Best Way to Back Up Photos and Video?

jsalbre writes "I do a lot of digital video work, and my wife is a professional photographer. With raw DV from the video camera using up 11GB/hr, and raw images from the digital SLR using 7MB I'm quickly using up a lot of space. I currently back up all my important files each night from one harddrive to another, but I now have over 200GB of irreplaceable data (more than just DV and photos, but those make up the largest chunk) and I'm having to exclude the "less important" irreplaceable files as my backups have started failing. Several people have suggested backing up vital unchanging files to DVD (video, images,) and continue backing up frequently accessed files to harddrive, but with recent studies showing that optical media doesn't last very long I don't want to come back in a few years and find that all my backups are useless. Not to mention that some of my DV files are larger than even a dual-layer DVD, and it would be near impossible to automate backup to DVD. How do other Slashdotters back up their important data? I'd appreciate distinction between methods for frequently accessed files and for infrequently accessed files. Any suggestions will be highly appreciated!"

Th old fasion way

[MSDos-486]

File -> Print

Memory

[vjmurphy]

"How do other Slashdotters back up their important data?"

I memorize it.

Re:raid

[Tibor the Hun]

Tell that to my bosses.
Except for one server which we don't even own, all of our servers (about 10) are RAID "backed up".
One of these days is gonna be really fun.

The cheapest way...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Rename all of the files so they have filenames like "Teen_Lesbian_fff_Hot!Hot!Hot!.avi". Now make them available through your favorite p2p service. Even better, prepend these files with short snippets of pr0n. You'll find that years later you can kick up just about any p2p client and you'll find your files are still available.

Obligatory Linus quote

[Rocky Mudbutt]

"Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies." - Linus Torvalds

Re:Memory

[antifoidulus]

11101010111010101011101010101010101001010100011111 00101010101010101010101010010101011111100100110111 00001110000010000100001010101001010101010101010100 10111000010001000001011110001000100010000101000010 000010101000101....uh holdon..don't tell me...jeez I know it's on the tip of my tongue.....god what was that...ugh I always forget these little OH 1...it was 1...001012000100010000011001010100101010101000

Steganography, porn, usenet and google.

[jerryasher]

For the past five or six years, I've been taking my data, applying steganography techniques to encrypt it into the background of porn images, and then distributing those images via usenet and a few porn sites I've whipped together (ok, ok, the bangbus videos.)

At any time when I need to recover the data, I just use google to find someone with a copy of my data, download, decrypt, and voila!

This is my cheapskate's Network Storage Device!

Re:Disasters

[noidentity]

A few more...

• EMP
• Mini black hole
• Worm hole

Re: Backups

[ZiakII]

It was called the IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System [wikipedia.org].

Damn it I was getting ready to right a patent and cash in if anyone else came up with one....

Re: Backups

[David Horn]

>> One thing good about paper & film is they withstand decades of storage vs. years of normal magnetic storage. Photos and films from the late 1800's/early 1900's are still around whereas you're really gambling with current storage media.

So, all you really need is a good laser printer and lots of paper. Oh, and some Chinese kids who can type 1's and 0's quickly should you lose something...

Re:Steganography, porn, usenet and google.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I have your data.

P2P method...

[Nindukugga]

[Serious mode on] I once heard in a conference that the most reliable filesystem ever was the ed2k network. [Serious mode off]

So, here goes a suggestion:
1) Zip/Rar it with a password.
2) Divide it into downloadable chunks.
3) Rename it to "Lesbian chicks hot stuff!!!!", or similar, you get the idea...

Et voilà.

Re:USB HD

[fcw]

USB 1.1 spec is 11Mbps.

I wrote 11MBps, 88 times faster than the 1.1 spec.

Well, if you're using 88-bit bytes, I think I see what the problem is.