Professional-Grade Backup Plans
Prepare for total system failure or expect to lose everything when disaster inevitably strikes!
There is a fundamental law in computing: all hard drives will eventually fail. As a professional photographer, the thought of losing everything that I have ever shot terrifies me. Total data loss is what my business must expect if I fail to prepare adequate safeguards.
My philosophy on how to best protect my digital images borrows from the sport of rock climbing. Smart rock climbers use redundant safety systems to prevent disaster. Intelligent climbers always attach their climbing rope to multiple anchor points so that they will not fall all the way to the ground if one piece of their protective equipment fails. Serious digital photographers should adopt a similar backup philosophy. Multiple copies of all mission-critical files, in multiple locations, is the only way to truly prepare for the unexpected.
The American Society of Media Photographers DPBestFlow.org project describes this backup philosophy as the “3-2-1 Rule.” Here is what their experts have to say:
- We recommend keeping 3 copies of any important file (a primary and two backups.)
- We recommend having the files on 2 different media types (such as hard drive and optical media), to protect against different types of hazards.
- One copy of each critical file should be stored offsite (or at least offline).
We are each responsible for creating our own backup systems before a catastrophe happens. Planning and preparing for the inevitable is your responsibility no matter what type of computer you use. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a wonderful program, but it is not a backup plan. Photoshop Lightroom use will not protect you from drive failure, virus attacks, or natural disaster and does nothing to protect your precious images. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom does include an “Automatic Catalog Backup” feature. If activated, this feature will make additional copies of the core Lightroom Catalog database file on a regular basis. This additional copy of your .lrcat database file is useful if the primary database gets lost or corrupted. Do not let this feature fool you. Photoshop Lightroom’s integrated Catalog backup feature does not protect your digital images at all.
Photoshop Lightroom also offers its users the chance to create an additional copy of their images during the Import process. Many Photoshop Lightroom users mistakenly assume that this feature “protects” their images as they are added to their Lightroom database. Sadly, this is also not true. The “Create an Additional Copy on Import” feature simply duplicates each image but it does not force you to store these files on a separate hard drive. Storing the primary image and a copy on the same hard drive offers no additional protection. Both the primary and the secondary copy could be destroyed if this disk fails.
The “Additional Copy on Import” feature simply creates another copy of each image involved in this particular Import session but, sadly, the duplicate file is never updated. This feature is of very limited value as a backup even if you were to use one drive for the primary image and specify a separate drive for the second copy. The problem is that changes to the primary image, the file that is referenced by your Lightroom Catalog database, are not automatically added to its duplicate. Since the copied files are never updated, returning to these files after a major disaster might be crushing setback. If you had to resort to using these files after a major disaster then you might have to do all of your Photoshop Lightroom work over again!
Let’s discuss real backup plans rather than wasting time exploring Photoshop Lightroom’s placebos. My image backup plan involves a pair of high-capacity external hard drives and an Amazon s3 storage account. Here’s what I do to protect myself from every possible threat:
Daily Backup
My Favorite Backup Software (Mac)
My Favorite Backup Software (Windows)
Weekly Backup Drive Swap
The external hard drives that I am currently using for my Daily Backup are swapped out once a week. In my system, Backup Disk 1 gets used for a week and then I swap it out for Backup Disk 2. A week later, I swap Backup Disk 2 out and replace it with Backup Disk 1 again. The backup disk that I am not currently using gets stored out in my garage. If I wanted even more protection, I would take this disk to a friend’s house or, better still, store it in a bank’s safe deposit box. The further that the idle backup disk gets away from the primary the better! Storing the idle backup disk outside of the house increases the odds that my critical files will survive a catastrophic event like a house fire, lightning strike, or theft and adds an additional level of safety to my backup plans. Daily backups are my top priority, but keeping my backup drive in the same room as my computer offers no protection from a major disaster. Since I rotate backup drives weekly, I might lose a few days worth of work, but that’s a whole lot better than losing everything.
Amazon s3 Backup
As a professional photographer, I must take backups seriously. I have a couple hundred photos that are of such commercial or personal value that they are worth protecting from a major catastrophe. An off-site and off-line backup disk adds a lot of protection to my backup scheme, but even this is no guarantee that my data will survive an enormous major natural disaster. Fortunately, there are cheap and easy ways to back files up online. An earthquake, hurricane, or flood could destroy all of my hard drives. If a natural disaster strikes, and I survive, then I could eventually buy myself another computer and camera. All of my hardware is replaceable, but some of my most valuable images and critical business documents are not.
