About hi, my name is jay reilly.  i am a commercial/ editorial photographer based in carlsbad, ca.  some of my past client have include Nike, Sony, Hyatt, Conde Nast among many others.  this blog is dedicated to showcasing my assignment work and helping other photographers by sharing tips and tricks that have been vital to my business.  feel free to leave comments or post questions. thanks!
hard drive intervention please!
October 27, 2008 // announcements resources
harddrive-help.jpg

i am convinced that i am not loved at all.  i have been on portable hard drives now for about 8 years and not one family member or associate ever says anything.  in fact they enable me all the time...taking me to best buy, where larger and larger hard drives are cheaper and so easy to score.  i would think by now, someone, other than myself would get to the point, where they might round up a few other digital asset management people and sit me down and conduct a real hard drive intervention.

you can see from the photo, years of hi resolution raw photography, there is no doubt, i am hard user.  i have thousands and thousands of gigs of portable hard drives.  there has got to be a better way...so, i have hit rock bottom.  and time to turn my life around.  please help me on my journey to healing.  if you know a good system for someone like me, please share in the comments below.  thanks. 

or if you are in he same situation as me, you can just comment, "hello, my name is _____, and i am a portable hard drive user, and i need to change." 

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Comments
Betsy, La Vida Creations: Hey Jay! First time commenter here. Big fan of your work! AND, admittedly a digital storage junkie. Seriously, the RAID tower with exchangeable storage drives is the way to go. I just started this a few months ago and I'm wondering why I didn't do this two years ago, at the very least! Zip me an email if you want to hook up with my RAD I.T. guys. On Top of it all, they're Mac friendly too (don't know if you're an apple guy... ;-) (11.14.08 @ 09:16 AM)
boone: just kicked the habit. now i'm hooked on drobo. its beautiful. (10.30.08 @ 05:27 PM)
Ty: Buffalo Tech Tera Station Live. Just installed one. Small easy to use. Can access files from server through internet no VPN required. Up to 4 terabytes of storage. RAID 5 setup. Four hard drives in a lockable storage box. If one hard drive goes bad simply open the box and pull it out. Awesome equipment http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/terastation/terastation-live/ (10.30.08 @ 06:14 AM)
brian carr: yeah, I've got a swag of h/ds sitting here, (including some of those(*^)*#&%@^%&^@%Maxtors,) currently filling a terrabyte every 6 months......I can't see any escape, what to do ? (10.29.08 @ 06:29 PM)
Eddie Bojorquez (Studio 512): Hello, my name is Eddie and I am definitely a candidate for becoming a portable HD addict. Wahat has helped me is to keep good DVD archives. Maybe that's way too old skool, but if they're well-labeled, redundant, and at more than one location, it's a pretty decent system. Hope that's any help. -E (10.29.08 @ 03:04 PM)
J. Wesley Brown: And here I was complaining about how I've nearly filled my one 200 gigger... My tip: get better at editing? Delete, delete, delete (but don't over delete...oh the pressure!) (10.29.08 @ 02:45 PM)
Luis Murillo: I built my own file server to store the information and filled it up with hard drives so the data is stored in standard format and not some proprietary way to store data so if the OS fails I'm still able to rescue the data from the hard drive. Portable hard drives are nice if you need to move them around often otherwise they're actually more expensive than getting a regular internal hard drive. (10.29.08 @ 01:00 PM)
Austin: DROBO - i need it too brother. you are not alone. (10.29.08 @ 11:52 AM)
jay: hey scott, the drives are standard drives that i can get anywhere, so i am not sure if you mean the hardware or the manner in which is formatted and the data is reading. but when i bought it, that was one thing that i wanted to make sure was that drives are standard drives that i can get anywhere and the data could be access beyond the drobo...maybe i misunderstood? (10.29.08 @ 09:25 AM)
scott vickers: I really like the idea of the drobo, seems to solve everyones problems... just heard horror stories about their proprietary format so if the actual unit breaks you can't just pull out the hard drives and read them on your computer. (10.29.08 @ 09:06 AM)
jay: thanks everyone! i just got the drobo system, and it looks like it meets all the needs! feeling pretty good about this and in the longrun a much more economical way to manage all the data. (10.29.08 @ 08:57 AM)
Larry Marshall: I also use a drobo and love it. Mine currently has three 750GB hard drives and room for one more. Larry (10.29.08 @ 08:42 AM)
Jason McGrew: THE DROBO!!!!! You wont need anything else. Go buy yourself like 4 of them. I know it is a chunk of change.. but can you really put a price on being organized? Currently this is the cheapest place to get them: http://www.thenerds.net/DATA_ROBOTICS.DROBO_4_BAY_FW800_USB_20_STORAGE_ARRAY.DR04DD10.html?affid=1&affid=2&srccode=cii_5784816&cpncode=23-3667605-2 Also check out dealmac.com for the cheapest 1Tb hard drives. (10.29.08 @ 07:57 AM)
Ryan Rowell: Kathy had the answer. it is simple, BUY DROBO 2.0, it is FW800 and simple to use. it has happy little blue lights that say its all good, and it makes a great shelf for those daisy chained lexar pro udma readers. you wont regret the decision. (10.29.08 @ 06:59 AM)
Guillaume: hello, my name is Guillaume, and I am a portable hard drive user, and I need to change :) (10.29.08 @ 06:48 AM)
Foster Cryer: hello, my name is Foster, and i am a portable hard drive user, and i need to change. (10.29.08 @ 06:36 AM)
Eric Hegwer: #1 - Aperture - It knows where your originals are, and as soon as you plug in a portable HD, you are good to go. #2 - Calculate how much storage you have now, and estimate how much you will use in the next 2-years. Then double it (so you can have enough for a complete backup. #3 - When you are ready to change (emotionally and financially) get yourself what Rachel talks about - ABHNAR ( a big honkin' network attached RAID). Be sure it has hot-swappable drives, too. (10.29.08 @ 05:35 AM)
samm: hello, my name is samm, and i am a portable hard drive user, and i need to change. (10.29.08 @ 04:54 AM)
Guillaume: Same as you.... I am a portable hard drive user (14 HD until now...) and I am a bit lost to manage my files... So I print a index list of the content of the HD and store it with the Id of the Hard drive on a file..... Cannot buy a server to save files, and the HD will be still on that server.. does not change a lot. It's rumors only but people speak about Apple personal server "iBrick" .. maybe a good solution ( and cheap/easy) compare to a Xserve and Xsan.... :) (10.29.08 @ 02:47 AM)
Rachel: Looks like you need a big honkin' Network Attached RAID Storage Device. It's next on my list of purchases. My hubby is my IT guy, so I don't know all the details...all I know is that I want all my files in one place, secure (hence the RAID), and easily + quickly accessible, and he said that's the way to go. (10.29.08 @ 12:21 AM)
Kathy Carlisle: You can totally thank me later for helping you through this difficult time;) Go here...don't speak...just take a look and know that it has changed my life, and yours too if you give it a chance...LOL Check it out. Give your small drives a nice black shelter to live in. Nice to meet you on your blog. I adore your work and got your link from Tara. http://www.drobo.com/ Kathy (10.28.08 @ 11:33 PM)
robert benson: Stop fooling around and get something like this, a 24 terabyte harddrive (24,000 gig). It's only $45,000. Hell, get two! http://www.zmicro.com/rugged-mass-storage/tranzstor-mtrs.htm (10.28.08 @ 10:54 PM)