does anybody use firewire card readers? & can they suggest a good one?

through some internet research, it seems they are for downloading alot of images quickly.

Also, is firewire 400 much or any faster than USB 2.0 or 3.0? can anybody tell me their experience with either? as I am debating whether to get myself a firewire card reader. I like firewire 800 as this seems the fastest but is a bit more expensive.

since I have SD cards & Sony memory sticks I would get compact flash adapters for these & use them in the firewire card reader. Would this be a good strategy? or am I better off just staying with USB?

For those who use firewire card readers, for speediness of downloading, do you just download everything off the card 1st, & then add metadata such as keywords, author etc after downloading?

or do you add the metadata to sets of images in the metadata fields of your ingester software & then download.

I ask because i would think that if one adds the metadata to sets of images as they are downloading instead of just downloading 1st & then dong metadata after, would this slow down the downloading process & thus almost defeat the purpose of a fast firewire card reader?

Sossity

I have 2; 2 terabyte western digital hard drives that I use to store all my music content on, including an itunes library.

I have albums ripped in flac, & in mp3. I also scan my album art & have separate folders for these scans.

my hard drives are labeled; MUSIC 2TB-A, & the backup is MUSIC 2TB-B.

I have been using disc utility on my mac to do the backup. In the restore tab, I drag the music drive A into the source space, & the music drive B into the target space.

I choose erase destination & replace with contents of A, except for what is only on B or something like this.

I have been going through scanning & ripping all my audio Cd's, & updating/browsing my drive A & I am finding that albums that I ripped & remember scanning album art, is missing, I either find the ripped album, & missing the scan, or I have the scans but am missing the album. It is odd because before I did my last backup of drive A to B, I remember seeing the missing items that were on drive A. And after that backup, they are gone.

Either way, it is getting a bit tedious in that I am gong back & redoing things, & I do distinctly remember scanning or ripping the albums, where things are missing.

I am also or try to be careful about what I delete.

Is there something or setting that I am not getting? maybe i need to do a complete format & erase of the B music drive each time before I back it up/copy with music drive A contents to start fresh?

so far, I just did the format of drive B the 1st time I connected it to disk utility, & all the subsequent backups I have done to it (for each time I add more to the A drive) I have used the restore function to copy. I have not done an erase or format 1st before I connect & restore/copy drive A onto drive B.

Is there a fairly simple way I can do a backup between hard drives on either a mac or PC, & be sure that drive B is exactly like drive A, so I do not go back browsing drive A to find things missing?

Sossity

I also forgot to mention the formatting, I would prefer for all my hard drives to be able to plug into both mac & PC, all my drives are in FAT 32, but I realize there is the file limit of 4gb on FAT32, & so I have my movies at NTFS, I connect it to my mac using a 3rd party driver, NTFS for mac.

Sossity

I saw this post by another poster, & tried to do a reply, but I got a warning saying that it is over 120 days old, & if I want a response I should start a new thread, so here I go.

So far, I have had my hard drives set up;

A 2tb hard drive with both originals & derivatives, with the derivatives consisting of edited photos, text documents, & documents/photos of my art.

Another 2tb hard drive with all my music on it, albums ripped in flac, mp3, & album art scans.

A 1tb hard drive with my ripped movie DVD's & scanned DVD cover art.

Is it ok to have originals & derivatives on the same drive? when I looked at this drive in istat pro, it showed up as about 1/4ths full, & so far, I thought it would be more economical for now to keep them on the same drive.

if this is not the best arrangement, any suggestions on how I should arrange my digital content?

Sossity

I have 2 alternating external hard drives, in which I have one at home (drive A) & one offsite (drive B), I bring the offsite one home to backup the newer drive A contents to, so far I have used disk utility, on a mac & just copy the whole of hard drive A to hard drive B in an overnight backup, but these backups will take longer as I get more content.

Is there a mac app or windows app that can tell the new files on the home drive A & copy just the new files to the offsite backup drive B? without me gong through disk utility or doing it by hand in finder?

any suggestions for either mac or windows, I work in both platforms. I would also like something that can copy & backup ipod content as well, like my itunes library.

Sossity

Yes a dedicated machine would be good, but I dont think it is absolutely needed, it depends on how many people are using it, who wants to use the machine for what at the same time, ie someone wants to check e-mail, while the other wants to download photos, there could be problems, then a separate machine workstation may work better. Are there children in the home who use the computer as well?

