Backup Software Q

[frank.giblin]

Lightroom Version Number

LR classic v10

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I'm currently running LRclassic off of a SSD external drive, and backing up to a second similar drive. I'd like to have a secondary backup on the cloud but not sure of options. I'm currently mired in analysis paralysis.... Based on searches in the forum and elsewhere, I'm looking at Acronis, iDrive, and Aomei as options. But I'm also wondering if the LRcloud with the 1TB plan could essentially function as my cloud backup or if it would be advisable to have a separate backup anyway. Any advice would be most appreciated.
Thanks - Frank

 

[Jimmsp]

Not necessarily advice, but I will tell you what I do.
I back everything on my main computer (3 internal drives, & 1 external) to two large external usb hard drives. Each gets a full copy, so I have two local backups.
I have too much stuff, imo, to have loaded a cloud drive in any reasonable time.

So I back up everything on the main computer to another large hard drive and take that to my local bank and into a safety deposit box.
I do this once a month. It is cheaper than cloud storage, but not as up to date. But with the 3 full backups I feel quite secure.

 

[Jimmsp]

While not exactly what you are asking for, you will find this an interesting article about cloud storage
https://petapixel.com/2021/03/01/the-best-free-cloud-storage-platforms-for-photographers/

 

[Paul McFarlane]

The Adobe Cloud isn't the place for backup - it's designed to work with the Cloud apps. While you can put all originals in the cloud and have Classic sync to them, it isn't then a backup - anything you do in Classic would occur to the Cloud too (including accidentally deleting something you didn't mean to!)

We both use Backblaze, gives unlimited storage and acts as our off-site backup (and it all runs automatically in the background too!)

 

[frank.giblin]

While not exactly what you are asking for, you will find this an interesting article about cloud storage
https://petapixel.com/2021/03/01/the-best-free-cloud-storage-platforms-for-photographers/

Good info, thanks! Only other question I have is whether the services keep the files in their original format or if they are stored in some sort of proprietary zipped file? I haven't been able to find that info for most services.

 

[Jimmsp]

Good info, thanks! Only other question I have is whether the services keep the files in their original format or if they are stored in some sort of proprietary zipped file? I haven't been able to find that info for most services.

In the end, you really don't care as long as you can get them back in the same format as you sent them up.
I do know, for instance, that I can give Dropbox a raw file, and when I or someone else downloads it, they get a raw file back. That is all I care about.

 

[frank.giblin]

The Adobe Cloud isn't the place for backup - it's designed to work with the Cloud apps. While you can put all originals in the cloud and have Classic sync to them, it isn't then a backup - anything you do in Classic would occur to the Cloud too (including accidentally deleting something you didn't mean to!)

We both use Backblaze, gives unlimited storage and acts as our off-site backup (and it all runs automatically in the background too!)

I was in the process of downloading Backblaze when I came across a dealbreaker, at least for my set up:
"Unplugged External Hard Drives (also applies to failed External Hard Drives)
Backblaze works best if you leave the external hard drive attached to your computer all the time. However, Backblaze will backup external USB and Firewire hard drives that are detached and re-attached as long as you remember to re-attach the hard drive at least once every 30 days. If the drive is detached for more than 30 days, Backblaze interprets this as data that has been permanently deleted and securely deletes the copy from the Backblaze datacenter." !!
I basically have my photo dbase on an external drive which is detached and stored in a safe place when I'm not working on it, essentially once every 1-2 mos or so. Backblaze seems to run the backup as sort of a sync function, which would be great for someone who has their external drives connected most of the time, but won't work in my 'shared family environment.'

 

[Conrad Chavez]

A couple more reasons you probably can’t use the Lightroom Photos cloud as a backup for Lightroom Classic:

• If it’s important to preserve local folder organization, Lightroom Photos will not preserve that. Lightroom Photos in the cloud is one big bucket of files, organized using metadata (e.g albums).
• For raw files, Lightroom Classic uploads Smart Previews only, limited to 2560px on a side. So you will never really be “backing up” your original raw files by syncing from Lightroom Classic. You will if you are using Lightroom (not Classic), because that does upload all originals to the cloud…but then you can’t use local folder organization with that application.

 

[Jimmsp]

I basically have my photo dbase on an external drive which is detached and stored in a safe place when I'm not working on it, essentially once every 1-2 mos or so.

This sounds like an almost perfect situation for an off set backup using another hard drive. And you should also maintain at least one other copy of this hard drive locally. An offsite backup in a bank will work well for you now.

 

[GaryG]

Backblaze has added new version history options. For an additional $2 a month, they will keep versions for a year. Based on what I found at their website, this applies to unconnected hard drives as well. See below. You might want to contact their help desk to confirm that it would apply to unplugged drives.

