store your weddings on your computer while you are working on them? And, when you say that the Synology is attached via the network to your computer, does that mean that you can access all your photos cordless at all time?

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Hey hey! Yeah, I’m usually just editing off the smart previews, so I don’t even need to have the files on my actual computer. It’s waaaaaay faster that way. I do keep my working files on a little SanDisk SSD though. And yeah, the Synology plugs into my network via Ethernet, so it’s always wireless (although having an Ethernet connection on my computer is still faster than WiFi)

Any thoughts on Lightroom CC?

"As long as I don't get stolen...I have all my photos."

@mjblue7

3 жыл бұрын

that got me too

This was great! I'm just wondering how you do the Dropbox backup to your MacBook & your iMac? I tried using Dropbox for that about 8 months ago & it just took up all the available space on my MacBook hard drive.

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

You have to use a feature called “selective sync” to tell dropbox what to keep on your computer and what to leave in the cloud

GREAT VIDEO. would like to see you review and compare the most commonly used cloud companies out there. Such as OneDrive (Microsoft), Google drive/Google Photos, Apple iCloud and Amazon Cloud. What are the pros and cons to each and which would you recommend a professional uses? Lastly, when consider the paid option to all I mentioned, which is worth it at each given price?

Awesome video! My biggest question is about the lightroom catalog. Are you saying you open your catalog from Dropbox and work in lightroom classic from there? Does that not slow down the program? Thanks

@benjhaisch

Жыл бұрын

Dropbox stores things locally and then syncs the data to the cloud

@blagmak

Жыл бұрын

@@benjhaisch thank you for your reply. I think I understand that you still work of the local catalog, but can access is remotely through Dropbox. This is not something you work off remotely which then stays synced across all devices.

This is super helpful, thanks so much Benj! With your Lightroom Catalogs, do you create one catalog per wedding? Or have one catalog for all your weddings that you do that year, one for all your commercial work etc...

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

I create a new catalog for each shoot :)

@melissapalmer7159

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks Benj , I have recently started to do this. I used to have all my shoots on one catalog, then thought of the possibility of that catalog corrupting. Cheers!

i use similar system , when shoot something , get empty the cards in my working server , on a ssd that i work from , that is backup in a raid 10 , automatically , and after plug external drive that backup the raid one i finish working with project the files are remove fom the ssd and live in the raid , and every year i empty that server and go to my cold storage server i open it only to store new data or to get something older than one year ,

@darkphotographer

2 жыл бұрын

at some point i will build a ofsite backup server ,

Ey Benj, great tutorial but i have a question though... When you show us your Synology archve system it looks really neat. But is that a copy of your internal drive or a copy of an external HD, basicaly a clone of another drive? If so, how did you set that up on your NAS? THanks in advance!

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

Which part? Sorry. I have a copy of my internal and external drives on there haha

Suggestions on mac computers a pro uses?

@benjhaisch

3 жыл бұрын

I’m currently on an M1 Mac Mini waiting for the new pro-level M1X/M2 30”+ iMacs. I’m sure the new 16” MBP will be very capable as well. Honestly the M1 is an amazing SOC and plenty fast for my uses in photo. But having the higher CPU/GPU/RAM options in the upcoming models will help with video editing and future-proofing my setup as well.

This is super helpful! Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge :) One question...what is the difference between the RAID system people are usually using and the Synology system? Is it just that it has the ability to be accessed off-site? Because it is still technically a RAID system as well right? I haven't switched over to RAID yet so I am still learning how it all works and what it means...looking forward to watching those other videos you recommended! Thanks again!

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Yep! The NAS means that it connects via the network, not a wired connection like USB. Otherwise, the whole RAID concept remains the same.

@OMalleyKing

5 жыл бұрын

Sweet! Thanks for clarifying! When you fill all those up (which I know would probably take a long time) would the next step be to just get new ones and keep the old somewhere safe?

What were the steps you went through to backup and reorganize all of your old hard drives? I’ve been considering a synology drive ever since I went to Forest and Falls and I’ve saved and your video finally got me to pull the trigger! Thanks so much for your advice, bud!

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

I just manually would transfer each year worth of weddings over and then just confirm the folder size afterward. Nothing too crazy!

Hi Benj, many thanks for the video, I just have a quick question how didn't you get the Synology to work with back blaze as I have been told that its doesn't work. many thanks in advance

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

The standard backblaze system doesn’t sync with a NAS, no. I believe you’d have to use their B2 service.

@tallboyimages8157

4 жыл бұрын

@@benjhaisch do you have the B2 service? as you mentioned that you use it

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

I do not, I use Backblaze to backup my other drives. I have those mirrored externals, my SSD, and a 10TB archive drive that does a time machine backup and backs up the others as well that all sync to Backblaze.

