D.A.M.. Degrees of complexity

[JohnvN]

After sustaining a series of costly mishaps with pictures I had taken and backed up on an independant hard drive kept in a locked fireproof safe stored elsewhere in my home , I took a decision that I should follow a D.A.M. route and thereby have the missing safeguards in place at all times. To this end I purchased "The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh who is described as the "leading expert on DAM".
I have commencd reading his book but am fast becoming convinced that he is catering for a standard of photographer with an annual workflow of images far in excess of my own. In one of his examples he refers to his workfflow in the year 2008 as being of the order of 300,000 images. He meticulously deals with all the facets of DAM but in endeavouring to follow him I soon become hopelessly lost and lose concentration. My question therefore is are there degrees of DAM which could be followed or should I knuckle down to the task of becoming au faix with his system? Perhaps those of you who have studiied his book will be able to point me in the right direction.

[Chris F]

John in 1996 I authored a text book ... long story short - the computer packed up and the HD got corrupted !! LOST the only electronic copy (irony is it all happened while trying to install a tape backup system, to backup the book)

Since then I follow a few basic rules:

When I create something on a pc that is worth keeping it is backed up OFF the PC.


You stand to loose your material via a couple of routes:
- theft - keep the backup away from laptop/computer to reduce the chances of it being stolen with your computer
- HD failure - I keep the first backup ON the computer, on a second drive. This is then backed-up on anther drive that gets stored away.
- Fire or other major occurance - guess a fire proof safe will help, but found it impractical to use over an extended period.



PS - you recon he took 1 000 pics per day for 300 days in the year ?? thats one way to go through a coupl of shutters per year ...

[anco85]

My backup system works as follows.

Operating system installed on a separate solid state drive with another drive running apps. Then I've got a RAID 1 array(mirrored) where only images are stored. This array is backed up to a fifth internal drive weekly. Then I've got a NAS that runs via Ethernet to the bedroom and into a fireproof safe hidden *somewhere* This backup is done daily.

It's not fool proof and I need to figure out a way to ensure the NAS drive is working properly on a daily basis, but so far it's worked for me and was relatively cheap to implement. I lost both raid drives and the backup drive due to an electric storm not too long ago and the NAS drive came to my rescue, but I fear what may happen if I lose the internal drives and NAS

[JohnvN]

Anco and Chris thank you both for your helpful comments they are much apreciated. May I also add that it would appear that his reference to the year 2008 showing 278595 images was not for the total images of 2008 but the total of images taken over a 7 year period including 2008 which then means that on an average he took 39799.3 images per annum. My apologies if I misled you.

[Leo Theron]

And the off site, totally disconnected, back-up?

You must ask yourself ONE question:

What work can I afford to loose? One hour, day, week, month... worth of work?

That answer determines your backup frequency.

Then you need a hierarchy of disks onto which you save your back-ups.

And you must practice to do a recovery… full PC/Mac (O/S, Apps) and then back onto your data.

@anco85: You have all your eggs in that one basket which is called a computer. One power spike, theft, fire, rain storm or whatever and it is GONE WEG NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN… (and you will only understand that if it has happened to you!)

@Chris said: If it is worth keeping, it is worth keeping off PC, disconnected from PC AND off site.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

I think whether you take 1,000 images a year, or 100,000 thouasand, the system pretty much stays the same, only the types of storage media changes (memory stick vs NAS or Drobo)

I have everything on Lacie Rugged Drives, Backup to Drobo... Images that brings in money goes off site to Photoshelter for backup (and double up as extra display gallery)

[anco85]

And the off site, totally disconnected, back-up?

You must ask yourself ONE question:

What work can I afford to loose? One hour, day, week, month... worth of work?

That answer determines your backup frequency.

Then you need a hierarchy of disks onto which you save your back-ups.

And you must practice to do a recovery… full PC/Mac (O/S, Apps) and then back onto your data.