Gary

The 30-day countdown is only for drives that have been unplugged. There is no countdown for local files.

(please note that the above conditions only apply to users on our standard /default Version History option, and users that have upgraded to either of our extended Version History options would not be subject to these restrictions)

 

[BobT]

For what it's worth, this is what seem to work for me at the moment. I've been paying for 1TB on OneDrive largely unused so I attempted to get LR to work with it. This did not prove reliable so I'm using OneDrive purely as a backup. LR software is on C:. The image folder, catalogue and associated folders on D:. I mirror backup everything on D: to an internal E: and also to OneDrive except for the previews folder which don't need to be backed up and take an eternity to backup to the cloud anyway. The backup software I'm using SyncBackPro. Not perfect by any means but I have an old system.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

I was in the process of downloading Backblaze when I came across a dealbreaker, at least for my set up:
"Unplugged External Hard Drives (also applies to failed External Hard Drives)

Every vendor that offers fixed price (for unlimited data) is going to have various techniques to throttle your use, to stop the 1% of people who have hundreds of terabytes from getting an unfair deal. My first cloud vendor (Mozy) began aggressively throttling your bandwidth around 500gb and as you passed it and approached 1TB, it became essentially impossible to back up more data. It was never down, just so slow you could not keep up with even a modest change rate.

At least Backblaze is up front, most lie about it (Mozy did). Though Backblaze does not highlight their rule enough.

I've always felt like I was better off picking a better business model where I paid per gigabyte. My current vendor is also Backblaze, but with their B2 service, which is essentially storage-for-a-fee. You bring your backup program of choice (I use Cloudberry, now called MSP360 I think). This has the added advantage that you can encrypt the data with keys that Backblaze does not know, so if they are ever hacked your data is relatively safe from access.

All-you-can-eat buffets for food is inherently limited by the human stomach -- which at times is impressive, but still has limits.

All you can eat data can be massively abused, and so vendors must have mechanisms to stop it. Some are limits, some are just policies (if you use to much we can terminate -- usually with "too much" not defined), some are more creative (like Backblaze limiting offline storage which is where most people keep massive amounts of data).

 

[motivio]

Every vendor that offers fixed price (for unlimited data) is going to have various techniques to throttle your use, to stop the 1% of people who have hundreds of terabytes from getting an unfair deal. My first cloud vendor (Mozy) began aggressively throttling your bandwidth around 500gb and as you passed it and approached 1TB, it became essentially impossible to back up more data. It was never down, just so slow you could not keep up with even a modest change rate.

At least Backblaze is up front, most lie about it (Mozy did). Though Backblaze does not highlight their rule enough.

I've always felt like I was better off picking a better business model where I paid per gigabyte. My current vendor is also Backblaze, but with their B2 service, which is essentially storage-for-a-fee. You bring your backup program of choice (I use Cloudberry, now called MSP360 I think). This has the added advantage that you can encrypt the data with keys that Backblaze does not know, so if they are ever hacked your data is relatively safe from access.

All-you-can-eat buffets for food is inherently limited by the human stomach -- which at times is impressive, but still has limits.

All you can eat data can be massively abused, and so vendors must have mechanisms to stop it. Some are limits, some are just policies (if you use to much we can terminate -- usually with "too much" not defined), some are more creative (like Backblaze limiting offline storage which is where most people keep massive amounts of data).

I'm pretty happy with BackBlaze so far.
I have Personal Backup and the B2 Cloud Storage in use.
The B2 Cloud Storage is driven by my NAS, which has als my RAW data and Lightroom Library Backups.

 

[GaryG]

Yesterday I asked Backblaze about the one year version history plan. If you are on the plan and you disconnect a drive and leave it disconnected for 4 months as an example, the data backed up from that drive remains on their site for a year. When you reconnect the drive, it will be scanned for changes, and any new data will be backed up.

 

[stevedo]

For what it's worth, this is what seem to work for me at the moment. I've been paying for 1TB on OneDrive largely unused so I attempted to get LR to work with it. This did not prove reliable so I'm using OneDrive purely as a backup. LR software is on C:. The image folder, catalogue and associated folders on D:. I mirror backup everything on D: to an internal E: and also to OneDrive except for the previews folder which don't need to be backed up and take an eternity to backup to the cloud anyway. The backup software I'm using SyncBackPro. Not perfect by any means but I have an old system.

My setup is pretty much the same as Bob's and works extremely well for me. I have the Microsoft 365 family subscription which gives me up to 6TB of storage across 6 "family members".

I can also recommend SyncBackPro. The free version of this software does not support backups to cloud storage hence the need for the Pro version.