[brightseal]

Digital files probably won't last forever anyway. I guess if you have a gazillion files, or unless your livelihood/life depends on it, cloud storage might be the best option; otherwise I can't see paying more than you need to for it. Like previously mentioned, you have options for storage. You could even build your own cloud.....

[BruceBanner]

Keep the backup SSD in your car if you like, you can encrypt the contents if that worries you.

Thought about that clackers, and was a real contender, but surely our aussie weather conditions would absolutely toast the drive. I dunno about melb but over here we're getting regular shifts of 20 degrees Celsius in a day (0 degrees to 20 in winter, 22-42 in summer), and inside the car it's obviously way hotter than that. I'm sure there's no rugged ssd/hdd out there that can handle regular daily abuse of those temperature shifts? What you think?

I'm a fan of the cloud for a few reasons:

1. It works. Every time.
2. It's cheap.
3. It's off-site.
4. It's a secure as it needs to be.
5. It's not subject to hardware failures.
6. It's not subject to "I forgot to back up".
7. And lastly, I can access my data backup from anywhere, on any device, provided I have an internet connection.

Yeah, I just think cloud makes most sense.

[clackers]

I wouldn't do a hard drive (moving parts) but an SSD in say one of those little insulated bags you put a couple of beers in kept in the boot wrapped in a blanket and out if direct sun should be fine.

[Igor123]

Thought about that clackers, and was a real contender, but surely our aussie weather conditions would absolutely toast the drive. I dunno about melb but over here we're getting regular shifts of 20 degrees Celsius in a day (0 degrees to 20 in winter, 22-42 in summer), and inside the car it's obviously way hotter than that. I'm sure there's no rugged ssd/hdd out there that can handle regular daily abuse of those temperature shifts? What you think?

I would still choose cloud for the benefits already mentioned, but regarding temps, modern SSDs are rated for a operating temperature of 0-70c, and I doubt you get that high even down there =). (Also thats operating temp, storage temps might go higher, or not..) Regarding the shifts, I don't know, but I mean those would be over several hours? Whereas the shifts in a computer case can be i a minute or two so my guess would be it can handle it, but again, cloud would probably be better in many ways =)

[carlb]

I would still choose cloud for the benefits already mentioned, but regarding temps, modern SSDs are rated for a operating temperature of 0-70c, and I doubt you get that high even down there =). (Also thats operating temp, storage temps might go higher, or not..)

In the middle of an Aussie summer where it's 38 or more degrees C outside, I'd be very confident that the temperature in a locked car could easily hit 70 C during the day . I wouldn't even contemplate leaving photographic or electronic gear in the car under those conditions.

[BruceBanner]

In the middle of an Aussie summer where it's 38 or more degrees C outside, I'd be very confident that the temperature in a locked car could easily hit 70 C during the day . I wouldn't even contemplate leaving photographic or electronic gear in the car under those conditions.

Absolutely right. It gets stupidly hot. And remember also, when Australia has a 45 degree day, that's shaded temp, not direct sunlight or trapped heat.

-----------

Well, I've given this some thought. Right now I had an old 64gb sd card that I have put two jobs from April on (A wedding and a Ball), both events around 200 shots each, they filled up a 64gb card. So really perhaps the back up solution is SD Cards, cheaper ones or old ones that are no longer trustworthy for the camera. The are small enough to be carried on person in a wallet or manbag without feeling the additional bulk or weight. Might get an SD Card wallet thing or something. Anyway, it's a kinda interim solution for the time being.

I'm concerned over my still relatively poor upload speeds (about 4-5mb/s) combined with being on a data plan and not unlimited (360gb 4gx speeds per month for a family of 4), but really I do all the massive downloading and data use, the kids will do about 80-100gb a month, wife 20-30gb, so should be fine if I went with a cloud service.

[West Penn]

Perhaps a couple of portable hard drives and a rented safe-deposit box at the local bank branch would be the ticket. Keep one in the bank box and one at home, swapping them as needed. Although I should add that while bank fires are uncommon, my bank had a fire at one of it's branches (not mine), but apparently there was no damage to contents of boxes, although the contents were not described.

