USB C 3.0 + Largest Storage Capacity

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  trustnoone on 03/06/2019 - 08:33

  I don't quite get it? Whats the difference between copying over to your phone, and copying over to an external hard drive? Wouldn't an external harddrive be easier? Or copying over straight to an SD Card or SSD if you prefer that type of media (platterless)?

  For question 1 though, the file size issue I think depends on the storage format, typically you need to format into exfat I think (or NTFS?) and it should be fine, but if you format as FAT32, it won't allow files over 4gb.

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    Clear on 03/06/2019 - 09:35

    typically you need to format into exfat I think (or NTFS?) and it should be fine, but if you format as FAT32, it won't allow files over 4gb.

    NTFS for sure. exFAT is slower, less reliable and less protected against power loss and data corruption.

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      trustnoone on 03/06/2019 - 09:50

      Cheers for clearing that up, I think the secondary issue with NTFS is I'm unsure if its supported by android, if so its sounding like the better way to go!

      • 

        Clear on 03/06/2019 - 10:23

        There is no native support unless you root or use a couple of paid apps that are half buggy.

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  knobbs on 03/06/2019 - 08:35

  Factor in a break in or theft and you could lose yer laptop/computer, external drives and be left with nothing, no back up at all…

  If you phone and HDD were next to each other and you could only take 1, I think a criminal would take the phone 1st

  Anyway I know the Note 9 can take a 512 card as well as 512 internal storage. Maybe the 10 does as well

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  Skramit on 03/06/2019 - 09:17

  -1

  I think you're over thinking this because:

  (and I don't completely trust or rely on cloud storage).

  Just because? Or do you have a solid reason for this line of thinking?

  Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive are going to be 1000x more reliable than any home solution / portable storage you can come up with, at 1/100th of the cost. I think you're over thinking this because of an irrational distrust of Microsoft and Google being able to safely store your data.

  Are you worried that they might lose it? Or that somebody might steal the images?

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  wombat81 on 03/06/2019 - 09:56

  As someone else said, the Samsung Note 9 is the only phone that comes to mind that has 512gb internal and can take an additional 512gb sd card. There could be others, but you certainly won't find internal memory that big in budget phones. It's not going to be cheap.

  It strikes me that the amount you're going to pay for a phone with those features would buy you a decent amount of reliable cloud storage. You can get 200gb of Google Drive storage for $44 per year, or 2TB for $125 per year. Take your tin foil hat off. Google are reliable. They can't afford not to be. That would also be a tax write-off for you. It's basically nothing. Just set your backups to happen overnight and the upload speed isn't really important.

  So just get some big SD cards for your camera. Whack them in your computer when you get home to upload to the cloud. Have a big external HDD or two for archiving.

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  ToiletKitchen on 03/06/2019 - 10:34

  My 2 cents worth. The phone storage might be convenient for you, but as theft/loss would be higher for your phone than home fire, treat it as such.
  Invest in a program(syncovery I use and love) which allows for block level copying to a myriad of cloud providers, but also to external drives locally, and sync them all. Best of all if your internet is not that great it can go about its job in the background/overnight.
  I would also suggest not archiving/zipping image groups as a single corruption can render entire zip file useless, and if stored in cloud to retrieve a few images means you gots to download a massive file.
  Also agree with wombat81 minimal cloud storage cost for tax write off is a no brainer.
  Hope this gives some useful things to consider.

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  Ryanek on 03/06/2019 - 10:34

  If you're a professional photographer then you need a professional backup solution. You should subscribe to one of the many cloud offerings. I think you'll find they have like triple backup processes so it's very unlikely you will lose data.

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  dunker56 on 03/06/2019 - 12:37

  Ok, thanks guys for all the info. I'll try and reclarify my issue.

