backing up and organizing photos | my ENTIRE workflow

[@ChrisRoutledge]

There's an old saying in archive management: if it doesn't exist in three places it doesn't exist.

[@afiskandar]

When it comes to storage, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. I have 3 hdd for backup. We need more of these short tips videos Matt :)

[@thephotomanagers]

Great strategy! Backups are so important.

[@themokap]

Heyy thanks for sharing! I love your honesty about not liking the storage part and not being too technical about these devices😂

[@CookedLight]

Great job. I work in IT...a lot of our own engineers and clients aren’t this clued up about backup!! I am going to make sure they all watch this when they question why. A raid will be inside a NAS, network attached storage that you plug into your router, or sometimes they can be plugged into the computer where they get called DAS, direct attached storage. They work exactly the same. But you will still need an off-site copy, you could get a friend to buy the same box and you can back up to each other’s nas over the internet. The most cost-effective for individuals is RAID5 where you use 4 disks, you “lose” one disk capacity but any one disk can fail and the other 3 carry on regardless while you buy and install a replacement, usually while the nas is still running...”hot swap” is the term to look for.

[@cwdaly2032]

Great & important video. The Samsung T5 & T7 also have the ability to be encrypted. That’s how I use my T7s.

[@galtidea]

So interesting about creating a Lightroom catalog for each event and it follows the RAW files. That's so smart.

[@holdmyown32]

I use capture one sessions for this reason. Capture one has option for catalog amor sessions.

[@BillMcCarroll]

Good tips Matt. My backup includes a Drobo 5DS with a backup to Backblaze. Can’t beat unlimited cloud storage for the price of Backblaze.

[@jorgemoro5476]

Same here!!!

[@Jakob-Long]

In regards to ChronoSync: i'm old school kinda guy and like to use command to get things done. For my file sync needs I use rsync which comes with OSX and linux based system. For you windows users out there robocopy does the same thing and it's free :D

[@RoaringPersuasion]

Thank you massive help !!! Appreciate it BIG TIME!!

[@nathanwabre]

Great video and so overlooked topic that causes a lot of anxiety and troubles in every one daily life. From my personal experience as a professional photographer and filmmaker, I have tried a lot of different systems and methods: from the good old manual double backup to the 4 slot RAID NAS storage system and passing by the software processed backups... Guess where I am now? Back to the hood old manual backup! And to me this is the ONLY way to go and keep the control on the most important thing ever: you creations, your files, your time, your memories,... All the previous mentioned methods will fail at some point and the process to bring those files back is... you will not do it and give up! My rules ans process: 1. Buy enough SD cards so you NEVER format them before delivering the project to the client 2. Have at least 2 different drives (3 would be better but ok a budget 2 can be ok is you do the right things) which have all the same exact content on them 3. Each time you unload your SD cards you copy FROM the SD card to each and every single Drive you have for that. 4. Once the files are backup on each drive, keep on at your desk to work ok the files BUT BRING THE OTHERS ELSEWHERE! 5. When finished working on the project, save all modified files, all the data’s, presets, luts, XPM, XML, methadatas, etc.. first on the main disc you are working on. the project to all of these same discs 6. Then, bring back to your desk ONE of the backup disk and update it with all the new and modified content of the project. If you have two backup discs (3 drives total), bring the other another time and do the same thing. 7. Make sure all the backup discs have now the same exact content on them ( number, weight of the projects) 6. Have an online backup now - or you can use the private gallery you have made for the client or Vimeo or something like this if you use it anyway. 7. Once you have the feedback of the client, wait a month or two and format your SDs. Also, AVOID Western Digital products as much as Lexar SD cards!!!! All I had crashed!!! Good luck and cheers!

[@onetrue217]

Thanks for this. Which SD cards would you recommend if not Lexar?

[@nathanwabre]

@@onetrue217LaCie hard drives and SanDisk Extreme Pro SD cars are the way to go

[@joco1164]

This is the kind of guidance I need.

[@hossmacian]

I'm the same way with Lightroom. Have a main folder for the year, then a folder with the YYYY-MM-DD and description of the images in that folder, dump the files in there and create a new catalog for just that folder. But being in the IT field, data backup to the cloud is huge to me. I use Code 42 Crashplan for small business. All of my files end up on 1 computer that acts like "the server" (my iMac) and then Code 42 runs a backup every night. And it's saved my butt in the past when an 8TB drive died on me that had everything on it. Just got a new one then ran the restore for the cloud and everything was back exactly where it was.

[@iamchristynette]

Just what I needed

[@coxbright]

Exactly what I needed. Thanks!

[@thyalyssatran]

This was so helpful, thank you!

[@alexanderlopez5848]

Don’t ever give up on your dreams! You can achieve youtube greatest!!!

