NAS Storage for Photos & Video: PROTECT YOUR DATA!

Tony Northrup (a former IT nerd and storage expert) teaches you how to properly backup your photos and videos - because your external USB drive IS NOT ENOUGH! It's a good start, but it doesn't protect your photos and videos in the event of natural disasters (fire, flood) or theft. It also won't protect you from malware and ransomware.
He discusses cloud storage solutions, NAS (Network Attached Storage), including a description of his geographically distributed Synology DS1817+ configuration with over 400TB of storage in two different locations.
Tony also describes bitrot, which causes old files to gradually degrade even if they are backed up.

[TheKcpxp]

I have been an IT person for over 20 years. I shot my first wedding for a coworker 7 years ago. I used a Canon 5D with 2 memory cards. After the wedding I backed up all my memory cards to my computer and then to an external hard drive. The next morning I left on vacation to go camping. I received a call from my neighbor at 2:00 am telling me that my house was on fire and the fire department was cutting a hole in my roof to let the smoke out.

They busted out all my windows and threw all my computers and electronics out of the windows. When i got home my Mac was sitting on a pile of debris with water dripping out of it. My external hard drive and memory cards were in another soaking wet pile. I was devastated. I lost everything I owned except for the clothes I took on vacation. I found all the memory cards and my 2 hard drives while raking through the debris. I put them in a bag of rice for a week. I had to call my coworker and tell her that all of her wedding pictures were in the house during the fire.

After a week i connected the hard drives to a USB device and amazingly I was able to get 100% of my data. Even the memory cards still worked. I learned a huge lesson that I should have been following, being an IT person for over 20 years! Get those files offsite ASAP. The 3-2-1 backup strategy simply states that you should have 3 copies of your data (your production data and 2 backup copies) on two different media with one copy off-site for disaster recovery.

[clindsay]

This is such a good summing up of the situation. I have made 5 family albums but discovered some corrupted images in the process, which is incredibly sad. I laid out the albums in Affinity Publisher, exported the high res PDFs as well as email quality, and distributed these to family who can decide to print from the high res versions if they want. But after watching this, I realise even more the need to back up twice, in different locations. Thank you Tony!

[AlEbnereza]

Oh man have I been there done that! Replicated corrupted data is a nightmare. Offline solid state back ups plus data integrity checked Time Machine backups, plus cloud galleries that are unsynced and static. Long term data management is a deep rabbit hole. I so feel your pain TonyTone!

[shoop]

Once a year, I go through all my kids pictures on my drives and make an old fashioned hard copy photo book and have backed up pictures on different drives - Thanks for this video lost memories sucks - I am in my 50’s and getting to the age I think more about memories and not the things we have acquired - When we are on our death bed I want to remember those moments while having headphones listening to music — life is all about memories with your family friends and moments -

[TheChadOlson]

In my early days of selling computer stuff, I heard and remembered a quote "There's data you've backed up, and data you haven't lost yet". I try to backup my photos on my desktop, laptop, wife's laptop, Google Photos, and photobooks I've created and had printed. Only saving grace in my case is my total storage is under 1TB total. Oh, and when I worked at an actual office vs home, I kept a backup drive there too.

Anyway, great video. Thanks very much. As for a (lame sauce) horror story, I lost the photos I'd taken for my brother-in-law's wedding a few years after the event, and it was maybe another decade later my brother-in-law found the CD backup I'd made for him at the time and I was able to get the photos back.

[chrisstout]

Had a programming teacher who said, “Blessed are those who make backups of backup”. I would always have a running backup and one stored in the bank vault. Macs use a concurrent backup. But to be safe, have a separate folder the Mac never uses. So, basically you have a concurrent backup on the backup drive and a separate folder that contains the photos. (X2). Much harder if you take thousands of photos weekly but it that’s your income, then invest. Memory is cheap cheap cheap compared to 20 years ago.

[AlEbnereza]

Use a NAS that uses ZFS as a file system, since zfs has built-in bit rot and data integrity features. We build large enterprise storage SANs with sensitive data, all built on ZFS. In 18+ years haven’t had a single corruption issue with high io storage devices. I don’t remember the last time I had to do data recovery.

[radiozelaza]

it is quite remarkable how often your photos get corrupted, especially on external drives. I had corrupted files very soon after copying them on the drive. Once I even discovered that whole directories just disappeared

[dougcarr]

Great video, Tony - thank you very much! So sorry for your loss (we felt your pain). In a seminar years ago, an IT expert advised about backing up digital media - get in the habit (at least annually) of migrating your data to the next-best most secure storage available and have an off-site location. ChronoSync software really helps as you syncronize your drives. Your recommended use of battery backup power conditioners is spot on. I use 5 (from APC). Electrical spikes and sags can wreak havoc on sensitive micro electronics. The videos you and Chelsea produce are great!

[RustyBrown_]

Great info, as always, Tony. I think all of us - pro or enthusiast, must find the best way (that suits the individual) to address backup, recovery, and loss. I don't think there's any one way that's the correct way. Each photographer should find what works best -- from a perspective of value, cost, time, and importance.

