Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Vinyl Graphics
of Taft" <hedgpeth_98@...> wrote:
SNIP 
> Well, I use two 500GB external drives that I bought from Dell for
> under $170 each.  You can also buy a Terrabyte Hard Drive for under
> $300. I also take all my prized CR2 photos and convert to Adobe DNG
> files, then archive them on Gold DVD's.  I bought a cheap ($500) gun
> safe with a one hour burn limit to store all my important items in the
> shop.  If it catches fire, my data will still be OK, as the safe is
> fire-proof and water tight.
> 
> Uncle Dannie

I want to caution everyone, that while external disk drives are a lot
more convenient than CD's or DVD's, don't get lulled into thinking
that just because a drive isn't on all the time, doesn't mean it won't
fail!

I learned the lesson the hard way. Lost 120 gigs of pictures because
the drive wouldn't spin up any more. Sent it in to one of those drive
data retrieval places--they tried the $500 fix, but were not
successful. (didn't have to pay them that amount though--just
shipping) Next step was the $1500-2000 clean-room job, but I wasn't up
for spending those kind of bucks.

By all means have at least two copies of all your stuff.

Currently I'm using a Raid 5 NAS server, which I back up to an
external drive once a week.

If one of the RAID 5 disks go, I'm supposed to be able to plug in a
new drive, and it will reconstruct everything. But just in case, I
also have an external drive, which I can plug into any PC and read the
stuff off it. I've also become a believer in having both MAC & PC's
around. 

John Nollendorfs