[@AeromaticXD]

Holy crap, this seems kind of overwhelming to think about. Hard drives are also kind of pricey too!

[@jorgemoro5476]

I’m headed to the Yukon and Northern Alaska ( think Arctic Ocean ) to shoot for 2 months. I shoot Fuji X and the Fuji 50r and 100s. I’m not taking my laptop. Only my iPad Pro with 1tb capacity plus a couple of 1tb Samsung SSD’s. If I land in a place with decent wifi I’ll use my cloud to copy files over. But w the size of the files I shoot I doubt the iCloud backup will work.

[@Chalito5]

I like this approach to your back up. Simple and to the point.

[@usefulidiot00]

PSA: If you don't have a backup off site, it's not backed up. Also - RAID is NOT a backup.

[@AeromaticXD]

What is RAID?

[@mattdayphoto]

I mentioned in this video that I keep duplicates off site.

[@peter-robinson]

@@AeromaticXD There are various configurations of RAID but it’s essentially a controller with a number of physical drives, all pretending to be one large drive. Everything gets written to multiple drives and if one dies you unplug that drive and replace it, and everything that should be on that drive gets synced to it from the other drives it’s on. It gets around the problem of a large single disk that can die and everything is gone but, still it is all in the one location, so if you have something like a house fire, it’s destroyed and everything is gone, so you still need at least one offsite copy of everything

[@nathanwabre]

Raid is bullshit that will make automatic backup very badly and loose your files! ... true story 🤬

[@lol-vq8dh]

Raid can be a backup?

[@ah8734]

One thing you can do to get a photo from your Mac straight to your photos is Bluetooth/air drop it as well. Saves you a step and it’s so easy for photos and files from Mac to Mac for example!

[@_stevenfoster]

Always appreciate a good backup workflow video! Good stuff Matt!

[@AmpedGaming404]

Getting a small NAS could be a great upgrade - you can get a cheaper one and a few terabyte SSDs and be comparable to the price of the Armorlock. Some also have built-in raid functionality.

[@alanholzmanphoto]

Thanks Matt. Even 3 years after you posted this I still rewatch it for backup guidance. My least favorite part of photography as well.

[@wichersham]

In your case, NAS would be the best solution. I personally use Synology with 4 pcs of WD Red 8TB HDDs. Total capacity is going to be around 21TB depend on the type of Raid you use. I change HDDs every 3 years for precaution. Yes they are expensive but losing data is far more important for me.

[@PaulBuckles]

When the Mandalorian took his helmet off in the last episode I could have sworn it was Matt.

[@DevonChristopherAdams]

hahah

[@azzalos]

You did get into a RAID system. I saw a b-roll with Synology in one of your newer videos. Did I miss that video or you didn’t do it?

[@rwillet0607]

Super informative -ty!!!

[@C_itsNemo]

As a newbie where should I start? I only have one 1TB ssd.

[@simon359]

Are you using APFS or journaled to back up your SSD drives? The reason I ask is I’ve never used APFS until I updated my MacBook Pro. I’m wondering if these discs can talk to each other if one is formatted differently than the other.

[@ervczek]

3:58 It's because there are two types of people - the ones that are doing backup, and the ones that will start doing it ;))

[@janniklasbehlen]

I use one lightroom catalog, where I import the files from the SD card. My PC automatically copies new files on the SSD to a HDD. So the files are always on two drives. If one failes I always have the current edit and the RAWs there. Once a Day I backup all files to the cloud. I wouldn't mess around with copying everything myself. I dont get why one would like to use different catalogues for every shoot lol

[@NetvoTV]

If I nedd a drive to back up my personal life content and works, I want a good aesthetic drive and I like yellow color, that yellow Armorlock looks so beautiful, should i get one when i won't need that drive sharing encryption feature and its quite a lot bulkier than other external SSD?

[@lorenzomartinoia8351]

Actually super useful, Matt! I’ve just purchased a 4tb hard drive to store all of my past work and to keep my SSD lighter so I’ll use some of your tips here!

[@sylvainalain6637]

How many TB do you have in your current storage setup right now ? A Synology could be a good solution . Ds1621+ or a ds1821+

[@KylerSteele]

Definitely look into NAS as well. I’m trying to improve my backup work flow

[@aperturecollect]

If you get a raid drive make sure those photos are backed up also. I had a raid drive die. The hard drives are still in there, but I need to get a duplicate raid box to read them.

[@matthoffman6962]

I currently using two 4tb drives mirrored using free file sync which syncs daily. Then I have a back blaze account and an off site backup. I think that’s good enough?

