Anyone using AIT for data backup?

[Bob Flood]

John

One of the big “issues” with all this modren media (p2, AVC, wotever) is that however you choose to store it will eventually become obsolete.

we have a DDT drive with a scsi cable and a bunch of tapes sitting on a shelf around here. Have we hooked it up in the past 3 years? no. Could we if we wanted 2? maybe.

Realistically, how long do you think the images on that media will be valuable? 2 years? 5 years? or til next week when the cient comes and takes it all?

We have stuff on beta that we will never use again cuz everyone has big hair and shoulder pads.

Unlesss you want to sell the stuff to a stock house in 20 years, i think a tape solution that will give you 5 years of non-obsolesence would be fine.

AIT is a data format based on a helical scan video format, so the AIT deck has a spinning head in it. I would se waht the head hours on it are and find out whats considered high.

also,you may want to do research on an IT forum to see how reliable the tapes and machines are.

hope this helps

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Baz Leffler]

I pondered long and hard about long term storage and as Bob has said, the technology on which you based your storage on may not work or exist in 5-10 years time.

So my rationale was to use something that would have the best chance of maybe being there in later years. So I thought of the word ‘consumerism’. The more of a product that exists the more likely it will be supported in some way or another in the future. So it all came back to simplistics – optical storage; namely Blu-ray discs. Not the fastest approach but on a standalone machine who cares. And whats more the cost of the 25g media has dropped so much over the last year. I just purchased a 100 BD-R discs for $200 so soon I bet the discs will be $1 each.

As consumer electronics advances so will the Blu-ray format evolve so I predict it will remain backward compatible. Have you ever tried to put a 25 year old CD into a Blu-ray player? Guess what… IT WORKS!!! So, if you get my drift, what you do with Blu-ray today would more than likely be able to be accessed in 25 years.

Then take that one step further; 50gig Blu-ray discs are becoming more freely available and then when they release the backward compatible ‘Orange-ray’ (hypothetical) with 250g capacities you can invest in that technology and use it for your ‘Blu-ray’ archives. I remember way back in the early 90’s I use to back up on CD’s (640 meg) when the discs were $10 each, and I can still read the data on those with my Blu-ray drive. Me think it AMAZING!

Currently I store ‘Media managed’ FCP projects complete on Blu-ray which equates to about a half hour program on 25gig which includes every single component of the show which will enable me to re-version at any time; and they are HD programs! But I am also assuming that FCP’s evolution will enable backward capabilities. Also I backup all my camera stuff, in my case XDCAM BPAV folders, onto Blu-ray as well as a single HDD.

The only thing I see making optical discs obsolete is solid state storage but I still think Blue-ray or some sort of ‘ray’ will exist for a very long time.

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Greg Ondera]

The problem with Blue-Ray discs is that with one scratch you’re dead.

A few cameramen have been advocating DLT tape, whereby you can even store all the other data around the project as well, and it will last 50 years (I will believe that when I see it, but I will be dead by that time) and is one of the cheapest per gig solutions.

Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org

[Bob Flood]

greg et al

to echo Baz and to find something that has “stick around ness”, i have hear that a Big reason for DLT or LTO is that financial institutions are using it, and they have to adhere to government specs.

and we all know how long it takes the government to change something!

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.