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Backups
Trying to come up with backup procedures/polices at my new place of employment.
At my former job, we used AIT2 or DLT with Retrospect and/or Mezzo for two edit suites. In my new job, I am responsible for just a single Mac. I proposed going with an AIT or LTO tape system, but the IT gurus want me to backup to external hard drives.
From what I’ve read here at the Cow and other places, the falling price of storage has made hard drives a reasonable way to go. But I want to know what is the preferred method of executing and organizing backups?
SuperDuper? Time Machine? Retrospect? Mezzo?
What are you using to manage your backups and why?
My objectives are to keep a safe, bootable clone and also to be able to restore and revise older projects.
Any advice would be appreciated.
TIA,
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
3 Replies
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Is all of your original footage on tape or disc (P2 or XDCAM)?
If its on tape, you can empty out the Capture Scratch and Render Files folders then save the rest to DVD or DL-DVD.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com -
Hi, Wayne
I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I guess I hadn’t thought out my question completely. I’m not just interested in what media you use for backups, but also in how folks like you actually organize all the data you’re backing up.
I understand that some folks are simply copying their project media files to external hard drives, but once you have 10 or 15 TB of footage on the shelf, how do you locate any particular file that you might have a new use for?
For years, I backed up Media 100 projects with Mezzo and Retrospect. Mezzo allowed me to restore just the media contained in a specific bin or timeline. If I could identify a particular file that I needed, Retrospect would tell me which exactly AIT or DLT tape to pull out of the cabinet and load into the tape drive, so that it could then restore the specific shot or logo or VO I needed direct to my media drive.
So that’s my question, if I have media backed up to external HD or DVDs, how do I find the files I want to restore?
(Maybe I’ll rephrase my question and post it under a better Subject line.)
Thanks!
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
[Mike Raff] “I understand that some folks are simply copying their project media files to external hard drives, but once you have 10 or 15 TB of footage on the shelf, how do you locate any particular file that you might have a new use for? “
Each backup DVD is for a particular project only. Meaning that if I have an episode of one of our programs, then the backup DVD is for that episode ONLY. You’ll end up with a bunch of DVDs but if you keep them organized, finding media is that tough.
Never ever use hard drives for project backups! Hard drives fail all of the time. I have several door stops of the past few years. All of our projects are backed up to DVD or Blu-Ray.
As for locating footage, all of the footage is with each individual project. If I need footage, I look for a project that contains that footage and and it offline. Memory serves as the footage file.
[Mike Raff] “For years, I backed up Media 100 projects with Mezzo and Retrospect. Mezzo allowed me to restore just the media contained in a specific bin or timeline. If I could identify a particular file that I needed, Retrospect would tell me which exactly AIT or DLT tape to pull out of the cabinet and load into the tape drive, so that it could then restore the specific shot or logo or VO I needed direct to my media drive. “
THis is the best method but most of us don’t have large enough budgets for this OR we just choose to spend money elsewhere. Its a preference thing… If you’re working on documentaries that require lots of footage that cannot be kept in house, tape backups are the only way to go.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com
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