Working from External Hard Drives

[MDM]

Yes, mine are high quality external drives in robust metal casing. Have a look at Jigsaw Solutions, Nottingham, which is where I got my stuff - they have a large range of drives and are very helpful if you need advice. As I said in previous posts, the USB3 drives are almost as fast as the Thiunderbolt and could easily be used as working drives. Either would seem to me to be your simplest solution - that is how I'm working and I'm very speed-aware. The days of the big internal drive are numbered (on the Mac at least).

 

The main idea of RAID is to continuously back up as you go but it is quite expensive and is probably unnecessary if you back up very regularly unless you are working on stuff that is very time critical - producing for clients where you cannot afford any delays etc. It is a bit of a diversion really from your original post.

[DerekVallintine]

For those of you who are familiar with WD hard drives, will aWD " My Passport" for Mac portable storage  work on a 27iMac? 

[David Hewison]

SFL others here have mentioned RAID and that is by far the best way to go. You can buy preconfigured NAS boxes which run RAID to make your job as easy as plugging the box into your laptop via USB or your network.

 

RAID must have 3 or more hard drives to works as a RAID 5 (which is the one you want), if one drive fails, you don't lose data - just replace the drive and it will sync overnight and then you're back up and running again. You can even continue working with a failed drive - albeit slower.

 

In my setup, I don't have any data at all on my laptop. Just software. In fact all our laptops are the same, my partner has no data on hers, the server is the main hub here. I run a Windows Small Business Server on my network and use that for all data including photos.

 

Lightroom works perfectly well pulling data of the server - there's no performance loss. Having said that, my partner who also uses lightroom, connects to the network wirelessly (i'm always plugged in) and i notice her file access is a fair bit slower. Once the file is in lightroom though, there's no difference - still fast.

 

As for backups, if you're running a preconfigured box such as the ones already mentioned, or maybe a qNAP or something like that - plug an external drive via USB into the back of it, and set up the backup. All NAS boxes run their own operating systems which include backup software.

 

As an extra precaution make a backup in the cloud too.

 

Using my backup plan as an example:

 

Client Backup: My laptop gets backed up every night to the server - if anything happens to the drive, or a file corrupts, or maybe I'm a noob and I did something stupid - i just restore from the night before. easy, takes 20 minutes.

Sever OS Backup: Daily to a separate, but internal HHD - this is protection from a system drive failure - replace drive, restore from backup and you're good to go - 20 minutes again.

Server Data - Real Time Backup to an external HDD (this includes 100% of data on the server, except the OS)

2nd Backup to the Cloud: My most important data, business files and photo's are backed up once daily to Amazon S3

 

I became paranoid about protecting data when i lost a drive many years ago that contained some very precious personal photo's of an event that pretty much defined my life. I was devastated, so that was when i started looking into this. Before then, I thought backup plans were for computer nerds with black rimmed glasses. I'm now self employed and I work from home, so my network, server and data backup plans have become more robust over the years. Now, I use Windows SBS 2011 (Small Business Server 2011 - which is the small business version of the Windows Home Server mentioned earlier in this thread). SBS 2011 uses windows server 2008R2 architecture so it is very stable, very robust. The product comes shipped with most of the software that does all this in the background - it's flawless. Windows 2012 essentials has taken over now. This system will work with PC or MAC.

 

The additional software I use to backup internally and to the cloud is "Cloudberry" - there's a version for MAC too. http://www.cloudberrylab.com/backupmac.aspx?gclid=Cj0KEQjwyK-vBRCp4cymxermx-EBEiQATOQgh1UbehU9wsDeNxoieUY7C_KbcIvMIGuqp3M5aEzT3sEaAswU8P8HAQ

 

It will connect to all the major online storage services.

 

However any NAS system will have it's own proprietary OS which I am certain will offer the same or similar functionality.

 

Good luck!

[David Hewison]

 

I thought about getting a 4TB wireless drive but wouldn't that be much slower if you keep your catalog and photos you're working on on the drive? Even with fast Verizon fios I'd be worried about lag time - not to mention a problem if your network is down. Don't want to highjack the thread but would welcome comments on working with wireless externals as your main HD vs. thunderbolt.  Thanks!

 

SFL, I'm way too slow at processing my images so I had the same problem you did - getting that 4TB drive ( and an even larger RAID backup) really helped. 