I'm not a fan of cloud storage -- but I'm only an enthusiast. For me, it's simple -- I don't store any photos on my desktop (or laptop) PC. After every shoot, I copy the contents of the memory cards to an external drive (connected to my desktop). Note - If I'm in the field for an extended shoot, I bring an external drive and copy the contents of the days shoot to that external drive, connected to my laptop, each evening. The external drive is backed up to my local Synology DS 920+, and a make a backup of the external to a 2nd external (then store the 2nd external offsite). At this point I have 3 sources of the photos (not counting the memory cards). I don't format the memory cards until I've confirmed the files on the Synology and the 2 external drives.

I do all Lr/Ps post processing from the desktop-attached external drive -- not the fastest method, but then again, I'm not a fast editor. And, I replace the external drives every 3 years. Is it perfect? Nope - not even close. Do I sleep well? As well as one can, I suppose. I end up with my complete NAS backup - original and edited files; another copy of the edited and original files on the desktop-connected external drive; and a copy of just the original raw files on the non-connected external drive.

For me - this sysem works.

Like most of us, I don't go back and view the hundreds of thousands of old images on my drives, with any regularity. I just don't have the time. But I hope that keeping my external drives fresh, on a 3 year rotation minimizes the chances of storing corrupted files.

Thanks again for the insight, detail, and passion. Truly appreciated.

[esenel]

One of the main reasons I'm using ZFS for storage at the moment, with scrubs every other month to check everything for corruption and to correct it if needed.
With spinning disks I've found that basically since around the time they introduced shingled magnetic recording reliability has gone downhill (even on non SMR disks).
I have old 1-2 TB drives that have been running for years and return less corrupted data than brand new drives of similar size.
Using a filesystem that can recover corruption combined with regular scrubbing of the disks, and to basically not sync files older than a few weeks from your PC (that probably uses a filesystem that won't catch corruption) to the storage server anymore really helps prevent issues for me.
Also I don't know the current state, but iirc btrfs did have issues with raid5 or 6 type usage when I last looked into it allowing data to get corrupted.
Also, don't have the backup server "mounted" on your system as network drive or network source by default, set the server up to initiate the connection to your PC to get the data. That really reduces the chances of ransomware getting to the data

[gregoryfricker]

This is why I got into Freenas (now truenas) which uses ZFS which uses scrubbing to protect against bit rot.

[okaro]

I back up only new files or files where the date or size has changed. That means an error inside the file will not be duplicated to the backups.

[seanivrymusic]

i must have missed the part where you avoid backing up corruption. does you Synology system do some sort of special verification? if your files are corrupted does it alert you?

[ebardes]

Also IT background. I've been running a ZFS storage array with two drive redundancy (RAIDZ2) for years now and it has been rock solid. I run pool scrubbing monthly and it has from time to time detected and corrected bit rot. One of the Amazon services I've been taking advantage of is free photo storage for Amazon Prime customers. This includes RAW photos too. My workflow works something along the lines of: Import from SD to laptop. The Amazon Photos app runs in background monitoring my pictures folder. I also sync to my ZFS NAS. On another system, I have the Amazon Photos app download to another system. I think run a hash calculation on both the NAS and the downloaded photos. When cleaning an SD card, I hash those files and if that hash exists on BOTH Amazon and NAS I'll delete just that file.

[ntulsian]

Wise words from a wise man. Thank you for all the videos you've made over the years, I just started about a year ago with the DSLR and can't imagine how difficult it would have been for me to piece together all the information that you put in your videos.

Thank you.

[shaungibson]

Sorry to hear, like you its just happened to me. 20 years of work and memories. I will now place in multi locations. thanks for a great video

[chaser]

So sorry for this event! Thank you for sharing with everyone!

[dksimonsphotography]

Funny that you made this video after I had an issue with memory cards. Fortunately I didn't lose any pictures. My issue was that I started out shooting on a Canon APS-C camera and of course those only have 1 memory card slot. Last year I bought an R6. Of course those have 2 card slots. I use 2 Sony Tough cards in it. Last Saturday I was shooting and my camera stopped taking pictures. I thought one of the card became corrupt. I was smart enough to have listened to you Tony about keeping more cards handy. So I swapped the cards out and kept shooting. I got home and checked the cards. Come to find out my second Tough card was full! I had never deleted the old photos from it because I didn't realize I had to switch between cards to delete everything. Luckily I have everything backed up on an external HDD and 2 cloud serviced. So no more lost pictures. Thank you Tony and Chelsea for drilling the 'carrying the extra cards' into me all these years!!

[dsdddsdwe]

Computer Information Systems degree, but professional cinematographer and wedding cinematographer here.

This is so key, personal and business. My personal/business setup includes a QNAP 72TB ZFS NAS system with a UPS as well.
As a business owner capturing footage that cannot be re-shot, a data backup is probably the most important aspect of your business. There is way too much on the line.

The QNAP has Hybridbackupsync that allows you to back up footage to multiple online providers like Google Drive, Backblaze, and Onedrive.
Once the footage has been shot, I upload it immediately to a Google Drive Workspace account. $12 per month per user and unlimited data.

That way, if anything happens to the server locally, that data is up on Google's servers and can be re-downloaded at any time.

From a personal perspective, it is true that we should be printing our photos and making albums.