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Method of organization for archiving
Hi All,
I’m sure this topic comes up all the time but I am looking for the best way to organize projects that start out as AVC-Cam to back up to an external hard drive. I explained my current strategy in this post but I’ll recap quickly.
We operate in 9 regions across 7 states. I have 3 separate folders – Video, Pictures, Music. Videos and Pictures are separated into the 9 regions. Each region folder in the video folder has a specific folder for each project. The pictures folder has folders more based on location and event, not necessarily the project since these tend to be reused in various projects. Music is broken out by purchased source and then categorized and not associated with any project.
In having talked with Shane he seemed to suggest keeping 1 copy the way I have it as well as making one folder for all my project files. My goal is to avoid unnecessary duplicates of files since we sometimes reuse the videos.
My drive setup is a 700 GB internal drive for the OS and Applications, a second internal 1 TB drive where all my old DV footage is as well as the AVC-Cam backup files and transcoded ProRes 422 files are stored as well as pictures and music. I have a 2 TB and a 500 GB timecapsule. The 2 TB functions as a Timecapsule and the 500 currently is used to back up the Raw AVC-CAM and old DV footage.
I guess my question is how do people who repurpose media from time to time from one project to another handle organization. We are on a tight budget and can’t afford to buy drives constantly but also want to try and be more organized going forward to get the best archiving solution. Sorry for being long winded and I appreciate the help.
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3 Replies
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[Mark Laslo] “I guess my question is how do people who repurpose media from time to time from one project to another handle organization. We are on a tight budget and can’t afford to buy drives constantly but also want to try and be more organized going forward to get the best archiving solution.”
Well, the solution is always “more hard drives”. You can’t expect to gather more and more media and have it take up less and less space.
I tend to keep media together on my raid, project stuff on the system drive. When I archive the project, I archive it all off of my system to a central location. If the project needs to be restored, I restore it to my raid until I am finished with it. I then rearchive the whole thing again with a _REV_Sept2010 (or whatever) added to it. This way when I search the archives for the project, I can see the latest revision and restore that.
Although it is different for us as we archive to LTO tape which works differently than hard drives. It’s still a decent rule to follow as by the multiple archive, you are creating redundancy which is good for projects that come back often. Also, if you keep it all together, you never lose anything.
Jeremy
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Hi Jeremy,
Are you keeping all media (pictures, music, and video) on your RAID and just your project file on the system drive or are you saying you just keep video on your RAID and everything else on your system drive.
If all media – do you keep all of your media for one project in a unique folder and if you need a clip from it for another project duplicate it and keep a copy in both folders or just reference the old project?
If only video – Do you use media manager to consolidate all of your media before archiving?
[Jeremy Garchow] “When I archive the project, I archive it all off of my system to a central location. If the project needs to be restored, I restore it to my raid until I am finished with it. I then rearchive the whole thing again with a _REV_Sept2010 (or whatever) added to it. This way when I search the archives for the project, I can see the latest revision and restore that.”
What steps to you take to archive and where do you put the Rev number you talked about. At the end of the project file or the folder?
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[Mark Laslo] “Are you keeping all media (pictures, music, and video) on your RAID and just your project file on the system drive”
Yes. Basically, anything that is in the timeline or has the potential to be in a timeline is on my raid. Temporary exports (ie ref movies and such) and web reviews stay on the system drive, and I usually dump all that before the archive.
[Mark Laslo] “If all media – do you keep all of your media for one project in a unique folder”
Yes, except the capture scratch, but I rarely use the capture scratch anymore as you will read later.
[Mark Laslo] “if you need a clip from it for another project duplicate it and keep a copy in both folders or just reference the old project?”
If I need media to span projects, I usually duplicate it if the projects aren’t on the system at the same time. That way, all the clips from that project stay within their project folders across the array.
If they are on the system at the same time, then I usually keep the projects together. As I said before, if you keep it all together, you never lose anything. I’m not sure if this will work for your particular case, so your mileage may vary.
For example. The latest campaign I just finished had a total of 29 videos. Across those 29 videos I have probably about 8 projects. I will archive the whole thing together, as some of the media is shared across most of those 8 projects. If I need to restore the project to change one thing in one project, I will restore the whole project. It takes longer, but keeps things organized and less splintered than they already are. To me, it’s better to do that, than to pick it apart. Your project might not be able to be setup that way, so again your mileage may vary.
[Mark Laslo] “If only video – Do you use media manager to consolidate all of your media before archiving? “
No, I just keep it all. Also, I edit native MXF files so I don’t have the problem of deciding wether nor not I keep the log and transferred files, it makes things easier and more efficient. In your case, you can archive the AVCCam files, and dump the QT files to save on space. You can always relog and transfer, but maybe that doesn’t fit your workflow, I’d have to leave that for your judgement.
[Mark Laslo] “What steps to you take to archive”
We archive to LTO tape which is connected to the entire system through our network and ethernet. So, we have an iMac with a little 4 drive RAID5 on it that acts as a really small (and ethernet slow) server, nothing fancy. When any one of us are done with the project, we throw everything on to the iMac with the RAID. What I usually do is make a folder with the name of the Project. In that folder are two more folders with something like “ProjectName”_Project and “ProjectName”_Elements. This raid is tapped by the LTO drive as a file share, and we can archive and restore to/from LTo tape right to that little server if we want, or restore it anywhere. I really depends on what we need to do.
This way when I restore the encompassing project folder, I drag the _Project folder to my system disk, and the _Elements folder to my raid. Pretty simple, really. When I restore the project to reedit, I add the _Rev to the encompassing project folder name, although you can add it to the project name if you want before you begin editing the revisions. Hope that makes sense.
Jeremy
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