 

I've no direct experience of NAS but it seems that the main advantage would be in a multi-user situation where people want to share files easily. The following link may be of interest http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/the-benefits-of-nas

 

As far as I can see, for a single Mac user, Thunderbolt works fine as you already know, although the speed advantages over the significantly cheaper USB3 seem minimal to me.

 

 

Being able to share files is one of the main advantages for sure, however the other equally important advantage is redundant drive configurations such as RAID 5 or other versions of RAID. 

 

Lets say he opts for a USB drive - and it fails.  in the last year 3 years I've had 4 drives fail - it happens more than you think.. Mind you, I run 9 drives in my server so the odds are against me. 

 

If his single USB 3 drive fails - thats it - all his work lost.. or if he has a backup, then there's at least down time restoring from the back up. 

 

In a NAS, a drive can fail and you can keep on working as if nothing happened. Nothing is lost. Replace the drive as soon as possible and it will sync up in the background - all invisible to the user.

 

For that reason alone, NAS is the way to go. 

 

In this scenario - backups are still critical, but you will almost never need to revert to them short of a house fire. I've been running a server for 6 years, and as far as my data goes, I've never needed to restore from a backup, even though I've had many drive failures. I often restore my laptop from a nightly backup, only because I may have installed some bad software, or i was screwing around with it and killed it. Or, most commonly, I've upgraded the internal drive and didn't want to reinstall the whole thing.

 

Also RAID 5 is 3 times faster than single drives. 

[David Hewison]

 

My ideal set-up would be to purchase a RAID. A RAID is scalable, and RAID 5 makes it literally impossible to lose any data due to drive failure.

 

But if the device is lost in a fire, or stolen, you then have no data. If you go for any RAID set up, you need to have at least two devices kept separately.

 

True - but the raid is the primary data storage. The you would have two backup plans, one to an external drive and one to the cloud in case of fire or theft.

 

Alternatively, keep a backup drive at a mates place and every week, you swap the one from your home with the one you're mates keeping for you. Clunky, but many people do it.

 

I prefer the cloud! 

 

Amazon has a product called Glacier - it's dirt cheap to archive data there - as with any cloud solution, the initial backup may take days to weeks depending on your amount of data and connection, but once its setup, its seamless - you just don't notice it. And if you run a RAID, you;ll never need it anyway unless your house burns down, then you have bigger problems! 

[Guest]

 

 

My ideal set-up would be to purchase a RAID. A RAID is scalable, and RAID 5 makes it literally impossible to lose any data due to drive failure.

 

But if the device is lost in a fire, or stolen, you then have no data. If you go for any RAID set up, you need to have at least two devices kept separately.

 

True - but the raid is the primary data storage. The you would have two backup plans, one to an external drive and one to the cloud in case of fire or theft.

 

Alternatively, keep a backup drive at a mates place and every week, you swap the one from your home with the one you're mates keeping for you. Clunky, but many people do it.

 

I prefer the cloud! 

 

Amazon has a product called Glacier - it's dirt cheap to archive data there - as with any cloud solution, the initial backup may take days to weeks depending on your amount of data and connection, but once its setup, its seamless - you just don't notice it. And if you run a RAID, you;ll never need it anyway unless your house burns down, then you have bigger problems! 

 

 

Having the cloud as a main backup is risky.....Digital RailRoad anyone!!

 

I do have cloud backup but it's strictly a third and last place for me for some files. I was with Carbonite and a while after having uploaded all my files, I was informed that about 20% needed to be re-uploaded. Carbonite offered me a free extension of a service that had clearly failed - I cancelled immediately. I use Amazon cloud drive but it's a last ditch backup.

 

Keeping sets of drives in a secure place, safe deposit box was my previous choice (thanks Barclays for closing that facility), now a fire-proof safe in another part of the country is closer to being secure IME.

 

Also having an external drive makes it much easier for a tech to restore a mirror image to a disc that had problems.

 

I also used to burn archival DVDs on a regular basis which went in the safe deposit box but they truly did become a clunky backup.

[SFL]

 

 

My ideal set-up would be to purchase a RAID. A RAID is scalable, and RAID 5 makes it literally impossible to lose any data due to drive failure.

 

But if the device is lost in a fire, or stolen, you then have no data. If you go for any RAID set up, you need to have at least two devices kept separately.

 

 

True - but the raid is the primary data storage. The you would have two backup plans, one to an external drive and one to the cloud in case of fire or theft.

 

Alternatively, keep a backup drive at a mates place and every week, you swap the one from your home with the one you're mates keeping for you. Clunky, but many people do it.

