Five Reasons to Join Twitter and Tweet with WCI

About two months (and 336 updates ago) I jumped into the world of Twitter and began to tweet for West Coast Imaging. This was a big change for us and, to be honest, I was a little more than leery. I remember having a chat with my friend Adam McLane (@mclanea) and when he began to explain Twitter to a friend of ours I jumped in with "It's the lowest form of communication. After this it's grunts and clicks." Clearly, I was not Twitter's biggest cheerleader.

As time went on, the world seemed to be, well, a twitter with Twitter. I kept stumbling upon articles that mentioned Twitter and how people are using it (like the recent Time cover story). It's really pretty fascinating…you can find loads of people on Twitter—from Oprah (@Oprah) to the White House (@WhiteHouse), from Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) to the CDC (@CDCemergency). Tweets range from the narcissistic and mundane to the truly thoughtful and informative (the latter being my preference). You could really just sit there bug eyed and watch the world unfold in tiny bits and pieces. Like I said, it's fascinating.

But it's more than fascinating, really. Pretty quickly I had a clear idea of what I loved, and what I had been missing out on. So, here they are—five reasons why I love Twitter:

1. Quick access to WCI - Need something? I'm right here! If you're on Twitter, you can grab me any time you want. I watch the stream of tweets roll by throughout the day and if you put an "@MelanieWCI" in your tweet I'll see it right away. And since you can tweet from your desk or your phone you can have WCI access wherever you're at. Pretty nice.

2. Inspiration for your photography - I can't tell you how much fantastic work I've seen just by being on Twitter. It's completely inspiring! Really, truly, if there were no other benefits that one would be worth it. But there ARE other benefits—we're only on #2!

3. Pick a topic...Twitter has it covered. Twitter has a great search function that allows you to keep an eye on things you're interested in. I regularly search for "photography" and "Photoshop" and that opens a whole world of thoughts, ideas and experiences. It's like opening your own store full of ideas that you already love. Just peruse the aisles! And this leads me to number four…

4. The Photographic Community - There is a GREAT photographic community on Twitter. In 20 seconds or less you can find at least 20 photographers that are talking, sharing and learning on Twitter. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Try it yourself. Use that search function I mentioned in #3 and search for "#togsfollow" and see what you come up with. Click on any of the "@name" links and you'll be able to see what each photographer is up to. (If you're new to twitter you can learn about hash tags like "#togsfollow" here).

5. Updates and Specials from WCI - If you're following me on Twitter, you're going to get a LOT more information about me, the WCI staff and WCI sales and events. We're busy people, and we have a lot of clients. We can't possibly call and email everyone every day, but I pipe up on Twitter at least once a day. And I follow a lot of my followers back, too, so we've got a two-way open pipe of communication. We even launch Twitter only sales from time to time, just for fun.

And that's it, folks. If you're not on Twitter give it a try! What do you have to lose? And if you are, follow me (@MelanieWCI) so we can keep in touch. Tweet you later!

The Idiot’s Guide to Restoring a Failed RAID 1 Hard Drive

In my last post I recommended you use a RAID 1 drive like those offered by Western Digital and LaCie as the primary storage for your photos.

Taking that simple step will offer a huge measure of protection to most photographers.

But buying the drive is only part of the battle. You have to know what to do when it fails, because some day a light on that drive is going to start blinking, warning you that one of the drives in the RAID has failed, and you are back to having your files on one drive. When that happens, you need to take immediate action to restore protection of your files.

Taking Action

If you read the manuals, most RAID 1 drives have options to replace the faulty disk with a new drive, then let the RAID automatically rebuild. This means you have to open up your RAID case, find and replace the faulty drive, and then have the RAID rebuild itself. If you select the wrong drive, or make one error, it could destroy your entire RAID structure, thus compromising all of your files.

This solution is technically possible, but I think for most users it’s a process fraught with huge risks. I believe you are more likely to mess something up than fix it. That’s because you’re stepping into a mine field, and the manual is not a good enough map to get you through. One misstep means your data goes kaboom! Even experienced IT professionals can make costly mistakes here.

Furthermore, if the “good” drive fails during rebuild, you will lose all of your files.

I think there is a far simpler solution that minimizes risks, almost guarantees success, and is still cost effective. I call it “The Idiot’s Guide to Restoring a Failed RAID 1 Hard Drive”

First, do a backup so you have a current copy of the good drive. If you have multiple backup sets, update as many of them as you can. It’s cheap insurance.

Then, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REBUILD THE DRIVE!