Online, “cloud,” backup is in its infancy right now. I suspect that the day will come when the vast majority of our data is stored and backed up in the online “cloud.” Right now, I don’t have the Internet upload speed needed to keep a copy of every image online, but I can certainly afford to upload my most valuable images and documents to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (s3) bucket. Redundant Amazon s3 storage currently costs less than .2 cents per gigabyte per month for US customers! My monthly storage bill averages less than $1 per month. What this Amazon s3 online backup really buys me is peace of mind. It comforts me to know that, even if my local backup plans fail, my most precious images and my business’s tax records are still safely stored on multiple servers in multiple countries. I could eventually retrieve these files from anywhere in the world if I have to flee from my home.
Is this being completely paranoid? Yes, but the price is so low that I think it is totally worth it. Plus, the frequency of natural disasters is expected to rise exponentially through the next century….
Conclusion: Internal hard drives and external hard drives will all eventually fail; both expensive and cheap disks will fail. Nothing electronic lasts forever. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a wonderful image management tool, but it is not a backup system. The need for a backup plan is universal. If all of this seems like a lot of effort, then please consider the dismal alternative. If you have no backup plans, what will you lose when your computer crashes? Could you really re-shoot your favorite pictures or are some of them simply irreplaceable? I believe that the time and effort that I have invested in my backup plans is time well spent, even if disaster never strikes. At least I can sleep at night knowing that I have done all I can to prepare for some catastrophic event.
Related Tutorials:
- Recommended External Hard Drives
- Backing Up Windows Computers with Acronis True Image Home
- Backing Up a Mac with Carbon Copy Cloner
Filed Under: (02) Backup Advice • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tutorials • Featured Articles
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom Expert. David has led Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Lightroom seminars and digital photography field workshops for The Rocky Mountain School of Photography, FirstLight Workshops, The American Society of Media Photographers, and the world-renowned Blackberry Farm Resort. To learn more about David's software seminars and field photography workshops, please visit 
David,
Your tutorials are terrific. I’ve learned so much in such a short time about lightroom considering just a few months ago I never heard of it.
I discovered a relativity inexpensive backup service where you can get unlimited storage space (they say, I think it’s actually 750GB). I paid $166.85 for a 2 year subscription and backup will happen on your schedule automatically. I’m doing it everyday my entire hard drives (internal and external) and I see this as saving an external drive for backup and off site also and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
Check it out http://www.mypcbackup.com/
It works for Macs also
Dear David,
Thanks for your interesting article. I too am trying to develop a proper back-up solution but am a little unsure which way to go.
I have a Macbook Pro which I use with Lightroom but it only has a small internal hard drive(120gb)
In my situation is it best to use the internal drive just for the operating system and applications and purchase a fast portable external hard drive as the my primary. Then back the primary up with a 2 bay mirrored NAS drive such as a synology or just use 2 more external hard drives that I can swap out once a week?
Also, do you recommend using these drives or have you moved on to something else?
OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini RAID External Hard Drive.
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200 RAID Hard Drive.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Dear Justin Lloyd,
If I were in your shoes I would start with my programs on the internal MacBookPro hard drive and add a fast external drive in for your primary image storage. If I could spend your money I would go for a performance RAID disk like the ones that OWC Mercury Elite line of drives. If you do a lot of traveling then the mini version makes sense. If the disk is primarily going to stay at home then I would go for a full-size RAID 0 drive. Why pay a lot more for portability if the drive is only used at home or in your office?
For your redundant backup disks you could use fancy NAS drives or simple external hard drives. Either would work but I personally dislike all things that rely on my network. I find NAS over-priced, slow, and cumbersome for my needs but other experts would disagree. I am currently using two Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive as a rotating pair of backup disks. For my purposes they are plenty of storage at a reasonable price.
No matter what you choose its great to see that you are thinking critically about your whole image storage system / backup system!
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David Marx
After upgrading to lightroom 4…i am getting the following message when launching:
Lightroom cannot open the catalog named “lightroom 4 catalog” located on volume “Primary Photo Storage Drive” because Lightroom cannot save changes to this location. Lightroom Catalgos can not be opened on network volumes, removable storage, or read only volumes.
Is that a change from Lightroom 3? any thought i why all of a sudden its not able to open a catalog saved on an external hard drive.
Thanks
Dear Frank,
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has never been able to work with Catalogs that are stored on network volumes (NAS disks.) So the question must be where is your Lightroom Catalog? Where was your old Catalog stored if you upgraded it then where did you tell Lightroom 4 to store the new copy? Trace down the Catalog’s location and then we will have more clues to solve this trouble.