Also, what are your total costs for your system?

Are networks fast enough that there is no throttling when working on files and/or LR catalogs? Or is that a sacrifice you make for data protection? I do a lot of the same for data protection but worried that moving to a network system processing time would increase.

@dustinprickett8607

5 жыл бұрын

And a follow up question are you running off a wireless router to your main device in the office?

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

I’m working off smart previews or an SSD, so speed really isn’t an issue there. I have a power line Ethernet adapter right now, but have considered running an actual Ethernet cable out there underground. I just don’t want to dig up my backyard...

Found it I think!!! : ) ;)

Hey Benj! Just to clarify, you back up all the SOC images and then back up after editing as well?

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Yep. I send everything to the NAS as soon as I can and then have the photos on those other drives as well. Once the finals are exported, they get transferred to the NAS as well.

@chrisflicek1149

5 жыл бұрын

Awesome!! Thank you so much for making this video! P.S- I've looked up to you for soooo long! Stay awesome!

I've never seen this video of yours before, but this is a great topic. It's been 3 years since you posted it. Has your backup & archive workflow changed at all since then?

@benjhaisch

2 жыл бұрын

planning a followup for sure. some things have changed but the NAS remains the key for sure

Which one of these devices becomes your working drive?

Hi Benj, any updates on this?

@benjhaisch

Жыл бұрын

It’s on my list of videos to make!

I have a question... for anyone who sees this please answer if you know. If I buy this and have it backed up to access remotely... can my editor access these files and pull them off to edit? Currently I am meeting my editor every week to switch external drives. I have my files backed up at home, then I hand him a copy and he hands me edited files. Not necessarily the most efficient method.

@benjhaisch

2 жыл бұрын

I think it’d be mostly dependent on the internet connections you’d both have. You can totally access them remotely like you’d do with Dropbox, but with massive video files it might still take forever.

@KalynRobert

2 жыл бұрын

@@benjhaisch thanks

It snows up there??

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

Brandon Scott it dumped!

Great info. Thanks for taking the time. I did cringe when you said you used Apples backup program Time Machine. Let me explain. Time Machine does not create a bootable copy of your computer. It make a backup that is totally dependent on Apples OS and which OS (10.5, 10.8, 10.14..etc) that copy of Time Machine was created on. This can create huge issues if you change user names, update to a different OS or operate multiple Mac OS’s. I would only trust a computer backup program like the one you briefly mentioned Carbon Copy Cloner. I’m not looking for my comment to sound harsh. I think you’ve given viewers awesome advice. My comment is because I’ve gotten screwed by trusting Apple and I’d hate for another Mac user to experience the same when it’s so easily avoidable by using a product like Carbon Copy Cloner.

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

Ah that’s good to know. I’ve used Time Machine to restore my computer multiple times with no issue, but I do back up with CCC anyway because I’m possibly paranoid as well ;)

Do your backblaze backups at SeaTac. Seriously, the upload there is silly fast.

Why do you keep your raws back that far? Do you find yourself re-editing your old work even after you've burned your .jpgs?

@benjhaisch

5 жыл бұрын

I’ve been re-editing a lot of work from even back to 2012 now. The changes are subtle but definitely an upgrade with my new presets.

@BrianWolfey

5 жыл бұрын

@@benjhaisch Yeah that makes a lot of sense now that you bring up the presets. I've improved too much compositionally to want to show the older stuff beyond a certain point :). Presets can't fix suck!

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

yes

if you need some music for your videos don't hesitate to check my channel man ! I'd be glad to be feature here

come on man... what is with all these back-ups? it has been 13 years for you, i am pretty sure some marriages don't even survive that long. I understand back-up, but you seem like you are bordering on OCD... i hope you don't mind my comment. All i am saying is that there is a place for back-ups, and i do that too, but just the NAS alone is enough for me. backing up is costly (time and money), and at one point, we have to wonder, what is the value of all these photos beyond personal sentimental feelings. if my client comes to be 8 years after i shot something for them, i will just tell them the files are gone, and i am very sorry. So far, it has never happened.

@benjhaisch

4 жыл бұрын

I had a client last week while loving get their hard drives stolen out of their car and come desperately asking if I had copies. I photographed that wedding 9 years ago and since they’ve had family members pass away and those photos are super meaningful. I was able to send those photos over within an hour. Honestly the cost of keeping all of these photos in comparison to how well I’m compensated for taking them in the first place is beyond worth it for me.

i don't value my stuff enough to do so much of back-ups. sorry.