[Igor123]

In the middle of an Aussie summer where it's 38 or more degrees C outside, I'd be very confident that the temperature in a locked car could easily hit 70 C during the day . I wouldn't even contemplate leaving photographic or electronic gear in the car under those conditions.

Hah, ok, I was wrong, turns out car temps can rise more than I thought, found some model where if 50c outside, the car can be 80 in a few hours...but ok, talking about other bad solutions then we have the winner; SD cards! Storage and operating temps go up to 85c! =)

(Amazing how they must design and test car electronics to handle everything from -40 or so (in other countries) to that over many years..!)

(But seriously, talking/debating is fun, but when factoring in time spent, sleep lost, hassle experienced, swapping/moving/backing up disks/cards etc...do the cloud thing, I'd say it will be worth it almost no matter which cloud solution you go for)

[BruceBanner]

Hah, ok, I was wrong, turns out car temps can rise more than I thought, found some model where if 50c outside, the car can be 80 in a few hours...but ok, talking about other bad solutions then we have the winner; SD cards! Storage and operating temps go up to 85c! =)

(Amazing how they must design and test car electronics to handle everything from -40 or so (in other countries) to that over many years..!)

(But seriously, talking/debating is fun, but when factoring in time spent, sleep lost, hassle experienced, swapping/moving/backing up disks/cards etc...do the cloud thing, I'd say it will be worth it almost no matter which cloud solution you go for)

Yeah, the idea of using older SD Cards is that they are small and can easily stow away on my person, perhaps in my wallet or something. In fact... just replace my wallet with a SD Card Wallet thing, have my bank cards in that along with my backups
Basically right now I'm getting a steady flow of work at a small level, 1 job a month on average, that back up is likely to be no more than 30gb. So something like a 1-2tb drive right now is probably overkill, and I have some older SD Cards just lying around, save some funds by using them up.

I have read numerous places that after using SD Cards for a couple of years (and they have had a lot of use, a lot of writing and reading and formatting over that time) that it's not a bad idea to replace with with fresh ones whilst they are still healthy vs keep going and risk failure on a job. So, is this then a good idea, retiring these cards for backup for older client jobs?

Well... just a thought...

[MarkJerling]

Yeah, the idea of using older SD Cards is that they are small and can easily stow away on my person, perhaps in my wallet or something. In fact... just replace my wallet with a SD Card Wallet thing, have my bank cards in that along with my backups
Basically right now I'm getting a steady flow of work at a small level, 1 job a month on average, that back up is likely to be no more than 30gb. So something like a 1-2tb drive right now is probably overkill, and I have some older SD Cards just lying around, save some funds by using them up.

I have read numerous places that after using SD Cards for a couple of years (and they have had a lot of use, a lot of writing and reading and formatting over that time) that it's not a bad idea to replace with with fresh ones whilst they are still healthy vs keep going and risk failure on a job. So, is this then a good idea, retiring these cards for backup for older client jobs?

Well... just a thought...

So. Scenario: Your house burns down. You and your family are fine. But, in your rush to save the damn dog, you've left your computer and your wallet with your SD cards behind. The car is in the garage and right now melting onto the floor slab and the hard drives in the boot (trunk for Americans) are toast.

How's your data?

[kaseki]

So. Scenario: Your house burns down. You and your family are fine. But, in your rush to save the damn dog, you've left your computer and your wallet with your SD cards behind. The car is in the garage and right now melting onto the floor slab and the hard drives in the boot (trunk for Americans) are toast.

How's your data?

Perhaps there is a market for being "chipped" with an embedded device with which one can read and write large volumes of data -- a device sized more like a pacemaker than an ID micro-chip. "We have the technology." (Six Million Dollar Man)

[MarkJerling]

Perhaps there is a market for being "chipped" with an embedded device with which one can read and write large volumes of data -- a device sized more like a pacemaker than an ID micro-chip. "We have the technology." (Six Million Dollar Man)

Nice idea. But no need. "The Cloud".

