Backup Programs for Photos

It's been in continuous development for donkeys years and has very comprehensive help etc. It's very user friendly if it finds any problems. I think the latest combines 32 and 64 bit in one file. Most of the stuff on the net about it is years old..... this is just one (5 year old) comparison of different copiers.

LINK

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Maybe I've been worrying too much? I was aware obviously that repeated saving of JPEGs (which compress each time) would degrade the image data, but I was making the assumption that the compression of backup data would also incur some kind of degradation. But you're suggesting that it is actually restored 100% of the original with no changes at all?

Yes, I also do this, as it has the satisfaction value of being hands on and you see the results clearly and check the total number of files and total disk space afterwards. But there is no verification process available in windows (to compare the copies with the originals, which some backup software incorporates). But I admit, I do feel more at ease carrying out this manual operation myself

Explorer couldn't care less if it copies a load of damaged
25k RAW files over some perfectly good 20MB RAW files or if
it doesn't copy everything in the first place.

Your better off with a copier that will do a binary compare
first and indicate which files on the master and backup
drives are different.

Although it's not been updated for about 12 years Filesync
is a very powerful binary compare sync tool. Still listed
as available for $15...... Just read some of the comments
and notice the big companies they come from

http://www.fileware.com/reviews.htm

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Compression used in drive backup is lossless. However, it won't compress images, video, or audio very much (if at all). Encrypted files won't compress either.

The other trouble with packing everything into a single compressed storage file is that errors on the drive could potentially make it very difficult to recover everything (i.e. you may lose more than you bargained for).

Copying individual files with a synchronisation tool also allows for quick access to any file or group of files. For example, culling unwanted files is easy when stored as files, but may require twice as much space for a compressed system (e.g. ZIP file compression normally requires that everything be unzipped, and the wanted files rezipped to a new file, and finally the old file removed).

HTH!
Matt

When I copy the files the back up drive is empty. there's nothing to compare.

I wouldn't backup a 25k RAW file in the first place

That's OK if you check every file before copying.
I remember the old DOS PC Tools used to have a facility
to read selected files and make sure they what the
FAT said they were.

That's exactly why I moved away from Acronis a few years ago. There was no way of telling if the files were still intact until you restored them. And then it would be too late if things had gone wrong. I much prefer saving "carbon copies" of files that I can check easily, or import into software as they are. The cost of storage is so low now that the extra space they take up is irrelevant (at least for the number of photos I take).

Al

I plan on doing the following in the coming months.
 
I recently bought a Raspberry Pi and am going to attach it to an external hard drive to make it into a cheap NAS (Network Attached Storage)  device using a Linux program called SAMBA. When this is done I will run the backup section of Lightroom every time the application closes so that it saves the files to the NAS.
 
I would also like to eventually get another Raspberry Pi & external hard drive and place them off-site (at my mother or brothers house depending on ISP download limits). I will then develop an application to transfer new photos to the offsite location (after all what good is a backup being in the same house as my laptop if there is a fire it would destroy both!) at a pre-specified transfer speed cap (to stop it hogging all the bandwidth) and allow internet users at the backup location to temporarily decrease / stop the transfer if they want to use the internet at full speed.
 
In the end I hope to also run a web server from the Raspberry Pi at my own house to allow me to view photos from the collection remotely. However since I shoot in DNG I will need to find an application that can generate Jpeg from these

I use pro-grade NAS and it's still too slow for RAW for me. I reckon a Pi running as a NAS is going to be achingly slow!

In the end I switched to an IoMega Firewire-800 drive on the Mac
That's much better

Matt

I will only be using it for back up not viewing so I don't see it as that much of a problem if it is slow or not ... Unless I need to run out the door right after the files are imported to LR3. I understand the Pi is going to be slower than a pro grade NAS but then again the Pi cost me £35 and I already have the external HDD.

My main problem with backups is getting around to attaching the drive to back up onto it (it sits under the tv most of the time), but by having the Pi and HDD on all the time as a NAS I will be far more likely to back up to them. And in the end if I get the new files trickling over to the remote Pi and HDD then I will be quite happy I think (not in any rush after all as I'm just an amateur).

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the informative comments - there is a lot of stuff here I wasn't aware of, so I'll start checking out some of the options mentioned.I do like the idea of having a form of data integrity / verification of a backup.