I get frequent calls from area photographers asking about data recovery... one of them tonight, actually. One thing I'm noticing about these photographers is that they're all using external HDD's to store their work. A lot of them are using enclosures like the WD My Books with standard 3.5" drives, while others are using the little 2.5" portables.
The problem that I think a lot of them don't understand is that they're putting themselves and their business at significant risk by not having any redundancy. They're 1 drive failure away from spending thousands on data recovery, not to mention the potential for lost work. I would like to give them some recommendations for a proper NAS solution that would suit their needs, but I'm not entirely sure what to recommend. I like the Synology NAS', but I read in some of the reviews that they're extremely slow when backing up pictures because they want to create thumbnails for each image... that wouldn't work well for photographers at all, as they could easily be storing hundreds of very Hi-Res images over the course of a day.
Does anyone have any insight on this? Are there any Synology buffs that know about this issue and know of a fix, or maybe someone knows of a solution that would be better for photography? Keep in mind that any solution would have to be Mac-compatible, as the majority of them are Mac users.
Thanks for the input!
I'm partner in a photography studio. There are two types of photographers Artists who make the best photographers who will have difficulty understanding or using about anything more complicated than the camera SD cards or an external usb and then there are the more Techy types who are very good with software/tech tools and hardware who will easily take care of backups without calling a PC guy.
My partner is the Artist and I am the other type of photographer.
One shoot or wedding is $2500 value to us but priceless to our brides. Thus we take a laptop and usb drive with us to the shoot. We download the SD memory from the Camera's to the laptop and then also copy it to the external usb. WE keep the laptop locked in our van at all times so it doesn't walk off. We keep the SD cards once full in our camera bag within site. SD cards are very cheap so we keep enough to finish 1000-2000 photos in super hi def which is more than you need for a big two photographer wedding. We now have 3 copies SD, Laptop and USB and this is even before we get back to the shop. Soon as we get back to the shop the USB drive is uploaded to a space on my Computer Business server (raid 1 with backup) and backed up normally with other client and work materials from that point forward. From there the files are downloaded to a powerful workstation that we do our graphic editing which also has raid 1.
You need to ask the photographer the value they place on their work product and reputation. Some do the type of photography that can be redone and not place a value on backups. Some will spend any amount like us. The rest are somewhere in the middle. Every time a photographer gets a spare $500 they go back another lense for their camera or light package or some other thing that helps them make more money so backups are a distraction to them.
As a minimum I would try to get them to have a Workstation/server Raid 1 which backs up to a USB drive that does not leave their home/office/studio and then refer them to a photographer specific service to manage their online backups....they use lingo and processes which make sense to the photographer. Then use their mobile usb drive to go on site like we do.
We use smallish 2-4Gb SD cards in our cameras so that after they get 100-200 photos they can swap out for another one. We might fill 3-4 SD cards in a day (we want to avoid having all photos on a single SD card. (We once had a family member of the client steal our SD card and delete our photos for the value of a $25 SD card.)
Then if they have the laptop they can upload the cards to the laptop on site if that is appropriate for them and also back that up to the external drive. That should last them until they get back to the shop.
Many newer cameras have IR or wifi that can automatically send photos to the laptop within about 100-300'. Then they have two copies automatically (SD and Laptop). This is nice but requires management of the laptop. This is ok for more established photographers who use aides or helpers or backup photographers to keep track of the equipment.
After all the photography is done and we are back in the shop we might put another 20 hrs of sorting, cleaning, editing into the photos so we take those finished products and upload them to the internet(as well as our server) on a professional photographers site. These sites are not much more than normal data backup companies so i would not recommend anything other than a Photography specific website backup scheme. Many are free but we put them up there so that we can assign a user name and password to a private album for each client and they may view them, share them, order from them and pay for orders from those proofs and the money goes into our account without our having to deal with all the people from the wedding ordering # and size of prints. After about 5 years we write a letter to the clients telling them when we are going to stop keeping copies and asking if they want to buy the unlimited copy rights and a final copy of all finished product...Then we remove it from our site and servers.
For the average work from home, one man/women photographer, I have found a USB drive is useful for backing up the home workstation server (raid1) but then again I do test restores at least monthly. An inexpensive NAS might work if it can automate backups as well as sync working folders. Workflow is the real key and you cannot install something the photographer doesn't understand otherwise they will call you 3 years later upset, what for? I think you are limited to the level of sophistication in this area.
Long story short, photographers might not appreciate the sophistication of NAS or the cost.... I think the term KISS (keep it simple stupid) was invented for photographers.
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