[BruceBanner]

So. Scenario: Your house burns down. You and your family are fine. But, in your rush to save the damn dog, you've left your computer and your wallet with your SD cards behind. The car is in the garage and right now melting onto the floor slab and the hard drives in the boot (trunk for Americans) are toast.

How's your data?

It's in interim solution. I mean I'm not even sure I can use the cloud successfully! I have a data cap of 360gb/month (family of 4), and max average upload speeds are around 4-5mb/s. Is it enough? It certainly wasn't viable on ADSL2+, I have a feeling around 10mb/s is really where you want to be at.

Your example is a pretty thin one however. My computer itself is a NUC, I can grab my entire PC which is the size of a book lol. We have no dogs

This was just about the idea of having offsite backup, as long as the sd cards come with me during every outing (in case of theft or I accidentally burn my house down) that's the main issue.

I think with the cloud thing I need to test it first, see how much 15-30gb of uploaded data/month will cost me on my plan, as well as how annoying that sync is during the day time, how long etc. I don't really want to leave the PC on overnight (unfortunately I live in a small home and bed is situated near the computer, with no possibility of changing that any time soon).

[MarkJerling]

It's in interim solution. I mean I'm not even sure I can use the cloud successfully! I have a data cap of 360gb/month (family of 4), and max average upload speeds are around 4-5mb/s. Is it enough? It certainly wasn't viable on ADSL2+, I have a feeling around 10mb/s is really where you want to be at.

Your example is a pretty thin one however. My computer itself is a NUC, I can grab my entire PC which is the size of a book lol. We have no dogs

This was just about the idea of having offsite backup, as long as the sd cards come with me during every outing (in case of theft or I accidentally burn my house down) that's the main issue.

I think with the cloud thing I need to test it first, see how much 15-30gb of uploaded data/month will cost me on my plan, as well as how annoying that sync is during the day time, how long etc. I don't really want to leave the PC on overnight (unfortunately I live in a small home and bed is situated near the computer, with no possibility of changing that any time soon).

I'm sure it will work on 4--5mbps although mine sits at around 80mbps.

All my work, going back to 1998 is backed up to the cloud and comprises 488GB of data. Of that, all photos since 2012 comprises some 335GB of data. (So, every document and every drawing all the way back to 1998 comprises less than 153GB.) So, depending on how much data you have, but I suspect that your data cap is not going to be an issue.

There is, in any event, nothing stopping you simply moving what you want to back up to the cloud into a Onedrive folder, and leaving the remainder outside of Onedrive. If you did that, incrementally, in amounts that suit your monthly data cap, you could, I'm sure, quickly have everything backed up to the cloud.

Realistically, in my case, 488GB of data would take 14 Hours, and 35 Minutes, while, for you, that would be 12 Days, 3 Hours, and 42 Minutes. A 50Gb block at a time at your speed of 4mbps would be around 1 Hours, and 29 Minutes.

[BruceBanner]

I'm sure it will work on 4--5mbps although mine sits at around 80mbps.

All my work, going back to 1998 is backed up to the cloud and comprises 488GB of data. Of that, all photos since 2012 comprises some 335GB of data. (So, every document and every drawing all the way back to 1998 comprises less than 153GB.) So, depending on how much data you have, but I suspect that your data cap is not going to be an issue.

There is, in any event, nothing stopping you simply moving what you want to back up to the cloud into a Onedrive folder, and leaving the remainder outside of Onedrive. If you did that, incrementally, in amounts that suit your monthly data cap, you could, I'm sure, quickly have everything backed up to the cloud.

Realistically, in my case, 488GB of data would take 14 Hours, and 35 Minutes, while, for you, that would be 12 Days, 3 Hours, and 42 Minutes. A 50Gb block at a time at your speed of 4mbps would be around 1 Hours, and 29 Minutes.

After our recent election results and your upload speeds I am now moving to NZ.