Sossity

I know I have posted this question elswhere, but I have had no replies, & thought maybe this area might be better as it concerns which hardware or one of my hard drives that digitally generated art would go in. If no one knows what I am talking about, http://www.youtube.com/results?q=digital+art&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=np&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=w1, I have tried to post a link, to give a better idea, as this seems to be strictly a photography forum, but I think this digital asset management should be expanded to include other digital items.

I recently bought a wacom tablet, & it has been great so far, I have gone to using it in place of my mouse. I have also begun to explore digital sketching in apps like photoshop.

I am beginning to get a collection of these sketches, & would like to know where in the DAM system they fit in, would they go with my originals directory where I keep all my camera originals? or would they go into the derivatives directories? I would like to get a good system in place early, in my DAM, as my digital sketches are just as valuable to me as my paper sketches.

Sossity

I recently bought a wacom tablet, & it has been great so far, I have gone to using it in place of my mouse. I have also begun to explore digital sketching in apps like photoshop.

I am beginning to get a collection of these sketches, & would like to know where in the DAM system they fit in, would they go with my originals directory where I keep all my camera originals? or would they go into the derivatives directories?

Sossity

Yes, somewhat, thanks for the link.

so I would basically use the same file naming scheme as for camera originals from a camera?

so for an old photos that I scan I would use;

my name_Date of the scan_a unique file number_and append it with something like scan?

what should I use for a unique file number? something like if I make scans on 2-7-2012, name each file; Sossity_120207_0001_scan.tiff, Sossity_120207_0002_scan.tiff, & so on for each scan done on 2-7-2012?

what about variations on a particular file? ie a master from a web?

would this work? Sossity_120207_0001_scan_MF for master file? etc?

what about a photo that I scan in which I know who took the photo? would I append their name to the file? along with the date I scanned etc?

Sossity

My mother found a bunch of old photos from the 1940's & 50's.

when I scan these, what would be a good way to name the files?

what is a good way to name scans of photos in which I knew who took the photo?

Sossity

The image types are .jpgs from the panasonic DMC-zs7 camera. They were new images fresh off the sd card, I had not done anything else to them, just downloading as camera originals. When I download the images from this camera & sd card with downloader pro, I do not have this problem.

Sossity

I have noticed that with some of my vertical photos that I downloaded with the mac version of image ingester pro, show up rotated properly when browsing them on mac os, but when I look at these same photos on a windows computer, the vertical ones show up sideways as though they were not rotated.

Sossity

What would be the best way to name them? like original photos off a camera? & what type of unique number identifier should I use?

any suggestions? I was thinking using a similar scheme as for camera originals, like Sossity_YYMMDD_0001_digiart, & so on.

Sossity

I have been burning my raw data my Raw buckets; photos & movie files from my digicam onto Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs, but as my data increases, the amount of discs increases, I keep the discs at an office in my town as offsite storage, this has worked the best for now.

I could go to double layer discs, but they cost more per disc, & not as economical as DVD-R's. I have looked at blue ray, but I do not have a blue ray burner, & there does not seem to be any confirmation for me that blue ray discs are as archival or as good as a proven disc like Taiyo Yuden discs.

I have something called stuffit for mac compression software, & have seen zip files, that is alot of what downloads come in.

Is there a universal compression software to compress my data without losing quality, is cross plat form, & could be opened in the future? I am asking about this as a way to get more of my data on each DVD-R disc.

I have heard of having a hard drive offsite, but this is not practical, as I work from home, & have a family member keep my backup discs at their office, & having them tote a hard drive back & firth for incremental backups is not practical.

Sossity

It is straight foreward for when I photograph my own art, I use my name in the author & copyright fields, & my name in the photos filename,

but what about when someone else, like a friend or family member takes a photo of me next to one of my paintings?


How do I name them? & whos name do I place in the author & copyright fields? & who's name do I use in the filename of the photos?

for example; mom takes a photo of me by my art;

do I use; Jane_110114_1234_CO.jpg, with Jane being mom's name, or do I still use; Sossity_110114_1234_CO.jpg?

& for copyright, & author would I use Jane? sinsce she took the photo?

Sossity