Part 1: Photo Backup Strategy

Part 1: Backups at Home

RAID & hard drives - Back it up!

People often ask me what my backup strategy is so I thought I would outline what I am doing with the many images I shoot these days.  In the above photo on the very right, you can see a LaCie 2 TB RAID drive, set for the faster RAID 0 (striped) as opposed to the more secure RAID 1 (mirrored).  I wanted the best performance possible for storing my Lightroom image library which is why it is set that way. You can also see a couple of WiebeTech drive enclosures to the left, and there is one more WiebeTech behind the speaker on the left that you cannot see.

In the foreground is a smaller enclosure with a 128GB SSD drive that I use on the road with my MacBook Air as a shared drive.  My current working Lightroom image library and image files are on the SSD so I can work on stuff while away from home and then just plug the drive in at home and seamlessly resume where I left off without having to deal with library syncing etc.

Happy Holidays!

All the best for this holiday season!

Wishing you health, happiness and success for 2011 too!

Nikon Super CoolScan 9000ED - Last Chance!

After a bit of digging around the 'Net, it looks as though my prediction is coming true.  I had been telling people that my gut feeling was that the 9000ED might last through to the end of the year, but I wasn't hopeful that it would be around too much longer.

Well sure enough, various large online resellers are listing the Nikon Super CoolScan 9000ED scanner as discontinued. In addition, Nikon USA's website has the scanner in their "product archive" section too. I am fairly certain that when existing inventory at Nikon Canada is sold out, there will be no more available. We currently have stock (at $2,649) and are planning another small order, but that will likely be the last we'll see of this outstanding film scanner.

Dec 2010 Specials!

There are lots of digital specials on at Beau Photo for December.  There are manufacturer's rebates as well as sale pricing on Nikon, Wacom, Lexar and more!  Also see the previous post with lots of Canon Rebates!

Wacom Intuos IV Tablets on sale!

We have Wacom’s latest Intuos4 Medium Professional pen tablets on sale for the holidays, in both USB (wired) and the wireless versions. The Intuos4 Medium has a pen tablet area of 8.8x5.5 inches and eight user programmable buttons, each with its own OLED display. Each button’s display will show you an icon relating to the function it will perform, and Wacom has many different preset configurations for you to download. For example, you can configure the tablet to show icons for your most commonly used Photoshop tools, such as crop, healing brush, cloning tool, so you can simply press the button to select the tool you need. There is also a circular touch pad that, among other things, can be set up to change your brush size in Photoshop. Spin your finger around the touch pad in one direction to make your brush bigger and in the other to make it smaller. All these functions are fully user configure-able on a program-by-program basis, so you can have customs settings for Photoshop, Lightroom, Final Cut Pro etc. For superb fine control when retouching photos, or to help reduce RSI (repetitive strain injury) due to always using a mouse, having a pen tablet is truly a godsend!

Intuos4 Pro Medium Sale! $ 379  (regular $ 429)

Intuos4 Pro Medium Wireless Sale! $ 429  (regular $ 479)

Dec 2010 Canon Rebates

Canon has extended most of their November rebates through until the end of December and have even increased the rebate amounts on some items!