Take the simplest, safest approach:

1. Shut the drive down. This is the best way to prevent further drive failures.

2. Buy a new RAID 1 drive.

3. Copy all of your data from the old failed RAID to the new RAID 1.

The cost of a new RAID 1 drive is nothing compared to the cost of having a drive recovered by a professional data recovery service. Simply copying your data to a new RAID 1 drive is so simple that any digital photographer should be able to do it correctly 99.999% of the time.

If you can’t wait a 24 hours for a new RAID 1 drive to be delivered, then keep a spare on hand. A $220 drive waiting on your shelf is cheap insurance compared to the value of your files and the cost in time and money to restore them in a worst-case scenario.

That’s it! It’s really that simple. This is a solution that you, the average photographer can use...it just comes down to making the right choices.

This leaves you with one question: What do I do with my old RAID drive? Stay tuned for that in a future post...

Systems for Automatic Duplication

So I’ve convinced you to store your files on a volume that has automatic duplication capabilities...now the question is, which one should you buy?

There are more solutions available than ever, and fortunately there are some great options for the home user that don’t require an IT genius to set up.

My recommendation is for a RAID 1 Mirroring setup.

I think RAID 1 offers the best protection from the most common hard drive failures. That’s because most RAID 1 products allow you to access your data after a single hard drive failure. That allows you to make an immediate backup of your files to ensure you have an up-to-date copy, and it gives you many options for restoring your redundant copy.

There are many vendors for RAID 1 products, but Western Digital and LaCie stand out as having solutions that are priced for the home user, and are easy to set up and maintain.

Western Digital offers the My Book Studio Edition II. LaCie offers several solutions, with the Hard Drive MAX being the most attractively priced.

Between the two, the Western Digital product looks like the more attractive choice to me.

My prime motivator is price...the Western Digital product is about $100 cheaper than similar capacity LaCie models, which adds up quick if you need a lot of storage.

But I also like the fact that Western Digital is a larger company that is likely selling more units...and I think a larger user base for a product is always a good thing. I have no way of knowing if that really will make it a better product...it’s just a gut feeling. I haven’t used either product, so I’m just going by specs and company reputation.

Before you buy any storage solution, you should run it through my Storage Litmus Test:

Do you know how an successfully operate it successfully 100% of the time?

Read the manuals online before you buy and ask yourself if you know you can successfully operate it. If you don’t feel confident that you can, then don’t buy that solution.(And if you already have a solution, read the manuals now and see if it passes or fails the test.)


Bad Solutions and Non-Solutions

In our poll a few weeks back, several people said they are using RAID 0 Striping to protect their files. That’s bad news because RAID 0 provides less protection than a single hard drive. RAID 0 works by splitting up a file so half of it goes on one drive, and the other half goes to a second drive. If one hard drive fails, you lose all of your files. Even worse, if the data that tracks how the files are split up becomes corrupted, you lose access to all your files. RAID 0 is about speed, not protection. Don’t use it for protection!

RAID 5 is another solution some people are using. It’s been the darling of the IT industry for a long time, but I think it’s playing with fire.

About a year ago, a client had a RAID 5 fail. After about 4 weeks without access to their drives and considerable expense, they were able to recover all their data...and this was with a top-end system. They got lucky...they could have lost it all...and luck is not a protection strategy. Last I talked to them, they were investigating a RAID 1 system.

If you want to get techie about it, check out Why RAID 5 stops working in 2009.

The Drobo is also subject to the many of RAID 5’s shortcommings since it typically uses parity data to create a virtual duplicate. That means that if a second drive fails before a rebuild is complete, you can lose all of your data. I did one tweet recommending the Drobo, but I’ve since become jaundiced on it, and I’ve removed the tweet. I think RAID 1 is a much safer solution than the Drobo.

If you are using RAID 5 or a Drobo, I’d replace it with a RAID 1 immediately. Not having to rebuild a disk from parity data is a good thing.

What does Rich do?

What do I do? I use a custom RAID 1 solution that I’ve assembled to work on Mac servers. I use SoftRAID to make mirrored copies to two separate hard drives. SoftRAID doesn’t use proprietary formats, so both copies of a volume are readable on any computer...I don’t need a RAID card or enclosure to read them in event of a failure. I use Sonnet DP500 SATA enclosures with Sonnet SATA cards, and various brands of SATA hard drives. The servers run 24/7/365 and are hooked up to a battery backup to protect against short power outages. In this configuration, with dozens of hard drives, I have a drive or two fail every year, but I have not lost any data, and I have been able to keep accessing my files while the mirrored drives rebuilt. It is very fault tolerant, very simple, and has proven very reliable.

My solution does basically the same thing as the Western Digital and LaCie products, just on a larger scale.