 

I prefer the cloud! 

 

Amazon has a product called Glacier - it's dirt cheap to archive data there - as with any cloud solution, the initial backup may take days to weeks depending on your amount of data and connection, but once its setup, its seamless - you just don't notice it. And if you run a RAID, you;ll never need it anyway unless your house burns down, then you have bigger problems! 

 

 

Hi David, Can I ask you a question which might seem stupid?

 

When one has a RAID and want a backup of the RAID, do you need to run two RAIDs (two identical sizes) or can one just backup the contents of the RAID to a single external HD as one normally do?  In the latter case, how do you decide the size of external HD? (I hope my question is clear.) 

 

Thanks

 

Sung

[David Hewison]

 

 

 

My ideal set-up would be to purchase a RAID. A RAID is scalable, and RAID 5 makes it literally impossible to lose any data due to drive failure.

 

But if the device is lost in a fire, or stolen, you then have no data. If you go for any RAID set up, you need to have at least two devices kept separately.

 

True - but the raid is the primary data storage. The you would have two backup plans, one to an external drive and one to the cloud in case of fire or theft.

 

Alternatively, keep a backup drive at a mates place and every week, you swap the one from your home with the one you're mates keeping for you. Clunky, but many people do it.

 

I prefer the cloud! 

 

Amazon has a product called Glacier - it's dirt cheap to archive data there - as with any cloud solution, the initial backup may take days to weeks depending on your amount of data and connection, but once its setup, its seamless - you just don't notice it. And if you run a RAID, you;ll never need it anyway unless your house burns down, then you have bigger problems! 

 

 

Having the cloud as a main backup is risky.....Digital RailRoad anyone!!

 

I do have cloud backup but it's strictly a third and last place for me for some files. I was with Carbonite and a while after having uploaded all my files, I was informed that about 20% needed to be re-uploaded. Carbonite offered me a free extension of a service that had clearly failed - I cancelled immediately. I use Amazon cloud drive but it's a last ditch backup.

 

Keeping sets of drives in a secure place, safe deposit box was my previous choice (thanks Barclays for closing that facility), now a fire-proof safe in another part of the country is closer to being secure IME.

 

Also having an external drive makes it much easier for a tech to restore a mirror image to a disc that had problems.

 

I also used to burn archival DVDs on a regular basis which went in the safe deposit box but they truly did become a clunky backup.

 

I couldn't agree more - cloud is only for secondary backup.. that's what I use it for. Peace of mind. 

 

Primary backup should always be local. 

[Guest]

If anyone knows of another cloud backup that allows subfolders (other than Carbonite), I would love to know. For some strange reason, Amazon don't understand the use of sub-folders.......at least on the service I use.

[David Hewison]

 

 

 

My ideal set-up would be to purchase a RAID. A RAID is scalable, and RAID 5 makes it literally impossible to lose any data due to drive failure.

 

But if the device is lost in a fire, or stolen, you then have no data. If you go for any RAID set up, you need to have at least two devices kept separately.

 

 

True - but the raid is the primary data storage. The you would have two backup plans, one to an external drive and one to the cloud in case of fire or theft.

 

Alternatively, keep a backup drive at a mates place and every week, you swap the one from your home with the one you're mates keeping for you. Clunky, but many people do it.

 

I prefer the cloud! 

 

Amazon has a product called Glacier - it's dirt cheap to archive data there - as with any cloud solution, the initial backup may take days to weeks depending on your amount of data and connection, but once its setup, its seamless - you just don't notice it. And if you run a RAID, you;ll never need it anyway unless your house burns down, then you have bigger problems! 

 

 

Hi David, Can I ask you a question which might seem stupid?

 

When one has a RAID and want a backup of the RAID, do you need to run two RAIDs (two identical sizes) or can one just backup the contents of the RAID to a single external HD as one normally do?  In the latter case, how do you decide the size of external HD? (I hope my question is clear.) 

 

Thanks

 

Sung

 

Not a stupid question!

 

It depends on the size of the RAID 5 setup you have.

 

The most common being 3 x 2TB hard drives - that will give you about 4TB of storage from memory - luckily you can buy 6TB hard drives now so yes, you could go buy a WD RED 6TB HDD and use that as a single drive backup. 

 

If your raid is larger, say you have 3 x 3TB HDD's - that's about 7TB of space, well then you'd probably need another RAID for backup. Although, there is backup software out there that can run a single backup over multiple external drives, saving you the hassle of using another raid. Also backup files are generally compressed, so take that into account too. 

