Where did you guys get cheap & high quality memory cards?

[clovislavigne]

Hi guys!!:

       As you guys already know, space is always a problem for photographers, especially after you did a wedding. Thus, the question is, where do you get memory cards? 

       My dad said Hard Drive is easy to break, better to use flash drives or SD cards.   

       eBay:  1TB – $13. 

       Amazon: 2TB –$45.  

       I worry that the cheap memory card will be broken after 1 year and I may lose all my photos. 

       Any recommendation for good memory cards? 

[jrhoffman75 · Accepted solution]

If you want reliable, long term storage most professionals (whose images are their money source) would recommend a three-part approach. One hard drive attached to your computer and a second attached to the computer with the same files. A third drive periodically backed up from the computer and stored off-site (in case of a disater of some sort in your home).

Another option for off-site storage is a cloud service like iDrive, Carbonite or others.

I would not recommend SD cards for that purpose.

[rs-eos]

This is what I personally do.  Note that I'm primarily a full time software engineer with a side home business in software as well.  But IMO, the following would be useful no matter the business.

Three external RAIDs attached to my iMac Pro:

• Data drive - RAID 10 - All data (photos, Lightroom catalog, original Video files, final output files, etc.)
• Scratch drive - RAID 0 - More maximum performance, all applications that make use of scratch or temporary data locations, use this drive (Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Xcode, etc.)
• Backup drive - RAID 1 - I use Apple's built-in Time Machine backup software.  This ultimately backs things up once an hour.

The internal drive of the computer holds the applications, my user account, and all preferences for those applications.

What is backed up... only non-reconstructable files from the internal drive (e.g. no applications, since I can re-install them.  So this set of files is my personal files such as emails, as well as application preferences).   Nothing backed up from the Scratch RAID since thoses are working/temporary files.  Finally, all data from the data RAID.

Beyond that...

For the most critical files (e.g. my company's software; source code), That is also backed up to Apple's iCloud service since it's relatively small amounts of data.

Then, an offsite backup (2 TB worth).  I have two portable 2TB drives.  One is offsite (safety deposit box) and the other is in my office.  Each month I copy not on my business files, but all photos and videos (to include the Lightroom catalog).  I then drive to the bank and swap out the drive.  I have two drives so as to just make one round trip to the bank each time.  But more importantly, at least one drive is always offsite at any given time.

For my RAIDs and portable offsite drives, I use LaCie.  For the professional RAID units, they use hot-swappable, server-grade Seagate hard drives.

[clovislavigne]

Hi!! 

      Again! xd You are so active.  Sounds like you know what you are doing.  I'm just an infamous commercial photography student. xd I will probably consider having the same or similar storage as you are when I become a full-time photographer. Tkx a lot!! Man. 

[clovislavigne]

Hi! 

    I would love to become a full-time fashion & beauty photographer.  I'm just a Commercial photography student and not famous yet. xd May need reliable long-term storage in the future. Yeah. It seems like great ideas. Thanks! 

[kvbarkley]

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@clovislavigne wrote:

Hi guys!!:

       My dad said Hard Drive is easy to break, better to use flash drives or SD cards.   

       eBay:  1TB – $13. 

       Amazon: 2TB –$45.  

---

You forgot one, I like SSD drives. I have been using the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD:

I can't post a link, you will have to google it.

[clovislavigne]

Hah:

       Thanks. Yeah. I definitely wanna try.  Thanks, man..

[wq9nsc]

Cards are not reliable for long term storage and ESPECIALLY not cheap cards from Amazon, Ebay, or others.  Memory cards are one of the most highly counterfeited products in the world and the sources you listed are a wonderful place if you are looking for counterfeit cards to make your data go away.  B&H Photo is the only place I buy cards now; there are other good sources but mass merchandise online sellers aren't one of them.

My workflow for initial processing is I copy the RAW files to an HP "Z drive" which is a PCI based SSD that sits in one of the fast PCI slots of my HP Z840 workstation and the files aren't erased from the camera card until they are also safely on the RAID array.  After initial processing, they end up on the workstation's RAID array and that provides short term storage until they get backed up to archival on a monthly basis. Long term archival storage of the RAW images are on dual external drives, one of which gets stored remotely.  Cost is low and over several years I have "collected" several pairs of these external drives.

It all seems like overkill until something is lost-in that respect it is just like any other form of insurance.

Rodger

[clovislavigne]

Hi:

       Thanks, man. I will keep my eye on the B&H photo.  There are really good tips to keep everything organized and have plan B to backup the files. Thanks. 

       Best!!