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David Marx
Bucket Explorer runs on multiple platform including Linux also. Now it come in new flavor of supports for Amazon Identity and Access Management Service (IAM), Multipart Upload, Distribution on Custom Origin and many more.
My main concern about putting everything on Google is this: what happens if I get locked out of my account? My docs, pictures, email, calendar, contacts, etc., will be lost to me forever. That’s a scary thought, IMHO. Or am I just being overly paranoid?
Dear Tyler Beedoo,
If you were truly locked out of your account–with no ability to recover your password–then the documents still exist but you have lost your ability to access them. A: Why would this happen? B: This seems like yet one more reason to keep both local (offline) and online copies of every critical file. C: This article does not advocate keeping everything in a google account. Google does not (yet) offer the kind of robust enormous file storage that I am suggesting photographers use for online backups. For that portion of the file protection puzzle I prefer an Amazon s3 account. But again if I you loose your password, and fail to recover it, then I guess you could still be locked out.
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David Marx
Hi there,
Please excuse the dumb question, but rest assured that I am not being intentionally stupid. Just bought lightroom, and trying to get myself organized.
I followed the link to this article from the one where you describe your storage solutions. So if your catalog and images are both stored on an external hard-drive (let’s call it drive Z), how does an automatic daily backup of your computer’s files onto an external drive help with the task of backing up drive Z? If Z is connected to my laptop (let’s say with eSata), will a standard backup program of my computer (using a USB external drive) also backup the Z drive data? I wouldn’t have thought so….but then I’ve never tried. I just use Windows own internal backup software at the moment. Perhaps you don’t explain how to backup an external drive because any fool would know, but I’m not just any fool! Thanks for your patience.
Dear Deanna,
These are great questions. The answer depends entirely upon the software that you are using and the way that you configure the software. I believe that you can configure multiple backup jobs with the Windows 7 backup utility. One job could protect your computer’s internal disk and the other job could protect the photo storage disk (drive Z.) One of the reasons that I like the Acronis True Image Home for the PC is that this software can indeed backup multiple primary storage drives into a single backup set. Before you switch to another backup utility though explore your current system’s options.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Thanks so much for your answer. I looked at the windows utility more closely and I can indeed backup any “local” external drives. No idea why this seemed so unlikely to me. Even the “let windows choose” (what to backup) option seems to suggest that it will automatically include such drives (if they are connected at the time of backup, of course) but I decided to check the external drive box in the “I choose option” just to be certain.
No luck so far in figuring out how to set up the utility for different backups. Without reconfiguring my preferences anew each time I backup, I can only do it “all at once.” But it works: Checking the contents of my omnibus backup (which I can only do by pretending to “RESTORE MY FILES” – if I try to look directly at the backup drive, I just see some giant VHD files) I see that my external drive got its own root folder, so that is good, and everything seems to be there. Unfortunately the backup is now huge, which means i need to buy bigger storage devices, but I guess there’s no way around that.
So I’m assuming I’m OK with what I’ve got (for now, at least) and will put in place your swapping protocol. If you see any problems with what I’m describing, please do point them out!! And thanks again for your help. You’re doing an amazing job and I hope they are paying you lots of money for this on-line advising (which would make me feel better for leaning on you so much).
One last thing – somewhere along the line, I saw some instructions for manually renaming your external drive Z (in windows) so that lightroom could always find it (otherwise, it can end up with different letters depending on how many externals are hooked up at any given time). I can’t remember if this was your post, or someone else’s, and now I can’t seem to find it — If possible, could you or anyone else provide me the link?
Deanna
Dear Deanna,
I am glad that you are able to backup all of your drives. One job vs. multiple jobs is splitting hairs. The important part is that everything gets protected on a regular basis. My video tutorial about controlling the Windows Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment System is in our Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog Creation and Image Storage Fundamentals post. It’s about midway through the article.
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David Marx
For offline archival there is one product that claims to be a permanent storage medium. Basically, a new type of DVD that doesn’t degrade over time.
The disks are expensive ~$3.00ea in bulk (25-pack) and only 4.7 GB but that is a one-time cost and you don’t have to worry about a service going out of business. Yes, DVDs may go away someday, but I can still find ways to read my old 3.5″ floppys when I really want to (ok, older 5 1/4″ floppys would take a bit more work). I would bet that future computer systems will retain some way to connect today’s external DVD drives for a long time to come.
Note: Oh, and for now you need to buy their burner but it is not too expensive and the disks can then be read by most DVD readers.
It could be a good option for your most important shots.
Millenniata M-Disk
http://millenniata.com/
-Scott
I certainly agree with Scott. Permanent storage DVD’s and Blue-ray DVD’s are the way to go. But I would qualify that by saying that it would mostly depend on the size of the catalog you’re trying to catalog.