Whatever solution you choose, remember that an automatic file duplication system like a RAID 1 is NOT a backup! It will not protect against catastrophic failures, i.e. when your hard drive is lost, stolen, or destroyed. It is meant to protect you as you are working, which is the time in between backups. It also makes it less likely you’ll need to use a backup to restore a hard drive, which can be a time consuming process (And you typically lose some files, since backups are almost always out-of-sync with your hard drive).

Buy one today, before your single hard drive fails.

Automatic Duplication of Files

The way I protect my files from hard drive failure is using an automatic duplication system.

Instead of a storing my active files on a single hard drive, I use a solution that couples hardware or software with multiple hard drives. When I save a file on a “volume”, I see one volume on my computer, but that volume is actually two or more hard drives that my duplication system controls and presents to the computer as a single volume. And when I write a file to it that volume, it automatically writes it to at least two separate hard drives.

This is the first...and most important layer in protecting my photographs. Hard drives all fail eventually, and this is the most likely disaster I’ll encounter.

With a good automatic duplication system, when a single hard drive fails, I won’t lose any files because an exact copy (including my directory structure) is on a separate hard drive. And if I’ve chosen a good automatic duplication system, it should be easy to install a new drive and tell the system to use that drive in place of the old drive. A new duplicate of my files will be made automatically, and I can keep using my files with minimal down time.

Some examples of an automatic duplication system are RAID 1, RAID 5, and the drobo.

From the poll answers, I’m guessing few of you are using one of these solutions. The far more common approach is to only have one hard drive with a copy of the active files, then do a “backup” using a hard drive, CD, DVD, or online backup solutions. If that’s what you are doing, you are exposing yourself to a lot of risk, and I’ll explain how.


Risk One - Out-Of-Date Duplicate

Since your duplicate copy is not automatic, it is always out of date. The more out-of-date it is, the more data you lose when your hard drive fails.

Basically you’re being a human RAID 1, which is a boring job description...you’re not going to be as good at it as a computer, and the pay is horrible.

Seriously, how diligent are you about making a copy of every file you work on to your hard drive, CD, or DVD duplicate? How many times have you had only one copy of a file for days, weeks, or months? How much will you lose if your hard drive crashes right now?

Sure, you could make a copy of your hard dive every night, but the larger your hard drive gets, the longer that takes, and the less likely you are to do it. Basically you’re back to being a human RAID 1, doing what you should be automating.

Risk Two - Restoring

Let’s say you are very diligent about making duplicate copies of your files. The next challenge is restoring a copy of your hard drive from all of those files, recreating the directory structure, and making sure you have the most current file (while possibly weeding out dozens of older files). In a worst case scenario, you MIGHT be able to do it, but why put yourself in that situation?

I had to do this once, back in 1998 with a 8.6 GB hard drive, and I NEVER want to have to do that again. Trust me, you don’t either....and you’ll never find ALL of the pieces.

Doing anything other than a complete copy of your hard drive is a Humpty Dumpty backup. When the hard drive fails, all the kings horses and all the kings men are going to have a lot of pieces to try to fit back together. Even if you have all the pieces, it’s going to be hard...but you will lose some pieces.

The reality is that without an automatic duplication system, 99.9% of you are at a high risk of losing some or all of your files. Read that again and let it sink in.

All hard drives fail, and there is no way to predict when it will be. It will usually be at the worst possible moment.

The best protection is an automatic file duplication system. I wouldn’t store my files without one. In the next installment, we’ll look at some systems you can buy, and evaluate strengths and weaknesses that will show you which solution to purchase.

Happy 10th Anniversary to Terrance Reimer

Ten years ago, Terrance Reimer left his career as a photo journalist and traveled west to join us in a new pursuit: Making beautiful digital prints for landscape photographers. Back in those days, we had a shared passion for fine art printmaking, a few handfuls of clients, a couple of Macs, and big dreams. Ten years later, Terrance has printed thousands of images and hundreds of exhibitions for some of the top fine art photographers in the world. With his passion, natural talent, and depth of experience, Terrance has become one of the best digital printmakers in the
world. We are truly thankful to have him as one of our printmakers at West Coast Imaging.

Terrance has played many roles at West Coast Imaging...dreamer, teacher, inspirer, listener, preacher...he even came up with the name, "West Coast Imaging". Through the years, Terrance has poured his talents into every job, and every other member of our staff, and has remained committed to the high quality that continually sets our studio apart from others in the industry.

Thank you, Terrance, for your dedication, loyalty and support of us, our business, our fellow staff members, and our clients. Your vision and inspiration in the "early days" continues to shape and form who we are today. There will never be enough words to express our gratitude for what you do here every single day.