 

I should mention that when you set a RAID up the system uses some space on those drives for parity, so for example, if you tie 3 x 2TB drives in a RAID 5 config - you will not have 6TB of space.. you lose about a 3rd to account for the parity (redundancy) 

 

Also, i recommend you use WD Red drives for long term, critical storage - they are rock solid drives. They're designed to run in a server, in RAID config and work fine as individual drives. They're no more expensive than any other drive too. 

 

One final point - your backup drive needs only be large enough to store the data you have. You may have a huge raid setup, say a 10TB system - but that doesn't mean you need to match the backup drive size to that.. to begin with you may only need a 1TB drive, and when it runs low, replace it with a 2TB and so on. 

 

Many RAID systems will not let you add new drives to make more storage  - some do, some don't. So the best thing to do is to plan for the future, over estimate how much space you'll need in the future. Maybe go into a computer shop and ask for their advice. I set mine up years ago - I have 4 x 2TB drives setup as a raid - this gives me 5.5TB and I am about to run out.. my system won't allow me to add drives so I'm scratching my head as to what to do about it. It was set up so long ago, I can't remember much of the technical details about them. 

[David Hewison]

If anyone knows of another cloud backup that allows subfolders (other than Carbonite), I would love to know. For some strange reason, Amazon don't understand the use of sub-folders.......at least on the service I use.

 

Check out Cloudberry backup - subfolders work fine with this solution. 

 

You can upload to amazon or any other cloud service you like from inside the software. It's an outstanding product. 

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/

[MDM]

 

 

I thought about getting a 4TB wireless drive but wouldn't that be much slower if you keep your catalog and photos you're working on on the drive? Even with fast Verizon fios I'd be worried about lag time - not to mention a problem if your network is down. Don't want to highjack the thread but would welcome comments on working with wireless externals as your main HD vs. thunderbolt.  Thanks!

 

SFL, I'm way too slow at processing my images so I had the same problem you did - getting that 4TB drive ( and an even larger RAID backup) really helped. 

 

I've no direct experience of NAS but it seems that the main advantage would be in a multi-user situation where people want to share files easily. The following link may be of interest http://www.dabs.com/blog/index.php/the-benefits-of-nas

 

As far as I can see, for a single Mac user, Thunderbolt works fine as you already know, although the speed advantages over the significantly cheaper USB3 seem minimal to me.

 

 

Being able to share files is one of the main advantages for sure, however the other equally important advantage is redundant drive configurations such as RAID 5 or other versions of RAID. 

 

Lets say he opts for a USB drive - and it fails.  in the last year 3 years I've had 4 drives fail - it happens more than you think.. Mind you, I run 9 drives in my server so the odds are against me. 

 

If his single USB 3 drive fails - thats it - all his work lost.. or if he has a backup, then there's at least down time restoring from the back up. 

 

In a NAS, a drive can fail and you can keep on working as if nothing happened. Nothing is lost. Replace the drive as soon as possible and it will sync up in the background - all invisible to the user.

 

For that reason alone, NAS is the way to go. 

 

In this scenario - backups are still critical, but you will almost never need to revert to them short of a house fire. I've been running a server for 6 years, and as far as my data goes, I've never needed to restore from a backup, even though I've had many drive failures. I often restore my laptop from a nightly backup, only because I may have installed some bad software, or i was screwing around with it and killed it. Or, most commonly, I've upgraded the internal drive and didn't want to reinstall the whole thing.

 

Also RAID 5 is 3 times faster than single drives. 

 

There are simpler and cheaper solutions than RAID which may suit the OP better. RAID is expensive. It really depends on how critical your work is and how much trouble you would be in if a drive failed. With a Mac it is possible to set up TIme Machine or other software to back up automatically and very regularly to an external drive if once a day isn't sufficient. I back up manually every day or immediately after a session if the work is very important. So far so good - I've never had my working drive fail although I have seen drives fail and am aware that it is a real possibility. I have four hard drive backups of my entire image collection, some offsite of course.





The 3 times faster bit only relates to the speed of accessing/writing to the drive. If that was an issue I would use my internal flash drive as a working drive. For me, the rate determining step is the speed of the raw conversion, not the read-write speed.  


[Guest]

 

If anyone knows of another cloud backup that allows subfolders (other than Carbonite), I would love to know. For some strange reason, Amazon don't understand the use of sub-folders.......at least on the service I use.

