

Ask HN: What is your photo backup strategy (on Mac)? - jozi9


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0bit
My photos are very important to me, so i do several backups: 1) The iPhoto
Library is rsync'd to an external HDD 2) The iPhoto Library is rsync'd to a
local FreeNAS box 3) Arq backup to S3
[http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/](http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/)
4) Crashplan backup to 3 locations: an external drive, a local server (not the
FreeNAS box), as well as Crashplan central.

Terabytes are cheap, memories are not.

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mikehotel
I use duplicity ([http://duplicity.nongnu.org](http://duplicity.nongnu.org))
to locally encrypt (GPG) and backup to a LAN machine running ZFS and to one or
more cloud services (Google, AWS) depending on the data. This is automated
using cron.

Whatever backup option you decide on, do not forget to test the
recovery/restore process at least once a year. You can tweak your strategy
anytime based on current cloud storage prices.

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ghuntley
AWS Bucket w/revisions enabled connected to PictureLife.com. Amazon raises
invoices directly to me for storage usage and if PictureLife shuts down
(hopefully not) then there's no need to export data because I own/control the
data. ie. AWS provides the hosting and PictureLife provides the product on-top
of my hosting.

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AlexLa
Manual backup to external HDD + automatic backup to google drive with this app
[https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268](https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/4392268)
I also like the opportunity to view these photos through Google+ Photos
interface.

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Brian-Puccio
Time Machine to a Linux file server (large RAIDZ2 ZFS array) for both my MBP
and the GF's iMac.

CrashPlan family edition (unlimited backups for up to ten computers) for both
of us, the Linux file server and my parents laptops as well.

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conchy
Use Aperture vault, and hope Apple doesn't decide to discontinue the product
..... Doh!

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tobinharris
I upload my favourite shots to Flickr full res. This is about 1% of my photo
collection.

I then pray my HDD doesn't fail!

One day I'll get organised and backup everything up to one of those 1TB NAS
with auto-cloud sync :S

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davesmylie
Google Drive - syncs automatically full res photo's from my phone which
shortly end up sync'd to my macbook.

Drive is the authoritive store for my photo's - any thing on my PC can be lost
with no problems

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derpadelt
Unison via SSH to a Raspberry-Pi-attached USB HDD. Upload to Flickr via cron-
triggered python script from RasPi. Arq to S3. Hoping that "only to
camlistore" will be the answer in 3-5 years.

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andybak
Same as the rest of my data backup strategy. Backblaze.

~~~
gregcohn
How have you found it? I tried it out and found it was something like 45 days
to run a full backup on my 1TB machine, and discontinued it fairly
immediately.

Let's just say that was more than 45 days ago....

~~~
andybak
Can't remember how long it took but it finished uploading before I needed an
emergency restore ;-)

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chrisked
I have all photos in dropbox with packrat feature. Furthermore I backup to my
local Synology NAS via their software and to AWS S3 via arq.

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karp
Onsite backup via time machine to a NAS Offsite backup to Backblaze

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robinhoodexe
Time machine once every day to a 2 TB external harddrive (WD Elements). It
just works.

~~~
andybak
My big data-loss fear is a household robbery - so offsite is essential. Have
you considered a scenario that involves losing your Mac and your backup
drives?

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brent_noorda
3 levels. 1) time machine. 2) BitTorrent sync to share photo folders. 3) Mozy

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Haiperlink
\+ rsync to External HDD at home \+ another at work \+ backblaze

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indielol
BitTorrent Sync from Android to an Ubuntu server in LAN.

