Due to flooding in Thailand, we’re seeing hard drive prices rise steeply in a matter of days. Large drives (3 TB particularly) seem to be in short supply, and they’re getting expensive.

I would not suggest hoarding, but if you know you need a new drive really soon, it *might* be time to act quickly.  I did a quick survey of the places I buy drives, and it seems like prices have indeed gone up, and availability is more scarce.

This seems to be particularly true of mail order retailers. One bright spot – for some people at least – is that Best Buy seems to be prioritizing local stores over mail order.  A 2TB Western Digital Green drive is listed as being in stock at my local store for $79. Since it’s an advertised special, I think they are obligated to sell it for that price for the time being. I would not expect that sale to be repeated anytime soon. (Note that they now refuse to ship this item – you have to pick up in person).

One reality check here.  Hard drive prices may be going up, but that’s probably up to what the price per terabyte was 6 or 12 or 18 months ago. An extra $100 feels like a lot, but it’s probably not a reason to panic. My expectation would be that we’ll still be able to get drives, they will just cost a bit more.  Not a happy prospect if you are just about to trick out an 8-bay RAID with 3TB enterprise drives, but not too bad for someone who needs to buy one extra drive.

Also keep in mind that hoarding does not help the situation, so don’t go overboard.

More

Fotoweek DC is coming up as of this Friday. I’ve pulled out some of the best events along with short descriptions, times, cost, and a link to the registration URL. As you can see, I’m speaking on Sunday morning, presenting my photos and videos from the Hope in South Africa project.

Lots here to enjoy and support.

Sunday Nov 6, 11am – Noon – Peter Krogh presentation of Hope In South Africa – Free
Fotoweek Central 1800 L St. NW
Join photographer Peter Krogh as he discusses his travels to South Africa’s central Karoo region to document the work of a small Maryland-based non-profit. His travels have resulted in a prolific, breathtaking set of images, as well as a short film. The material outlines the challenges that HIV and AIDs presents to this sparsely populated agricultural community, and how those challenges are being addressed through a total community effort.

Fotoweek DC page

Read the rest of this entry »

More

I’m very excited to present some new material for Phase One, outlining how Media Pro can be used together with Capture One. If you’re a Capture One user, this will really help your workflow and your overall collection management. (For those who don’t know, Media Pro is the latest version of iView/Expression Media.)

We’ll explore the capabilities of Media Pro to help with short and long-term workflow.  And we’ll outline how the two programs can work together, integrating metadata and renderings.  You’l see how to get the most out of your image collection, and how to keep it safe and accessible.

We have two programs in each location. There is an evening lecture-style seminar that lasts 2 hours.  The following day, I’ll be conducting a day-long hands-on workshop for a much smaller group.

Here’s the Current Schedule.
Click below for more information:

New York, November 16 and 17 - Sponsored by Digital Transitions

Chicago, December 7 and 8 - Sponsored by ProGear

More

I’ll be back at Fotocare in lower Manhattan next week on Monday and Tuesday, with 2 programs I’ve never done in New York.

On Monday, I’ll be presenting Hope in South Africa, A Lightroom Case study. This 3 hour program examines the use of Lightroom as a tool to manage a large photo shoot. In this presentation, I outline how to use the tools in Lightroom to construct a workflow that serves multiple needs for a single project.  This includes efficient import, effective organizing, stylized development as well as output and publishing. This program costs $20.

Here’s a link to more information and sign-up.

On Tuesday October 11, I’ll be doing a day-long program on Lightroom from a DAM context. Learn how to more effectively use the program safely and efficiently in a smaller hands-on setting. This one is $200.

Here’s a link for more information.

More

As of July 2011, Richard Anderson completed his term as director of the dpBestflow project, and as the chair of ASMP’s Digital Standards and Practices Committee.  This closes a six year chapter of working selflessly and tirelessly on behalf of his fellow photographer.

Richard took over the helm of ASMP’s Digital Standards and Practices Committee in 2005, and became principle author and chair of UPDIG. During his tenure there, he oversaw the production of 5 versions of the best practice document. The UPDIG document represented the best consensus on the technical facets of digital photography for publication, and was instrumental in helping to spread good technical understanding worldwide.

Read the rest of this entry »

More

I’m writing some new content for dpBestflow, and I’m looking for people with real-world experience with online backup services. While online backup is generally not going to be feasible for an entire media archive, it can present a good solution for parts of an archive, or for other digital files such as correspondence or financial records. (To be very clear, by online services, I mean something like Backblaze, CrashPlan, or Carbonite, rather than a local backup solution like Time Machine).

1. I’m interested in talking to people who have  successfully used an online backup service to actually restore lost data. I’d like to know what services were used, what the costs and time frames were, and what the general user experience was.

2. I’m also very interested in finding people who thought they were backed up with an online service, but had the restoration fail for one reason or another.

3. I’d also be interested in speaking to anyone who has performed a real validation of their online backup.

4. Let’s also add anyone who is using a do-it-yourself online backup, such as the Drobo Sync.

5. I’m also interested in talking to anyone who has uploaded large amounts of data to one of the “all you can eat” services such as Backblaze, in order to find out how long it took to upload, and what the test recovery experience is like.  I’m less interested in speaking to people who have uploaded, but who have not yet tested for recoverability.

If any of this describes you, please contact me at peter at peterkrogh.com

More

I recently upgraded one of my storage drives from 2 to 3 TB, and wanted to report some of what I found.  Upgrading drives beyond 2.2TB can lead to some complications, including either hardware or OS compatibility.  I found that most of my firewire drive enclosures don’t support the larger drives, and none of my USB enclosures do. All of the eSATA configurations handled it with no problem. (Tested on Mac only).