  Where I live there is no NBN, adsl2+ only, on that I was getting 0.8mb/s upload speeds (5mb/sec dl speeds). Just yesterday I have ditched my landline connection and adls2+ plan (that I have been on for years… maybe even a decade!) and just bought Optus's Wireless Home Broadband 4GPlus, $65/month for 200gb. Tested 2-3x yesterday and I'm getting a stable 60-75mb/sec dl speeds but only 2-3mb/sec upload speeds :(

  At the same time of grabbing the modem from Optus yesterday we upgraded our individual phone plans (at no additional cost but locked in for 12 months). This see's us with two handsets data pooling 80gb each to help give me a further 160gb/month mobile data to use. In addition to this I have a small Optus USB Mobile Broadband dongle thing that is connected to the data pooling (only 2gb/month) but then that is seen by my computer as a wifi connection and thus gets the PC up to being able to use that collective 162gb mobile data.
  Curiously with the dongle I get lower dl speeds (20-40mb/sec) but better Ul speeds (3-10mb/s). Prior to updating our plans I had been managing with only 32gb/month of 4gx mobile data to handle uploads. Last week the FINISHED (ie jpgs not RAWs) went to flickr (set permission to private) for the clients and that was 4gb worth (200 images) and took several hours to complete… over 4gx Suffice to say it would not work at all on ADSL2+ (time outs).

  Flickr recently migrated infrastructure, their service was down for 2 days. Indeed there was some concern over lost work and images and I believe some may have lost some content (thankfully I have not). I know this is a weak example, I mean I do pay for Flickr ($50/yr, Pro member), have over 4000 images with them, but I have never thought of them being a backup per se, but I hope this explains my distrust a little but I fully take on board that proper cloud services will be much better. Tbh only till about 24hrs ago have I been in a position to think about using cloud online storage properly. Up until now I have been doing multiple HDD backups, typically all my content is spread across 3 places, it just so happens that all that content is under ONE ROOF (and that leaves me uneasy).

  Now I could get a rugged SSD and backup to that, but I just feel as though they are somewhat unnecessary, another 'thing' to have to think about carrying around. Everytime I leave the house I'm not going to take my SSD with me, just in case my house is burgled when I'm out, or burns down. These days we can get phones that can take large storage, so we tend to always have phones with us so I thought perhaps its not a bad idea to plough the $$ into that tech rather than some specialist SSD for photographers.

  This way I would be walking about with my data backed up locally (non cloud) but it would be spread over being on my person or home rather than currently all under one roof (too risky).

  It should be pointed out I am kinda in my first year of doing professional photography, so it's learning curve stuff for me, I've only done 2 weddings and a few events, but now that my work is not just my work anymore I do have a responsibility to keep this data safe (at least for 2yrs I think?). Like I said, internet has been so bad here that any cloud possibility has not really been an option.

  It just so happens that I am in the market to buying a new phone, and noticed in the Optus store the S10+ and Note 9 both have sd card slots and 512gb internal (on some versions), so that could be up to 1tb (or more) if whacking in a 512gb card, I just don't know if phones can handle 1tb micro sd cards, or 2tb ones?

  At this point in time I am wanting to keep the RAW files (along with the LR workings/back up for that catalog), and for a large job like that it's 20gb or 16gb archived (.RAR), by the way I love the point (@ToiletKitchen) about corruption of the single RAR leading to complete failure or that retrieving a few images means having to grab the whole rar file back, good points I had not really thought of. I was just thinking of squeezing down the file size and password protecting the file/contents.

  I was going to ask about cloud storage plans, it looks like I could start off with $44/year for 200gb for the first year but ultimately move up to 2tb the following year as I collect more jobs.

  Still tho… I really do shudder at the thought of uploading 20gb at a rate of 3-10mb/sec max… I've noticed during the day time uploading is so crippling to all other functionality of the PC. Perhaps I need to shift the files onto the phone, use the mobile data and app on phone to do the uploading and then put the PC onto the Wirless Broadband connection and thus be separate from that process?

  Ach… anyway, it was more about "I need a new phone, should I think about going all in for a swanky S10+ or Note 9 and get that high internal memory and start thinking of the phone as a local backup to my jobs as well as using cloud and home hdd" hence this thread.