 

Check out Cloudberry backup - subfolders work fine with this solution. 

 

You can upload to amazon or any other cloud service you like from inside the software. It's an outstanding product. 

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/

 

 

Unless I am missing something, I have to pay $300 to have it manage 1TB plus of data and then pay for cloud storage on top.... thanks but I'll pass on that.

[David Hewison]

 

 

 

If anyone knows of another cloud backup that allows subfolders (other than Carbonite), I would love to know. For some strange reason, Amazon don't understand the use of sub-folders.......at least on the service I use.

Check out Cloudberry backup - subfolders work fine with this solution.

 

You can upload to amazon or any other cloud service you like from inside the software. It's an outstanding product.

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/

 

Unless I am missing something, I have to pay $300 to have it manage 1TB plus of data and then pay for cloud storage on top.... thanks but I'll pass on that.

 

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/cloud-backup-windows-desktop.aspx

 

$29.95! lol

 

For windows anyway.. i didn't check the mac prices - they'd be the same i'd say.

[Guest]

 

 

 

If anyone knows of another cloud backup that allows subfolders (other than Carbonite), I would love to know. For some strange reason, Amazon don't understand the use of sub-folders.......at least on the service I use.

Check out Cloudberry backup - subfolders work fine with this solution.

 

You can upload to amazon or any other cloud service you like from inside the software. It's an outstanding product.

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/

 

Unless I am missing something, I have to pay $300 to have it manage 1TB plus of data and then pay for cloud storage on top.... thanks but I'll pass on that.

 

 

http://www.cloudberrylab.com/cloud-backup-windows-desktop.aspx

 

$29.95! lol

 

For windows anyway.. i didn't check the mac prices - they'd be the same i'd say.

 

 

Doh!!!

 

Many thanks, I am trying out that version with my Amazon Cloud Drive account.

[Jill Morgan]

I just started my free 3 month free trial of Amazon's Cloud drive.  $12.00US a year for unlimited photos and 5GB for video and other documents, is a pretty good deal for remote backup to go along with my home cloud service, I don't know if RAWS count as photos or other documents, probably other documents.  $60 a year for unlimited everything. 

 

Might switch to the everything after free trial is over. If I want to store my RAWS as well.

 

Jill

[Betty LaRue]

Is that $29.95 a month or a year? I couldn't tell. It does Mac for same price as windows.

[Ed Rooney]

I just started my free 3 month free trial of Amazon's Cloud drive.  $12.00US a year for unlimited photos and 5GB for video and other documents, is a pretty good deal for remote backup to go along with my home cloud service, I don't know if RAWS count as photos or other documents, probably other documents.  $60 a year for unlimited everything. 

 

Might switch to the everything after free trial is over. If I want to store my RAWS as well.

 

Jill

 

I used to have stars in my eyes; now there's clouds in my eyes, clouds all around in fact. How many clouds are there? Which cloud is to be avoided? I mean which cloud is the cloudiest cloud? 

 

In the course of doing my PP I create RAW files, tiffs and jpegs. Presently, I keep the RAW and jpegs. 

 

As a frugal activity, I'm trying to avoid all these things that now require us to pay "small" monthly fees. There are just too many of them. I've found it's possible to avoid all these monthly or yearly fees . . . as long as I'm willing to do without everything. Not much of a plan, I admit. 

[David Hewison]

Is that $29.95 a month or a year? I couldn't tell. It does Mac for same price as windows.

 

It's $29.95 to buy the backup software (one off fee), and then you pay a subscription to whatever cloud you choose for storage.

 

I have just swapped to Amazon Glacier which is about $0.012 per gig. It's incredibly cheap, but slightly more pricey than Amazon S3 if you request date - say if you need to restore a backup. For archiving, Glacier is probably the most cost effective as far as I know - and secure. 

 

https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/

 

Once you set up a glacier account (which doesnt care what files you upload as it's purely an archival backup repository), you then enter in your credentials in your Cloudberry software and the rest happens in the background. 

 

If you choose to use any other cloud service, cloudberry software can connect to it. 

 

This is only for secondary backup!  

[Allan Bell]

I have never trusted cloud so my secondary backups are done to my own hard drives which are deposited elsewhere, not in the office etc.

 

Allan

[Gervais Montacute]

 

Currently I use a iMac (OS X, 16GB, 1TB) & LR4 and CS6.

