• Storage & Archiving

  Archiving: the 2nd level

  Posted by Daniel Schultz on March 13, 2013 at 12:24 pm

  I’m about to graduate from simply adding more external drives with housing as my data increases.

  Here’s what I was thinking, and I wanted to get a sense if this is sound and ask a few questions:

  1. Use Mirror RAID Externals for all live projects. Probably have two of them (from OWC)
  2. Get two docks and use bare HDs for archiving (also OWC) so I can archive to two HDs at the same time for redundancy. Someone said that I can do a software configure for RAID 1 for the two docks. Then store them in static-free containers.
  3. Software for verifying correct copying. At this point I’m not in the market for tape backup, due to costs, and the fact that my data amount is not so high.

  Questions:
  1. Does this seem like a good next step from my current “Graveyard of external Hard Drives?”
  2. Does anyone know about configuring MacBook Pro for software RAID 1?
  3. Can anyone suggest a reliable verification/copying software?
  4. Is there a better way to do this at a low cost?
  5. Someone else said that buying bare drives seems to be more expensive than getting HDs in enclosures. Is this because they’re comparing higher quality bare drives to lower quality enclosed drives?

  Thanks for your help!

  Dan S.

  Simon Blackledge replied 13 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Simon Blackledge

  March 15, 2013 at 9:05 am

  So let me get this straight.

  You want 2 copies at all times when job is LIVE.
  When done your going to copy onto 2 more externals for archives?

  First issue I see is if your job gets bigger than a single disk. How do you propose to split it?

  Say it does fit fine.
  Drive 1 – Master Drive
  Drive 2 – Backup Drive (will become Archive Drive 1)
  Drive 3 – Archive Drive (will be Archive Drive 2)

  Folder Structure at root of project 2 folders
  /Setups
  /Media

  Plus another 2 externals in diff locations with all orig cam rushes.

  Anything small like fcp ae nuke xmld shoot docs goes in setups (organise at will)
  Any media goes in /Media ( organise at will )

  Install ChronoSync
  Get a dropbox account

  Chronosync make 3 synchronisers save them and add to schedule.

  1 Set a scheduled sync left to right from Drive 1 to Drive 2 every 1 hour for /Volumes/Drive_A/MyProject
  2 Set a scheduled sync left to right from Drive 1 to Drive 2 every 15 mins for /Volumes/Drive_A/MyProject/Setups
  3 Set a scheduled sync left to right from Drive 1 to Dropbox every 15min for /Volumes/Drive_A/MyProject/Setups

  turn on archive changed items and sync deleted files.

  Turn on Verify data in options
  Set versions limit to however many you want. default is 5

  Where /Setups contains only project files like AE scripts and FCP Projects etc.

  If you have a Pro dropbox change you no.3 sync to sync deletions but untick archived replaced files
  Then set on right target – when deleting files delete immediately
  This is because when you overwrite a file in dropbox it versions it anyway.

  One you have all media synced and your up an editing a sync will take seconds and it happens in the BG.

  When your finished just take Drive 1+2 offsite and get 2 new drives for next project.

  If Drive 1 is a Raiddrive B could just be a large single 4TB drive.

  When done get Drive 3
  Copy Sync No.1 and sync Drive 1 to 3 and take drive 2+3 offsite
  Then you can remove the project from Drive 1 and start over.

  If you can have them all in at the same time you can run syncs to Drive 2 and 3 at same time (it’ll do them one after another when scheduled) so when your done both archive disks are ready to go.

  Please remember though disks are backups not archives. Archive should be LTO tape.

  I’d strongly suggest if your job is important to get something like at least a 4bay raid 5 Promise ( if you have thunderbolt) as Drive 1

  Hope this helps.

  s

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