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I Will Never Lose my Photos Again

Vanelli 12/14/2014 6

Yes… that’s a pretty bold headline… but I am confident in my strategies to keep my images safe. The solution covered in this article is a part of my backup strategy. Be sure to see my article about my 3-2-1 backup plan that ensures my photos are kept on multiple types of media in multiple locations. While I talk about specific products in this story, I also talk about best practices like RAID and drive verification. No matter which storage you use, be sure to read the whole article.

I Tested a Lot of Options

I’m fortunate to have this privilege and receive offers on a regular basis. Just because I receive offers doesn’t mean I accept the product. I research the product and determine if it will find a place in my workflow. Then I ask myself, if I become dependent on this product, can I afford to replace it if something happens to it. If I like it would I buy more and would I tell friends to use it.

Several years ago a good friend of mine, Mark Fuccio introduced me to a member of the Drobo team, Jim Sherhart. Jim asked me to try out a Drobo unit and give him honest feedback from a photographer’s point of view. “Try it, Like it, Keep it” is a perk for being a writer and an educator.

Drobo_Open_Hi

My First Experiences with Drobo

I’ve been using Drobo storage since some of their first units. The connection options have come a long way, but I was skeptical at first. In the case of Drobo, there were several things to consider:

  • My main concern was can I trust my photos stored on the new unit.
  • My next concern was could I afford topurchase new hard drives since they were not included with the Drobo.
    • At the time, hard drives had recently increased in price.
    • The unit stayed on my shelf for a month before I purchased three 2TB drives, which were the largest at the time.
  • With the hard drives in place, I began my testing.

Why RAID Matters

If you don’t use a Drobo, then be sure to use some form of RAID (a Redundant Array of Independent Disks). There are many different RAID and NAS systems on the market. The concept is the same, your files are stored over multiple drives. If one drive fails, it can be replaced without it effecting your data integrity. After the first week of using the Drobo as my main drive for editing, I fell in love with it as my choice for storage. I chose to use eSATA for speed and reliability over USB 2.0. I used my old external drives as my backup drives knowing someday I would get another Drobo unit to take their place. It was a pain backing up to multiple drives so a second Drobo entered my workflow. I created a “3-2-1 backup plan” that ensured my photos were save.

photo

Hard Drive Failure Alert

A little while later, I added a new 2TB drive. It worked great for a few days, then Drobo alerted me there was a hard drive failure. The new drive was the culprit.

Working with Drobo support, I took the drive out and re-seated it. That didn’t work. I took the drive out and connected to my system, formatted the drive and inspected it. Windows said it was healthy, so I installed it back into the Drobo.

Same error. I took the drive out again and ran a complete test on it using Seagate’s diagnostic tool. Sure enough, lots of bad sectors. The tool suggested I call in for a return. A week later I received the new drive and everything worked perfectly.

I was impressed Drobo knew there was a deep seated problem with the drive even though Windows claimed the drive was healthy. An instant loyalty was formed between Drobo and myself.

Are you a Drobo Evangelist?

I consider myself a DATA BACKUP EVANGELIST who prefers to use Drobo as my tool to backup and secure my data. During seminars or talks, I promote Building a Bullet Proof Backup Plan. If you use the Drobo system that’s great. If you have another system you use that’s great too. Either way, you need to have smart storage that grows with you and protects what matters most, your images.

A quick video on how my storage solution was created.

Extra Resources

  • 3-2-1 backup plan
  • Building a Bullet Proof Backup Plan.
  • Drobo 5D
  • The Super-Safe Quadruple Backup Workflow
  • About
  • Latest Posts

Vanelli

Robert Vanelli (Vanelli to his friends) is a working photographer, educator and author living in Florida. After a successful career as a three-time, Triple Crown Karate champion, Vanelli turned his attention to teaching the visual arts. As an experienced educator, Vanelli has created several photography and digital workflow programs including Click for Kids.

Currently he is teaching workshops, writing for Photofocus and creating tutorials for various plug-in companies and for the Vanelli and Friends series.

You can find out more about Vanelli at www.VanelliandFriends.com

Latest posts by Vanelli (see all)

  • Blurry pictures: What causes them and how to get sharp photos - February 9, 2019
  • Quick Tip: Create your own Actions, Presets & Luminar Looks - February 8, 2019
  • Would you pay 3.5 million dollars for this photo? - February 4, 2019

Categories: Photography Tags: backup Drobo hard drive photo storage

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Victor Bezrukov, photographer says

    December 17, 2014 at 12:09 am

    Nice Article Robert. i believe that the way of your work with the network drive or some external space connected with eSata or USB is very usual with every storage system – Drobo or whatever.
    but the real check of stability and availability is not to play with HD but with the Drobo system.
    you have two factors in this configuration – the Hard disks and the Drobo hardware by itself.
    try to imagine for a moment the the hardware failure is in the Drobo system and all HDs are ok.
    in this situation you should get the new Drobo box and use your HDs with your RAID data on this box. my question is – whether the new system to recognize the RAID configured on other Drobo box. i heard that there problems with this kind of Drobo hardware failure situations because the RAID information stored only on the Drobo’s hardware.

     
    Reply
    • Richard Harrington says

      December 17, 2014 at 7:28 am

      I can verify that moving a set of Drobo drives from one unit to another is supported. If the Drobo has issues you can move your drives to a new unit and keep working. If the drive has issues you can replace it and the Drobo will rebuild.

       
      Reply
      • Victor Bezrukov, photographer says

        December 17, 2014 at 8:04 am

        Hi Richard. If Drobo save configuration of the RAID on the Drobo machine and on HD drives – it should be the best.

         
        Reply
        • Richard Harrington says

          December 17, 2014 at 8:06 am

          I’ve been using them for years in both my office and home studio. While I’ve had drives fail and one Drobo act up (they swapped it out) I have never lost data. We use about 20 of their devices across my 2 companies and 6 years with no lost data is proof enough for me.

           
          Reply
  2. Claude SCHMITT says

    January 2, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    Hello,
    I use a similar system with Synology NAS to backup nightly all my work and documents with Syncback Pro. that works great, with a harddsik failure from time to time (10 disk / 2 enclosure system running 24h/7days). but one day all was gone…I thought sending my disks to a restoration company, but contacted Synology support : they asked for a SSH access to my system and a few days later, all was restored ! Champions…
    Even if I have another backup on USB disks, this is impressive as support service and for free !
    hope this helps,

    Claude
    Reader from south of France

     
    Reply
    • Vanelli says

      January 2, 2015 at 9:01 pm

      Thanks for sharing

       
      Reply

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