[@jim7953]

Hey Matt just saw your video for the first time on hard drives, I know it been a year now since this video, but found it interesting what you said and wondering have anything change since then, please let me know if you updated your hard drive work flow or what you still recommend cause I am in the search of keeping a better work flow with hard drives thank you so much for that video I subscribe and looking to what new since this video. Hope to hear back from you.

[@TheMiguelPerez]

What's a good alternative to use for Windows in regard to cronosync?

[@Laszlomtl]

Well explained! But why not just SSD drives for everything...? Laszlo Montreal

[@thephotomanagers]

It's a good idea to have a few different types of backups so you are well covered in case any one of them fails.

[@BastianBooks]

Hey, thank you so much for this super helpful and clear explanation. I love system that simplify our lives, whether they are about organizing, decluttering or saving things. I will check out your channel to see if you talk more about decluttering photos: it's my main concern lately, with smartphone cameras constantly at our fingertips and too many thousands unnecessary pictures being taken... What do you think?

[@TheKetchupPacket]

I have some knowledge in the system admin area. 1. RAID is NOT a backup ! It has some redundancy that allows you to recover data IF one hard drive dies. This is hHIGHLY dependent on the RAID level. if you have RAID five and 2 drives die....kiss your data goodnight. @Matt it might be time to reach out to Linus at Linus tech tips. You don't have massive data storage like some people he's made videos with, but he at least might have some guidance. www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/wiki/backups 2. 3-2-1 strategy if you are super paranoid. Three copies of your data, on two different mediums, with one Offsite. Offsite means 10 - 20 miles away. far enough away to be safe , close enough to retrieve and start work in a day. If your place is hit by tornado, fire, flooding, hopefully the offsite location won't be. www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/ 3. If you buy two HD drives make sure you get them from two different stores, to maximize getting the hard drives from different batch numbers. If one fails you have better odds the other won't fail. 4. Print your work !

[@mayan2312]

From what I was told from my bother who worked at a tech repair shop is that you SHOULD NOT buy western digital drives because the main port is sawdered on so if it breaks the whole drive basically fucked while with seagate drives you can easily fix the port if it breaks. He did tell me this 2 years ago so it might have changed but I kinda doubt it.

[@TheFilmFellow]

Cool video! My PC has an internal RAID 1 array and an external one. Overkill? Who knows. Better more than less. Once every week I also backup everything to a disk that is stored in a safety deposit box off site. You never know what might happen to your home. You could also store it at family but an off site copy of all your work is very wise.

[@robertcooper932]

It says in the book to disconnect the drive you just pull the usb out. is this the best way. I was always told to Eject any drive first.

[@hughwolfe1176]

Matt thank you for sharing, I really need to do something about this before disaster rears it’s ugly head... Do you have a link to the back up program you spoke of?

[@_jprater]

I love the T5 and T7 drives. Found out the hard way that the T7's don't work with Blackmagic cameras. haha. Screw the algorithm.

[@DavidChin]

RAID is not a backup. RAID is not a backup. RAID is not a backup.

[@usefulidiot00]

Also no off site backup is not a backup lol - so many people gloss over this. What happens when all of your hard drives are stolen/burned/destroyed by some act of god? The answer is lose all your data.

[@aurodip]

What is your film scanner? Do you have any video about film scanner?

[@aamsergie]

Matt - how do you organize your personal photos as well.

[@GrahamBridgemanClarke01]

good video Matt, but what’s the software you said you used for duplicating the backup?

[@NeilWaybright]

Backups need to be automatic, "idiot-proof", and thoroughly cover a few use cases. What you have proposed is not "more than enough." You have been lucky (and probably helped by good and consistent habits which you have, but not everyone does). Lots of people struggle with data loss unnecessarily. It isn't that hard to make it robust. Storage was my business for a while (12 years) so everyone would expect me to be able to restore my stuff, but my whole life in IT I have been able to trust my backups and used them to restore after "impossible" events occurred. I have had RAID arrays catch fire, backup tapes fail, malicious actors intentionally try to destroy the data and all backups, yet they have survived it all. That is a matter of mostly design, not necessarily diligence because people get distracted and things get neglected. It has to be able to run for years with zero worries.

[@retrospective77]

Cool story

[@phyllisnaccarato5313]

No Clarit,y as I was hoping to learn to file my uploaded photos before editing and exporting. Thanks

[@debraiversen9214]

Do you have catalogue on the SSD or just the photos? Maybe a stupid question.

[@debraiversen9214]

On the 2TB small drives.

[@debraiversen9214]

I'm not sure I'm being clear cause I don't know what I'm talking about. Looking for something to store photos on, if that's a thing.

[@huibi]

Hi Matt, what is the name of the application that you use to enable the backup. Thanks.

[@N556ND]

Linus Tech Tips has entered the chat.