  My dad used to be a sole trader as a programmer. He used to say that if you don't have your content in 3 different places at once then you really don't have your content at all. But this was back in the day… like WAAAAYYYY back in the day. I'm guessing now you could really just stuff own home backups entirely and just have it all in the cloud (on a reputable service like Google Drive as pointed out), because they will have your data in 3 different places at all times huh…

  Much to think about and I thank everyone for weighing in with their thoughts and opinions. It sounds like just pay for the cloud service and back up to that… Hmm… I wonder if my Adobe LR and PS subscription gives me some kind of cloud online storage…

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    Skramit on 03/06/2019 - 19:01

    Call Optus and see if they have a business wireless plan with faster upload speeds. You’re running a business now after all and having adequate upload speed seems to me an obvious cost of doing business you should strongly consider.

    Have a couple of rugged ssds and give one to a mate or family once a week. Something like that can work to get your data out from under your roof.

    • 

      dunker56 on 03/06/2019 - 20:13

      Good idea, I have an ABN for the photography business, I probably haven't been exploiting it's benefits properly.

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  o53djz7qTPY4der on 03/06/2019 - 13:08

  +1

  If one wedding is 20GB you need a more long term solution. I understand the cloud issue, especially with the initial upload and poor speeds. But your idea of using your phone as your backup is a poor one.

  Why not invest in a NAS? This will provide, configured correctly, remote access and redundancy. You could also just set and forget with the uploads (i.e. schedule to run at night when you're asleep).

  Something else I do, I keep a hard drive in my car. I plug it in once a week and let it back up important files. Once done, I put it back in the car.

  For cloud storage Backblaze B2 is dirt cheap. We have 150GB photos backed up to a bucket there and it syncs using rclone each night adding new photos from the day. It costs about 0.60c per month. Download costs are much higher but I only pull them down in an emergency.

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    dunker56 on 03/06/2019 - 20:21

    20gb per job sounds like I would need a lot of data, but that's a large job. Some jobs (family shoots) are just 20 shots, 2-3gb. Mate… 1tb = 50 weddings (20gb/wedding), if I was that busy I could afford a lot more than 1tb and wouldn't be complaining :D

    At the moment I could probably even survive on a 400gb plan or something, 1Tb should probably see me through till 2021.

    The phone might have sounded stupid but it was better than more external or NAS's under the same roof. At least with a phone and 1tb storage on board it typically travels EVERYWHERE with me, and if things are really panicky then just leaving the house with the phone in a hurry is easier than ripping HDD's out of bays etc.

    If I am out, and my house is on fire or burgled, then I still have my phone on my person. Of course I run the risk of losing my phone, or having it pick pocketed or something, so Cloud storage definitely sounds like the best alternative.

    The other aspect of the phone was to do when vacationing or doing paid work away from home. You can fill up a camera's sd cards quickly, and after a job you want to get those images onto more than just the SD card in the camera. People pay quite a lot for a SSD or rugged SSD that they take with them on holidays or photography jobs, I was just meaning to point out that then this becomes one more thing to bring along (believe me our bags are bursting with gear already!). We always typically will have our phones with us (some of us even use certain phone apps for the photography job/experience), I thought the idea of putting the funds towards storage space was perhaps a good way forward is all.

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  Skramit on 03/06/2019 - 18:59

  The only real back up is offsite. A house fire could destroy the pc, phone and nas.

  Cloud or some sort of HD rotation where you give to a family member a had once a month with rotating portable drives or something is the only true backup. Any backup that’s on premises is asking for trouble.

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    dunker56 on 03/06/2019 - 20:23

    That's exactly my concern, and up until now I have never had the net speeds to really consider it a viable option.

    I've looked at a few cloud storage services. I think 1tb plans would see me through till around 2021 (for the amount of work I do and quantity of images). It does seem A LOT cheaper to use that than plough into handsets and additional microsd card sims…