On May 28, 2006, at 4:34 PM, NSURIT@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Those who have been around for a while will remember my tales of
> whoa...<snip>
I just quince when I read these tails of stop right here Nellie!....;-)
For my business, (3 Mac workstations plus my G4 PowerBook on 10.4.6)
I run everything off an old 400 mHz G4 as server, with 120GB hard
drive, running OS 10.3.9. (Just haven't gotten around to
upgrading....) Right now, all my personal images are on separate
background, password protected users on the machines on the network,
so my digital images get backed up using this system as well:
1) two matching OWC Mercury Elite Aluminum Pro Firewire 400/800/USB
2.0 400GB hard drives <http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/
USB/EliteAL/800+USB2/>
2) Retrospect Backup Software. <http://www.emcinsignia.com/> set to
incrementally back up everything but cache files on every machine on
the network, every night. It does this automatically, with absolutely
no input from me. It's copies it all to a file on one of the hard
drives.
I keep one of the 400GB drives at home, and one at the office doing
the backups every night. I swap them out every Friday. Because
they're the same I can keep the power supply and hook-ups, and just
eject them from the desktop, pull the plugs and make the switch, a 30
second operation. I have two matching Retrospect scripts--one for
each hard drive. Both are set to run every night. I get an error
message for script that's attached to the drive that's not there, but
having the two scripts means if I forget to bring the other drive in,
the backup keeps writing to the drive that's there. Again, not having
to think is the key. Swapping them once a week means worst case I'm
out a week's worth of work.
There's a schedule that makes Retrospect wipe everything and start
from scratch with a new backup, about once every four months or so--
the time it takes incremental backups to fill one of those 400GB
drives. Again, automatic.
The whole system is pricey--probably about $1200 altogether,
including Retrospect. But it's fairly fool-proof, redundant, and most
important, requires no thought except to remember to bring the other
drive in once a week or so. Setting it up is fairly easy--Retrospect
does most of it for you.
Being (apparently) a belts and suspenders kinda guy I have another
program I use to sync all the documents of current projects to
folders on my laptop. Chronosync is pretty slick. <http://
www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html>
I have it set up to run a sync every time the drive mounts.
AND...I back-up accounting and personal data and settings to Dot-Mac
as well. All automated.
AND...I have a LaCie Porche Design 40GB portable FW/USB drive I use
with Chronosync, specifically to store duplicates of all my images
and iView Media Pro catalogs.
AND...I periodically (at the end of projects) back up to CD.
AND...I'm still shooting FILM!
Of course, since I created this system I haven't yet had need for it.
I have a feeling it's a "bring the umbrella so it won't rain" kinda
thing. Now that we do everything on CAD though, a hard drive crash
could cost my business thousands and thousands of dollars and several
weeks' worth of irate clients. So it seems completely worthwhile to me.
Rob in Seattle
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