[@marz6499]

RAID does not provide a back up but provides redundant storage. With a backup you should be able to delete a file and then later be like oh shoot, I need those and recover them RAID doesn’t provide this. RAID provides redundancy by allowing you to still access the storage volume when a drive to fails. You can then replace the failed drive and regain the redundancy. It’s more about uptime than it is about backing up.

[@SivertAlmvik]

Luckily my internet provider gives me unlimited cloud storage as part of my plan. So I have it set up to upload all my work twice a day from my main drive. And then I keep external drives as local backups. I should perhaps back up my drives too and store them somewhere else, but I'm lazy :)

[@Westopher]

Been using Carbon Copy Cloner as a software raid option, very similar to chronosync

[@fyzd3r]

Nice video! I am wondering, why wouldn’t you just use SSDs other than using Hard drive and SSD?

[@AeromaticXD]

SSDs are more expensive

[@owenhaupt]

"Two is one and-" CGPGrey has entered the chat

[@NouBrain]

didn't expect to find this reference in the comments but here we are

[@Sirusf]

That's a nice shirt Matt

[@stuartbaines2843]

Important changes ! Cloud storage..... Not So Safe! Summary of the new policies (effective June 1, 2021): • If you're inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, we may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive. Google One members who are within their storage quota and in good-standing will not be impacted by this new inactive policy.

[@andreatilli6227]

Where can i buy your shirt ?

[@JuanLopez-oz9kh]

For $6pm you can get unlimited cloud ☁️ backup and one 14tb at home you are all set. It has saved me multiple times.

[@azzalos]

Isn't the film itself a solid safe backup? It's crazy to back up all these digital photos. Will anyone *ever* look at them? 90% of them just hang around wasting space and get never looked at again. I bet that's the case for most people.

[@azzalos]

@Pete Melon if not stored properly

[@andyhuang6121]

Is it possible to just store photos on SSD's ?

[@MatthieuLescop]

very interesting✨

[@haroldcampos9661]

cool

[@BillWittman]

Using individual hard-drives to backup is like wearing plastic life preservers. Using Raid to manage internal and external backups is like wearing a PFD. IMHO.

[@larson0014]

13 or 16 inch macbook pro?

[@Johngarymoore]

I watched the whole video and it totally missed the bit about how to transfer files to the external disc

[@fishmonkeycow9246]

Good video. All very great points. Don't mean to be the word police but raid is hardware redundancy not a backup. There are many single points of failure on a raid box not to mention the biggest issue, human error. Some further info if you interested. serverfault.com/questions/2888/why-is-raid-not-a-backup

[@stuartbaines2843]

Important subject more so with digital than film. If anyone knows of a High Quality DVD burner drive available? i could do with one as i Always burn RAW files to DVD (1st) Hard Drive copies 2&3

[@ubub1]

What is the software's name?

[@fogtownrog]

Thanks for sharing! Check out Drobo! Plug and Play. No muss, no fuss.

[@martinnhantran]

2 is 1 and 1 is none.

[@jonnoMoto]

Be careful. RAID is not a backup.

[@nogatorp]

Where is the part about organizing the photos? Backing up to drives is not organizing.

[@jchawkjr2]

Want some cheese with that whine. 😂😂😂

[@Notmy00000]

🇳🇱NL🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍👍👍

[@TheFallOfSaigon22345]

FIRST :D

[@tomleiningerphoto]

All this talk of hard drives is good, but you need more light on you.

[@oddblum]

My external hard drive died 2 weeks ago and I lost all my photos and videos. 10 years worth of work. I wish I had seen this video sooner. I'll know what to do from now on. But jeez... I lost my babies. I'm heartbroken 💔

[@dope93x]

You can get the data recovered but it’s not cheap. I recently got quoted $900 for a hybrid drive.

[@iurqlla]

@@dope93x How is the price set? Does it vary according to the company or according to the amount and type of files? I ask because I have a hard drive with the photos and videos of a year that recently died and I have been investigating to try to recover it.

[@adamvoith4420]

Try looking into software for recovery. My drive died last year and I was able to recover everything. I think the software I used was easeus. Worth a shot anyways

[@dope93x]

@@iurqlla the way it was explained to me is based on the type of drive. Price varies based on SSD, HDD or SSHD

[@oddblum]

​@@dope93x I brought it to a specialized place to recover the data. After 10 days, they said they were only able to recover 50% of the data and are asking 200 euros ($250). I have no idea if the recovered data are worth the 200 euros. I would be really disappointed if I paid this amount for the least important data on the hard drive :-/ Also I'm broke, which doesn't help.

[@adisbey]

In regards to ChronoSync: i'm old school kinda guy and like to use command to get things done. For my file sync needs I use rsync which comes with OSX and linux based system. For you windows users out there robocopy does the same thing and it's free :D