If your archive catalog is relatively small, burning and storing 25-75 DVD’s while a little voluminous, would still prove to be a worthwhile investment in the media. In terms of storage capacity, we would be estimating the catalog size at roughly 100 Gb – 300 Gb (this number is even higher if using dual layer dvd’s).
However, there are those of us who have these large collections of captured video and photos approaching 2 Tb of data. The thought of using DVD’s or perhaps even Blu-ray to archive this collection would become unwieldly and impractical.
RDX cartridges are designed for small and medium businesses. They have gained wide acceptance in the industry since their introduction in 2004 I believe.
Most importantly, the technology they rely on is not tape like some backup mechanisms for SMB’s. The cartridge actually contains a laptop like hard-drive without moving parts (the main reason for hard drives failing within 5-7 years).
Again, if you have a large collection and don’t want to go through the hassle of cataloging countless DVD’s and heaven forbid, someday attempting to find a file in your endless stack of DVD’s, you must look into RDX cartridges as a candidate for your archival and storage needs.
Finding a good, solid storage solution is a very difficult pursuit. I’ve been thinking about my precious photos and after having examined many alternatives I’ve come to a conclusion: RDX data cartridges.
You can do the research on your own but essentially you will discover the lack of reliability in most storage mediums: external drives as well as DVD’s and Blu-Ray.
The one storage device that has been estimated to provide approximately 30 years (and up to 100) of data retrieval capabilities are RDX cartridges. Furthermore, they are interchangeable with any other RDX manufacturer.
There is an upfront cost to obtain an RDX drive dock ($69 off EBay) and then the data cartridges. They run in size from 80 Gb to 1 Tb. The 1 Tb alternative is approaching competitive pricing with regular USB drives but they are much more sturdy and have no moving parts.
I bought a 1 Tb RDX cartridge for roughly $200 and I’m in the process of converting all my raw files to dng. The cartridge will be stored at an off-site location. I
Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to keep my regular backup at home on a USB drive and NAS however, this additional step ensures me that I will be covered in case of a catastrophy.
I have to mention that the cartridges are built like tanks and can survive a drop from a full meter onto ceramic floors. Can you do that with your external drive at home??
HP makes a RDX drive called HP StorageWorks while Dell makes the PowerVault RD1000. Meanwhile, several established companies make the cartridges in the capacities mentioned previously: HP, Dell, Quantum and Tandberg.
David, This isn’t related to back-ups per se but I was led to this thread by entering “swap drive” in the search field. Feel free to move or position this thread where it’s most appropriate. My question has more to do with performance. In Photoshop I’ve always used a dedicated swap drive. Usually, it’s on a partitioned hard drive where I use the other partition for time-machine backups. Anyway, I maintain a totally empty 200-300GB swap drive that I point Photoshop to in order to improve it’s efficiency and so that it doesn’t have to look around for dis-contiguous clusters. Is there a way I can improve performance- short of more RAM- in Lightroom 3 by dedicating more virtual with my existing swap drive space?
Dear Carl Socolow,
You could arguably improve Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s performance by using a dedicated partition on a fast hard drive for your Adobe Camera Raw Cache. Storing your Catalog on a fast drive too might improve performance. See Optimizing Lightroom for Best Performance. But before you get carried away making radical expensive hardware changes you might want to read Will an SSD improve Adobe Photoshop Lightroom performance?
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David Marx
Hey David,
Great info from my favorite tech guy in the whole world! I really like the weekly swap out of externals idea…will help solve problem 1 for me. Sounds like organization is the key (always) to protecting those images. Finally getting some snow here in N. Idaho – hope you are enjoying the same!
Thanks Judy! Great to hear from you. Snow has been sparse so far in Montana but there is great skiing right now up in Canada. Rotating backup disks is an easy way to gain one more level of protection.
Best regards,
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David Marx
David
I just read your article about backup. I am still using the system you recommended at RMSP. I have just about run out of storage on my external hard drives and hope to get your assistance when I go to larger hard drives. Hope you are finding some snow. It is scarce this year in California. Regards. Frank
Dear Frank,
Great to hear from you. Send me an email or give me a call after January 21 and we can talk about new hard drives.
Best regards,
David Marx
There is another option to backup data to cloud storage powered by Amazon S3. Check out CloudBerry Backup http://www.cloudberrylab.com/backup . It is one time fee and the rest what you pay for Amazon S3. Besides, there is no proprietary data format and you can access your data using other Amazon s3 tools. Supports all Amazon S3 regions and Reduced Redundancy Storage. It also comes with the integrated AWS Import/ Export service support.