@anco85: You have all your eggs in that one basket which is called a computer. One power spike, theft, fire, rain storm or whatever and it is GONE WEG NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN… (and you will only understand that if it has happened to you!)

@Chris said: If it is worth keeping, it is worth keeping off PC, disconnected from PC AND off site.

Leo, while that certainly is true, I reckon I'm covered for most situations(except a house wide sweeping theft)

PC is running a Raid 1 setup, meaining totally redundant should 1 drive fail, that array is backed up to another drive. No chance a power spike will ruin a raid1 AND secondary drive. SHould the PC be stolen however, there's the NAT drive in the hidden fireproof safe. I can only REALLY afford to lose images of current clients that haven't had their media delivered yet, but images are backed up to my laptop as well as my assistants on the day of shooting.

Like I mentioned, it's not perfect, but it's about as close as I can get now. Cloud based storage might be an option, but forget about uploading RAW files.

Imagine uploading 12-24gig worth of Raw files per weekend O_O

[Chris F]

Leo well said !

[JohnvN]

Thankyou everyone for sharing your experience and knowledge with me. It has certainly enabled me to obtain a more clear picture of what should be done. I accept that the DAM Book is without any doubt the work of an expert who has dealt with most contingencies that may arise. His work is akin to a professorial thesis which is fine for those who understand the terminology and nuances and are able to follow the course he has set. Insofar as I am concerned it rather resembles the Hampstead Heath Maze. Ek kan net nie vatplek kry nie. At present I backup every other day to an Iomega remote hard drive stored in a fireproof safe which is part of the building and can not be moved. When the Iomega nears capacity I will invest in a Drobo or such other suitable device as I may be advised. In the meantime I am lending the dam book to my IT consultant and hope that he is up to speed by the time the Iomega fills up.

[Trevor Ives]

I listen to some podcasts, many sponsored by Carbonite a constant cloud backup service. Looks jolly good and for the price, well worth it. So I used the free trial... Hahah.... on my 4meg line, it would take 90 days to make a backup into the cloud, during which time i could add more and more data. And this is 90 days of constant computer on time... So a great idea, but not for SA... upload speeds are too slow. So you need a clever way of doing backups.

I use a NAS, and backup there. Periodically I swap out on of the mirrored drives with an equivalent model. I take that offsite. Not ideal, but it works.

[Leo Theron]

John,

DAM is the full process from shooting, uploading, keywording (for later retrieval and selling), processing and output to archival backup.

The IT environment has given us all the processes, tools and procedures to do excellent backups and to be able to recover after nearly any disaster.

In my view you can have the first part (Keywording, processing, retrieval, output) well sorted, but without your images (that were not properly backed up and were stored off site, you will be poorly placed after the disaster…)

With a 1 TB USB 3.0 disk less than R1000…

Some things to think about:

- If you clean up your shoots (throw away the crap) you problems becomes much, much smaller

- The data (your shots) are critical - you need that. And do not forget your business information: Mail/Contact lists/CRM. And all those special actions, setups and goodies that makes YOUR life easier?

- You can always buy a computer, install the software and run from there….

- Clouds (iCloud, Dropbox, Google) are nice as backup for writers, but for photographers it will remain a problem. Why? Camera RAW image sizes and the quantities shot are growing faster than network speeds! (Good one Trevor!)

- Do you have the mindspace to recover from a disaster? Fire/Flood/Virus/Theft/Electrical failure/Equipment failure.

- And that backup - Do you have your OWN processes to deal with it? Remember - it is like a reserve parachute or an ejection seat - it is the last resort! Before you touch it - you must be sure what you must do!

[anco85]

I think the best solution in Southern Africa is ensuring a solid backup on your computer, a solid backup on a NAS inside a fireproof safe that gets swapped out to an external location daily/weekly depending on your requirements.

[JohnvN]

Leo, thank you for the interest you have taken. Yes I have an Iomega remote hard drive in my safe with a programe known as Syncback which was provided and installed by the IT consultants who look after me. It is programed to back up every 48 hours which it does. Regards John