4 ms·

Ask HN: What is your photo backup strategy (on Mac)?

12 points by jozi9 12y ago

robinhoodexe 12y ago
Time machine once every day to a 2 TB external harddrive (WD Elements). It just works.
- andybak 12y ago
  My big data-loss fear is a household robbery - so offsite is essential. Have you considered a scenario that involves losing your Mac and your backup drives?
tobinharris 12y ago
I upload my favourite shots to Flickr full res. This is about 1% of my photo collection. I then pray my HDD doesn't fail! One day I'll get organised and backup everything up to one of those 1TB NAS with auto-cloud sync :S
conchy 12y ago
Use Aperture vault, and hope Apple doesn't decide to discontinue the product ..... Doh!
andybak 12y ago
Same as the rest of my data backup strategy. Backblaze.
- gregcohn 12y ago
  How have you found it? I tried it out and found it was something like 45 days to run a full backup on my 1TB machine, and discontinued it fairly immediately. Let's just say that was more than 45 days ago....
  - andybak 12y ago
    Can't remember how long it took but it finished uploading before I needed an emergency restore ;-)
derpadelt 12y ago
Unison via SSH to a Raspberry-Pi-attached USB HDD. Upload to Flickr via cron-triggered python script from RasPi. Arq to S3. Hoping that "only to camlistore" will be the answer in 3-5 years.
0bit 12y ago
My photos are very important to me, so i do several backups: 1) The iPhoto Library is rsync'd to an external HDD 2) The iPhoto Library is rsync'd to a local FreeNAS box 3) Arq backup to S3 http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ 4) Crashplan backup to 3 locations: an external drive, a local server (not the FreeNAS box), as well as Crashplan central. Terabytes are cheap, memories are not.
mikehotel 12y ago
I use duplicity (http://duplicity.nongnu.org http://duplicity.nongnu.org) to locally encrypt (GPG) and backup to a LAN machine running ZFS and to one or more cloud services (Google, AWS) depending on the data. This is automated using cron. Whatever backup option you decide on, do not forget to test the recovery/restore process at least once a year. You can tweak your strategy anytime based on current cloud storage prices.
Haiperlink 12y ago
+ rsync to External HDD at home + another at work + backblaze
AlexLa 12y ago
Manual backup to external HDD + automatic backup to google drive with this app https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268 https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268 I also like the opportunity to view these photos through Google+ Photos interface.
brent_noorda 12y ago
3 levels. 1) time machine. 2) BitTorrent sync to share photo folders. 3) Mozy
davesmylie 12y ago
Google Drive - syncs automatically full res photo's from my phone which shortly end up sync'd to my macbook. Drive is the authoritive store for my photo's - any thing on my PC can be lost with no problems
chrisked 12y ago
I have all photos in dropbox with packrat feature. Furthermore I backup to my local Synology NAS via their software and to AWS S3 via arq.
ghuntley 12y ago
AWS Bucket w/revisions enabled connected to PictureLife.com. Amazon raises invoices directly to me for storage usage and if PictureLife shuts down (hopefully not) then there's no need to export data because I own/control the data. ie. AWS provides the hosting and PictureLife provides the product on-top of my hosting.
indielol 12y ago
BitTorrent Sync from Android to an Ubuntu server in LAN.
Brian-Puccio 12y ago
Time Machine to a Linux file server (large RAIDZ2 ZFS array) for both my MBP and the GF's iMac. CrashPlan family edition (unlimited backups for up to ten computers) for both of us, the Linux file server and my parents laptops as well.
karp 12y ago
Onsite backup via time machine to a NAS Offsite backup to Backblaze

12 points by jozi9 12y ago

robinhoodexe 12y ago

Time machine once every day to a 2 TB external harddrive (WD Elements). It just works.

andybak 12y ago
My big data-loss fear is a household robbery - so offsite is essential. Have you considered a scenario that involves losing your Mac and your backup drives?

tobinharris 12y ago

I upload my favourite shots to Flickr full res. This is about 1% of my photo collection. I then pray my HDD doesn't fail! One day I'll get organised and backup everything up to one of those 1TB NAS with auto-cloud sync :S

conchy 12y ago

Use Aperture vault, and hope Apple doesn't decide to discontinue the product ..... Doh!

andybak 12y ago

Same as the rest of my data backup strategy. Backblaze.

gregcohn 12y ago
How have you found it? I tried it out and found it was something like 45 days to run a full backup on my 1TB machine, and discontinued it fairly immediately. Let's just say that was more than 45 days ago....
- andybak 12y ago
  Can't remember how long it took but it finished uploading before I needed an emergency restore ;-)

derpadelt 12y ago

Unison via SSH to a Raspberry-Pi-attached USB HDD. Upload to Flickr via cron-triggered python script from RasPi. Arq to S3. Hoping that "only to camlistore" will be the answer in 3-5 years.

0bit 12y ago

My photos are very important to me, so i do several backups: 1) The iPhoto Library is rsync'd to an external HDD 2) The iPhoto Library is rsync'd to a local FreeNAS box 3) Arq backup to S3 http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ 4) Crashplan backup to 3 locations: an external drive, a local server (not the FreeNAS box), as well as Crashplan central. Terabytes are cheap, memories are not.

mikehotel 12y ago

I use duplicity (http://duplicity.nongnu.org http://duplicity.nongnu.org) to locally encrypt (GPG) and backup to a LAN machine running ZFS and to one or more cloud services (Google, AWS) depending on the data. This is automated using cron. Whatever backup option you decide on, do not forget to test the recovery/restore process at least once a year. You can tweak your strategy anytime based on current cloud storage prices.

Haiperlink 12y ago

+ rsync to External HDD at home + another at work + backblaze

AlexLa 12y ago

Manual backup to external HDD + automatic backup to google drive with this app https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268 https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268 I also like the opportunity to view these photos through Google+ Photos interface.

brent_noorda 12y ago

3 levels. 1) time machine. 2) BitTorrent sync to share photo folders. 3) Mozy

davesmylie 12y ago

Google Drive - syncs automatically full res photo's from my phone which shortly end up sync'd to my macbook. Drive is the authoritive store for my photo's - any thing on my PC can be lost with no problems

chrisked 12y ago

I have all photos in dropbox with packrat feature. Furthermore I backup to my local Synology NAS via their software and to AWS S3 via arq.

ghuntley 12y ago

AWS Bucket w/revisions enabled connected to PictureLife.com. Amazon raises invoices directly to me for storage usage and if PictureLife shuts down (hopefully not) then there's no need to export data because I own/control the data. ie. AWS provides the hosting and PictureLife provides the product on-top of my hosting.

indielol 12y ago

BitTorrent Sync from Android to an Ubuntu server in LAN.

Brian-Puccio 12y ago

Time Machine to a Linux file server (large RAIDZ2 ZFS array) for both my MBP and the GF's iMac. CrashPlan family edition (unlimited backups for up to ten computers) for both of us, the Linux file server and my parents laptops as well.

karp 12y ago

Onsite backup via time machine to a NAS Offsite backup to Backblaze