Archiving Options

[Ray Thornback]

I’d also be interested in hearing replies. I definitely would not be using DVD-Rs, they are not a long term storage format. In 20 years time you will be able to pull a digibeta off the shelf and play it, this won’t be the case with a DVD.

[John Knapich]

We have three FCP systems and have successfully used a stand alone Pioneer Blu-Ray burner using Toast Titanium. We usually will use Media Manager in FCP to archive our final edits to a new project including gfx, renders, and audio. Also we throw what ever elements (omf, mixes, gfx files, docs) onto the disc. Usually a project will fit onto a standard (25gigs) or Dual Layer (50gigs) BD disk.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Michael Moser] “When one gets filled, I put it on the shelf and start another. This has worked as a temporary solution, but as we all know, hard disks fail especially if they haven’t been exercised.
“

We’re using raw bare drives, right now 1TB SATA drives, using a WiebeTech RTX 200 unit. I know folks seem to have a hang-up about the drives, but we’re having no issues. We thought about BluRay disc but it was easier and more cost effective to go this route.

I have a blog about the device and how we’re using it.

https://www.biscardicreative.com/blog/?p=56

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Michael Moser]

Two questions-
-How long does it take to archive a typical project to blu-ray – say a half-hour program?
-Is blu-ray a long-term archiving solution? I know…some of my old 3/4 tapes are sadly deteriorating after about 15-20 year. Do you think the blu-rays will last?
Thanks,
Mike

[Michael Moser]

Any thought over the years that the drives may seize and not work when you pull ’em out after awhile if they’re not used?- or is this my imagination.
I’ve always thought that drives are optimized to be working relatively continuously, like a car engine. After they sit for a long while on a shelf, maybe they don’t work?
Of course the answer to this is to take them out every year or so and exercise each one.
What do you think?

[Zane Barker]

I also use hard drives, and connect them to the computer with something like this https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

Drives are cheep these days, and because hard drives can fail, simply keep things stored on 2 drives, so if one archive drive goes out you buy another and recreate the second archive drive using the one that is still works.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[David Roth weiss]

[Ray Thornback] “In 20 years time you will be able to pull a digibeta off the shelf and play it, this won’t be the case with a DVD.”

What??? Tape has a shelf life of 10 years max…

Meanwhile, while untested, DVDs were, in theory, originally designed to have a shelf life of 100 years. The dye in some brands has definitely been found to degrade well before 100 years, but the best brands are still ticking.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Alex Elkins]

We’ve started archiving onto Ultrium LTO-3 tapes. It works out a fair bit cheaper than archiving onto harddrive, and they seem to be built to last too. You can fit 400GB onto an LTO-3 tape, or the step up is LTO-4, which fits 800GB.

With the setup we have, all we need is a SCSI card for the Mac and the player, which in our case is called an HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960, plus the software to make everything talk to each other – we use software called Retrospect.

The backing up takes a bit longer than transferring files to a HD, but you can just leave things running overnight. So far this has been working excellently for us.

Good luck,
Alex Elkins

[Ray Thornback]

This is wrong – we use tape a lot older than 10 years old on a daily basis. 2″ Quad from the 70s and 1″C from the 80s and 90s and still play and look great whereas we get problems from DVDs as recent as 5 years ago.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Michael Moser] “What do you think? “

I think DVDs and BluRays can get scratched just as easily as a hard drive might fail. For mission critical stuff, like P2 material that can’t be replaced, we simply make two archive copies. At $90 for a 1TB drive, it’s cheap enough to make multiple copies.

We don’t archive just one project on a drive, we archive stuff until it fills up so all the drives get used at least once per month until they’re full and then we’ll be accessing them on a regular basis to pull media off of them so they’ll get used.

That new WeibeTech unit is so easy to use and really handles the drives well. The drives are completely enclosed inside the RAID box so they’re protected and I really like that.

I originally purchased this Voyager Q thing that looks like a toaster and returned it in two days. The drives are not really secure in there and the power was a bit flaky. In short, it was a piece of crap so I I got rid of it and would never recommend something like that for archiving. Could not see it lasting more than a few months.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Biscardi Creative Media

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

Read my Blog!