 

I archived all the images up to 2014 on external HDs, in other words, on iMac internal HD, I have only images waiting to be edited/processed or already edited 2015 images but the HD is being filled up fast (as I am writing this thread, only 66GB space left).  Sooner or later I will have to work from external HDs all the time. 

 

My questions are;

• What would be your ideal set up in this scenario?  My budget is not limitless but I am prepared to invest sensibly.
• Which external HD is better in this case between the one with mains power and the one without? (At the moment I use both)
• Are there any alternative?
• Any other suggestions or advice?

I would be very grateful for your replies.

 

Sung

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few choices available. This is the one I use with a Mac. I use this mainly for sound editing/streaming and sounds/audio storage, but it's also ideal for images and just about anything.

 

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/gb/products/blackmagicmultidock

 

You can put whatever SSD's make or size in there that you like. Naturally as you would expect. it's very fast. It's also very quiet. Sits in a 19 inch rack.

[MDM]

 

 

Currently I use a iMac (OS X, 16GB, 1TB) & LR4 and CS6.

 

I archived all the images up to 2014 on external HDs, in other words, on iMac internal HD, I have only images waiting to be edited/processed or already edited 2015 images but the HD is being filled up fast (as I am writing this thread, only 66GB space left).  Sooner or later I will have to work from external HDs all the time. 

 

My questions are;

• What would be your ideal set up in this scenario?  My budget is not limitless but I am prepared to invest sensibly.
• Which external HD is better in this case between the one with mains power and the one without? (At the moment I use both)
• Are there any alternative?
• Any other suggestions or advice?

I would be very grateful for your replies.

 

Sung

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few choices available. This is the one I use with a Mac. I use this mainly for sound editing/streaming and sounds/audio storage, but it's also ideal for images and just about anything.

 

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/gb/products/blackmagicmultidock

 

You can put whatever SSD's make or size in there that you like. Naturally as you would expect. it's very fast. It's also very quiet. Sits in a 19 inch rack.

 

 

Unfortunately the SSDs are still incredibly expensive and have limited capacity at that.

[Gervais Montacute]

They've come down in price a lot since they started. I go with crucial.com normally. If you have TB connectivity with say, an iMac, I would recommend this route, but go old USB and whirling 7200rpm hard drives still get the job done. 

[MDM]

Correct me if I'm wrong but a 1TB Crucial SSD costs around £480 (inc VAT) from Jigsaw whereas a 4TB USB3 G-Technology external desktop drive costs about £148 (3 of these are  less than £450 and they are fast and usable as working drives for large image files on a fast Mac). That is over 10 times the price per TB and about 5 times the price of Thunderbolt.

 

So if one wanted to have 4TB of working SSD drives and 2 lots of 4TB SSD backups, it would cost almost £6000. Or even to have 4TB of working SSD drives would not be far off £2000 plus the cost of the USB backup drives and that is before buying the SSD rack. That makes RAID look cheap (actually looking at the Jigsaw site, there are a few G-Technology RAID systems that are not outrageously expensive any more).

 

I'll be sticking with my Thunderbolt and USB3 disks for now and waiting a few more years for SSDs to come down in price - good cameras and lenses would be my preference given a choice (or a top quality monitor).

[Marianne]

If you have large RAW files Time Machine isn't a very good solution IMHO. Much better to get a RAID system. You can get a fairly inexpensive 6TB WD Mybook RAID dual drive - it's pretty small if you don't have room for larger servers. When my macbook pro died a few years ago, I discovered that the Time Machine backup which I thought I was keeping up to date had run out of space without notifying me and I lost 6 months of photos and documents - a very expensive lesson as some were only backed up to Time Machine and it cost a fortune for data retrieval. When I set up my RAID and other backup solutions and spoke with some knowledgeable folks, not the Apple "geniuses," they confirmed that Time Machine is meant for the casual photographer who shoots jpegs and not for pros with large RAW files. 

 

Now I do the triple backup - RAID, an additional hard drive and my Photoshelter account for cloud/offsite storage. 

 

SSDs are great for running software but I wouldn't pay the premium to use them for backup, either. Supposedly if they fail the data can be retrieved easily so that's the advantage but they are still pricey compared to a regular HD. Worth every penny as the main drive on your computer though. 

 

If I waited to take new photos until I had processed my last batch, I'd have a few more online, but I'd never grow as a photographer. I think a backup solution and finding more time to process images makes sense, but IMHO never stop taking photos because you have batches that you haven't processed yet.