Dear Andy,
Thanks for the Cloudberry plug. I experimented with your basic product too and I was pleased but until you support the mac platform your products are not a practical option for my system. Likewise, I don’t see why I need the Server edition just to use the AWS Import/Export option. Couldn’t a clever customer send their drive to AWS before installing your product then just purchase the Explorer Pro for less money?
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David Marx
Hi David
Thank you for taking your time to look at our software. As for the Import/Export service they need to use the backup software as it writes certain metadata so that the files can be recognized by the backup process and not get overwritten. I wish it was that easy!
We are considering moving AWS Import/ Export support to our desktop edition ($29,99) anyway
Thanks
Andy
Dear Andy,
Many thanks to you actually for the s3 backup system suggestion. Apologies if my previous response sounded rude or harsh. If ya’ll make a Mac version of the software this year I would love to try it out! Thanks again for contributing to the discussion. What I find so interesting about the s3 “online” backup discussion is that there is no “one right way” nor do we have a solid list of “best practices” yet. It’s much more interesting than my usual backup discussions about cloning hard drive A to hard drive B and C on a regular basis! :>
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David Marx
Hi David, what method do you use to upload your most important files to Amazon S3–do you use the S3 webpage-based interface, or is there another program you use to do this? Thanks!
-Eli
Hello Eli G,
Oh, you had to go and ask the hard questions! I left this out of the article because I am not convinced that I have the perfect solution yet for how best to upload and maintain my files in an Amazon s3 account. After a year of experimentation, I have finally settled into a nice system using Transmit on the Mac and S3-Backup on the Pc. < Bucket Explorer is also handy for maintenance on both operating systems though a clever guy like you could probably do everything it does directly from the s3 website. But neither Transmit, S3-Backup, or Bucket Explorer is simply to figure out.
The simplest interface, and most elegant system for scheduled s3 backups, that I have used in the past year of experimentation is JungleDisk. I am not comfortable recommending their service though because their upload system renames my files as it distributes them into my s3 buckets. Basically, once you start using JungleDisk you will need to keep using JungleDisk to upload, download, or maintain your files. That part troubles me. Again, I really like the ease and simplicity of their system but what if I want access to my files without them five or ten years from now?
Brandon Oelling over at x-equals.com has a nice pdf on using JungleDisk and an s3 account but I still worry. What if JungleDisk goes out of business in three years, five years, or ten-years? What if I end up wanting to use my files for other purposes from the s3 storage account without going through the JungleDisks interface? If I decide to abandon their service would I have to re-upload everything? Also as far as I can tell there is also no way to use JungleDisk along with the AWS Import/Export feature. The AWS Import/Export option, which allows you to mail an entire hard drive to Amazon so that they can upload the entire drive into your account, is a huge plus for photographers that are seeking to protect an enormous volume of data. Most of us simply don’t have the Internet speed needed to upload two or three terabytes of data right now….
If you, or one of my other clever readers, has a better way to manage regular scheduled s3 backups please let me know!
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David Marx
Hi
I just would like to mention some other options that I use.
For Windows a Backup Software that’s free (and fantastic):
Cobian Backup 10 (http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm)
And an Online Backup Solution: Crashplan for 3 USD/Month (Unlimited Storage). The Client works on Mac, Windows, Linux and Solaris. At does all the work for you.
forgot the url https://www.crashplan.com
Dear Giuseppe Falce,
Thanks for sharing this info. I have never tried Cobain Backup but I am always interested in new options for Windows backup utilities! I like the Acronis True Image software but it is far from perfect nor is it easy to configure. Crashplan, and JungleDisk, are both very good online backup systems but my money goes much further with a straight Amazon s3 account. That said, Crashplan offers some excellent features and it is a whole lot easier to setup than an s3 backup so it maybe the better choice for non-geek photographers.
I am somewhat fearful though about recommending any particular brand of online backup service other than Amazon. I am hesitant because you are really trusting that whatever service you use today will still be in business three, five, or ten+ years from now when you need to recover those lost files. A lot of professional photographers got burned in the online backup world when Digital Railroad shut down their servers with inadequate notice. I don’t mean to imply that the same fate awaits Crashplan users, or Mozy users, etc. but you, the consumer, are making a long-term investment when you choose to store your files with a business that can terminate its service at any moment. I don’t think that Amazon Inc., and the s3 accounts. will last forever either but I have a sense that if Amazon is going down that the world will get more than the twenty-four hours notice. Poor Digital Railroad customers….
Thanks again for your insight.
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David Marx