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For me the most important part is to keep it simple and not dependent on the one tech person of the family paying for some cloud storage. Unlike other mentions

by dewey 5y ago

For me the most important part is to keep it simple and not dependent on the one tech person of the family paying for some cloud storage. Unlike other mentions in the comments what you don't want to have is custom scripts, git, backups tools, strong encryption, cronjobs running on some server that will go away eventually. A labeled, unencrypted HDD in a closet in two different locations will most likely do the job just fine. If you want to throw in your cloud backup that you take care of that will be a nice bonus but I wouldn't rely only on a "tech" solution.

thebean11 5y ago
You need to periodically check those HDDs for any corruption though, which requires some tech knowledge.
Too 5y ago
I want to agree but find even this is too complicated some times. Where the HDD approach usually falls apart is merge conflicts. And by that I don’t mean only in the git world. This is an inherently difficult problem. Someone extracts a subset of the hdd collection onto their laptop to do some editing. Then forget to store back the result on the hdd for the next 6 months. Next time when doing backup, mix up the hard drives, only saving the photos on the second one. And so on. Even basic stuff like deduplicating photos or filtering out only the good photos can leave a lot of confusion. Quick resolutions like “just keep everything” completely reverts such a cleanup (1). A strict master-slave scheme helps but requires access to the master hdd for any writes. Cloud doesn’t solve this entirely but shortens the window of conflicts by convenient and always in sync access to both read and write. Someone really need to invent a git for photos, for humans. That can deal with the longer partitions which loose hard drives usually lead to. (1) on the topic of cleaning up photos. Doing this before backing up is strongly recommended. The smaller your data the easier it is to manage. You also will enjoy your old photos a lot more. Nobody wants to click through the 100 angles you shot of some food from a local cafe 5 years ago. Keep only what is truly relevant.
- JALTU 5y ago
  Maybe not exactly what you have in mind for spanning physical drives, but somewhat, perhaps...see Photo Mechanic Plus's cataloging feature: https://home.camerabits.com/tour-photo-mechanic-plus/ https://home.camerabits.com/tour-photo-mechanic-plus/
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
probably an optical disk is a more long-lasting solution

by dewey 5y ago

thebean11 5y ago

You need to periodically check those HDDs for any corruption though, which requires some tech knowledge.

Too 5y ago

I want to agree but find even this is too complicated some times. Where the HDD approach usually falls apart is merge conflicts. And by that I don’t mean only in the git world. This is an inherently difficult problem. Someone extracts a subset of the hdd collection onto their laptop to do some editing. Then forget to store back the result on the hdd for the next 6 months. Next time when doing backup, mix up the hard drives, only saving the photos on the second one. And so on. Even basic stuff like deduplicating photos or filtering out only the good photos can leave a lot of confusion. Quick resolutions like “just keep everything” completely reverts such a cleanup (1). A strict master-slave scheme helps but requires access to the master hdd for any writes. Cloud doesn’t solve this entirely but shortens the window of conflicts by convenient and always in sync access to both read and write. Someone really need to invent a git for photos, for humans. That can deal with the longer partitions which loose hard drives usually lead to. (1) on the topic of cleaning up photos. Doing this before backing up is strongly recommended. The smaller your data the easier it is to manage. You also will enjoy your old photos a lot more. Nobody wants to click through the 100 angles you shot of some food from a local cafe 5 years ago. Keep only what is truly relevant.

JALTU 5y ago
Maybe not exactly what you have in mind for spanning physical drives, but somewhat, perhaps...see Photo Mechanic Plus's cataloging feature: https://home.camerabits.com/tour-photo-mechanic-plus/ https://home.camerabits.com/tour-photo-mechanic-plus/

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

probably an optical disk is a more long-lasting solution