Background
We’ve run into a limit like this before. Many years ago, IDE connections would only support volumes up to 137 GB in size (shown as 128 GB in older Mac OS). If you connected a drive that was larger, you had to format the drive into partitions if you wanted to take advantage of the drive’s full capacity.  ATA-6, which was introduced in 2002 lifted that limit to an astronomical 144 petabytes.

Serial ATA (SATA) shares the ability to support very large volumes, but the hard drive controller or bridge board (the thing that lets the hard drive talk to your computer’s logic board) may be limited to 2.2TB. Since Operating Systems like Windows XP don’t support volumes larger than 2.2 TB, manufacturers limited the capacity of the controller to make such large volumes.  Windows Vista and 7 don’t have the limitation, as long as the drive is formatted as GUID.  Mac OS 10.4 and later also don’t have that problem.

So what happens if you put a drive in an enclosure that does not support the volume size?  First, you’ll be asked to format the drive, since it won’t be readable to the computer. This can cause a heart attack if you have a bunch of data on the drive and don’t want to reformat it.

Testing my Hardware
I took this opportunity to test some o fmy hardware to see which devices supported 3TB drives.  Here’s what I found.

SATA – All of my SATA connections supported the large drive.  This included the internal connections on my Mac Pro tower, as well as the add-on eSATA cards I’m using (one for the desktop and one for the laptop). Note that most of these cards have upgradable firmware, and you might need to do that to allow the large drives, if you have an older eSATA card.  I upgraded the firmware of my cards to be compatible with 10.6 a while ago, so I’m already running the latest firmware.

Firewire – I have quite a variety of firewire enclosures in use, and nearly all of them don’t support the large drives.  Note that many of these are 4-6 years old, so it’s not particularly surprising that they were designed to top out at 2.2 TB.

The Wiebetech (CRU Dataport) devices that I have did not originally support the large drives, but have upgradable firmware that solved the problem.  This is one reason that you pay a bit more for Wiebetech, but you get some real value for your money.

The cheaper Cooldrives enclosures that I have don’t support a firmware upgrade. I’m looking at replacing the Bridgeboards in these units with something like this.  It has a current Oxford 934 Firewire controller, and should be easy to swap into my multi-bay enclosures.

The older OWC enclosure I had was not upgradable, but the current ones seem to support large drives. One great thing about OWC is that you can get a smart person on the phone to answer these kinds of questions easily.

USB -  None of the USB devices I own seem to support the large drives. That’s not particularly surprising, since most of my USB enclosures are older.

Drobo – Did not test, but the company website shows support for 3TB drives. I’d make sure my firmware was up to date before installing one of these.

The Bottom Line
Because of the configuration of my system, and my data needs, I eventually decided not to use the 3TB drive for archive data storage. My photo archive lives in older firewire enclosures that it connected to an iMac server, and none of these devices currently support 3TB. I decided to let these drives remain as 2TB for a while, since I have plenty of space left on them.

I have put the 3TB drives into service as Working File backups that protect the current files on my Mac Pro tower. I’ll use these as swapper drives that let me take current work off-site. Since my works-in-progress data is edging toward 2 TB, the extra capacity will be useful here right away, since I can allow Chronosync to save additional copies of changed and deleted files.  These drives connect by eSATA, so there is not problem with the large volumes.

More

I’ll be presenting at Adobe’s two week “Pop-up” store near Union Square in San Francisco on Monday, from 4-5:30 pm. I’ll be showing the work I did in South Africa earlier this year for the organization Hope in South Africa.

In this presentation, I start by showing one of the finished products of the shoot – an image-based narrative that tells the story of this small NGO and the community it operates in.  The balance of the presentation is a deconstruction of the editing process – showing how I use the tools in Lightroom to help make sense of a 5000 image shoot. Along the way, you’ll see techniques for organizing, developing and editing a story, along with discussions about how the tools can be used specifically to advance the narrative.

The presentation is free, as are all the events at the store.

More

I have the honor of making a few presentations for Adobe this week at the Look3 Fesitval in Charlottesville. If you haven’t been, it’s a really great few days of peace, love and photography, in the center of beautiful downtown Charlottesville.

The program started as a back yard slideshow at National Geographic photographer Nick Nichols’ house a couple decades ago.  (I was fortunate enough to attend one of these, and it was a blast.) It has turned into a premier city-wide event, with exhibitions, presentations, and a really amazing group of slideshows projected at the Pavilion. If you haven’t been, I strongly suggest it.

I’ll be presenting some Lightroom and Photoshop Kung-fu on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which are free to anyone with a Festival Pass, Student Pass, or Big Love Pass. Here’s the description page.

More

I’ll be presenting several programs this week and next. Boston the 24th and 25th, and South Carolina June 2nd and 3rd.

On Wednesday the 24th, I’ll be going a general DAM program, lecture style. This is the lecture I developed for dpBestflow, and it outlines workflow theory, storage concepts, and where to find lots of free information on these subjects. The program runs from 6-9pm, whith possible extra credit time allowed tfor people who know the magic words, “Can I buy you a beer?” Program is $10

On Thursday, we have an all-day Lightroom workshop limited to no more than 20 people. Lots of basic, intermediate and even advanced Lightroom material covered here. $149.
Signups for both here.

_________________________

Next week, I’ll be doing a pair of programs sponsored by ASMP South Carolina.

The  first is a four-hour lecture-style program, outlining a complete Lightroom workflow from card to archive. This is a start-to-finish workflow demonstration.

The following day, we have a much smaller program, limited to 12 people, presenting Lightroom in a workshop setting.

Signups and pricing here.

More