Rich & Susan Seiling Owners

Join the celebration!
Take a minute to send Terrance an email to congratulate him on his tenth anniversary!

Protecting Your Files Overview

I want to keep going on this topic of protecting your files because for all your digital photographs, it is of vital importance, yet there is a lot of bad information out there.

Keeping your files safe is one of those things you have to be on top of all of the time. If your files aren't safe, then you need to act immediately to make them safe.

How you do this boils down to having answers to four questions:

1. What do I do WHEN my hard drive fails?

2. What do I do if my hard drive is lost, stolen, or destroyed?

3. What do I do if I find that one or more files has become corrupt or unusable?

4. How much money am I willing to spend to lower risk level?

I’m assuming that you keep an active or working copy on a hard drive that is attached to a computer. In my mind, this is the “master” copy of a file. It’s the one I’m going to open up if I’m working on a photograph, and the one that I’m going to “backup” and protect with multiple copies in my backup strategy.

There are three strategies that I use to address my four storage questions:

1. Automatic duplication of the working copy

2. Backup of the working copy

3. Archiving

Let’s look at how these solutions answer my questions:


What do I do WHEN my hard drive fails?

This is the most important question because your hard drives will eventually fail. Even new drives fail. And the easiest way to answer this problem is to have an automatic duplication system in place. What I mean by an automatic duplication is, instead of having my files on one literal hard drive, I have it on a RAID-like system (Mirrored RAID, drobo) that automatically creates a duplicate of my file on multiple hard drives when I save it. If a single hard drive in the system fails, the system still has a good copy of my file on another hard drive that I can immediately access, and I can easily add a new hard drive to restore the duplication ability of the system. This is all automatic so I can’t forget to make the duplicate, and I don’t have to do anything crazy to restore access to my files

My goal is to never have the failure of a single hard drive keep me from accessing my files. I also want to NEVER need one of my backups to recover my files. I want to keep my active copy active at all times.


What do I do if my hard drive is lost, stolen, or destroyed?

This is the worst-case disaster question. If you only have one copy of your files, and they are lost, stolen, or destroyed, you’ve lost your photos forever.

The answer to this question is to make backups. Backups are off-line copies of your main volumes, and at least one backup should be stored in a separate location.

The easiest way for a photographer to create backups is to use software like EMC’s Retrospect to do an incremental backup every day to external hard drives. The software will automatically keep track of all your files and backup only the files that have changed since the last backup. Should your hard drive become lost, stolen, or destroyed, it will let you restore it just as it was at the time the last backup was made.

I have at least three “backup sets” at any given time, so I have multiple backups (increased safety) and it makes them easier to rotate offsite.

If you are using a good automatic duplication to protect against hard drive failure, you’ll probably never need your backups. But if you ever do need them, you will REALLY need them. I wouldn’t consider operating without them.


What do I do if I find that one or more files has become corrupt or unusable?

This is answered by having backups and archives. If a file has been corrupted, you need to go back in time to a point BEFORE the corruption occurred. A good backup and archiving strategy should allow you to do this, but it can be time consuming and difficult to find that exact file from the exact date before the corruption happened.

File corruption hasn’t happened to me often, but it is possible. Ask yourself what you would do if a shoot from the once-in-a-lifetime Safari became corrupt...if you photographed it with a digital camera, you can’t just rescan the film.


How much money am I willing to spend to lower risk level?

This is the big one. You could spend limitless amounts of money making your files safe. Multiple copies stored in multiple locations, including underground salt mines, across the world. The National Archives are going to be able to afford a more robust system than you and I, but there is a point of diminishing returns.

With a finite budget, we’ll always have to weigh the cost of each part of our protection scheme against the security it brings.

At a minimum, I want to have a automatic duplication system in place, have three active backup copies, and make occasional “archive copies” that let me “go back in time” to access copies of files as they were when the archive was made.

Is there one perfect system for everyone? No! That’s why I created these questions. They are open-ended, and you need to follow them as deep as they go to make sure you are comfortable with the answers.

That’s all for today, I have some backups that need my attention....

How do you protect your files from hard drive failures?

How do you protect your files when your hard drive fails? One of our clients came face-to-face with this question when his drive started to fail this week...and then his backup copy failed!

We want to know how you protect your files. Vote in the poll and leave comments we can delve deeper into this important issue.

Poppies Still Blooming

I was up there last night and I think they've even gotten more intense. Should be great this weekend. Evening light was very nice, but I think the best time will be after sunrise when the sun starts to penetrate into the canyon.