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POLL: How are you archiving?
This applies to almost everyone here, but searching seems to yield little results…no one has been talking about archiving digital media.
For those of use with an all digital work flow (like Shane Ross)…what is the preferred method for producing a tangible backup of a finished product that never originated or ended up on tape?
Are people using Blu Ray for backups yet? LTO or DLT drives? Internal/external SATA drives? Here is my workflow at the moment, including the one hole I am missing…hopefully I’ll learn from what everyone else thinks is a good option:
Capture footage on Panasonic P2 – Store P2 info on interal SATA drives in Mac Pro – Log and Transfer Quicktimes into Facilis RAID – output to BETA or DVD for client delivery.
Sometimes this includes using Media Manager (umph) to Copy the project including used footage on to a DL DVD. I have been having scary luck with hard drive failures lately, and I have over 2TB of P2 data sitting inside of my Mac Pro’s internal SATAs.
Keep in mind the majority of my work is HD delivered on SD and I would like to keep HD copies of the projects archived.
What is everyone sticking on their shelf?
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49 Replies
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I am hardly ALL DIGITAL. P2 makes up about 40%-50% of the footage I deal with..the rest is on tape. But that’s besides the point.
I archive the P2 to SATA drives for now. Awaiting when I can afford an LTO tape drive.
Shane
Littlefrog PostGETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
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We backup everything, FCP Capture folders, FCP Project and the original P2 media to a Scalar 24 LTO3 tape library. Works very well.
Robert Longwell
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Working in a large Health Institution I get the IT guys to pass over all the IDE drives that they seem to replace on a such regular basis. They fit a treat in Beta tape cases and I archive/backup to those.
Being older drives they are probably not too reliable and for anything approaching ‘misson critical’ I’ll double up but it’s a free solution for me.
Alan (London)
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Sata. I use a SATA to FW800 adapter from weibetech. Works great. If I know that the stuff is super important, I buy two drives.
Jeremy
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I archive the ENTIRE project folder to Western Digital “My Book” External drives and document it. When about 70GB are left, I start a new one.
I was going to use Blu-ray but many projects exceed 50gb so I won’t be doing that.
I may do LTO in the future though.
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All you “hard drive” advocates are doomed to suffer a painful, agonizing experience when you discover that those drives fail to mount two years from now.
Realistically speaking, hard drives are NOT a viable archive medium. Blue ray, LTO, or video tape are MUCH more reliable.
Notice, I didn’t say “practical”! But, they are more reliable.Most networks will NOT accept a hard drive as an archiveable production element.
This is why we’ve been slow to adopt the “tapeless” cameras. I love the concept, can’t deal with the archiving.
Mark
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It is a bit risky. That’s why I get two.
Do you have a viable alternative that is not tape? I figure I will get five years out of them. In that time, there’ll be something different that is more safe and just as cost effective to archive to.
[Mark Raudonis] “Most networks will NOT accept a hard drive as an archiveable production element. “
That’s becuase they refuse to believe or they are so far removed from where the content comes from today that they are clueless. We aren’t in an analog world anymore.
[Mark Raudonis] “This is why we’ve been slow to adopt the “tapeless” cameras. I love the concept, can’t deal with the archiving. “
Why not?
Jeremy
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Jeremy,
Do you deal with network deliverable requirements?
You can make all the flip comments you want, but a hard drive is just not a reliable way to store media in the long term. Are you even going to have a compatible operating system 10-15 years from now that will recognize that drive and how it’s formatted? We regularly dip into our vault and pull out tapes from shows done over ten years ago. That stuff was plain old Beta, and I can pop it into a betacam deck (yes, we still have one) and it will play. I challenge you to do the same 15 years from now with a cheap ATA drives.
Mark
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[blueflamez] “What is everyone sticking on their shelf?”
I keep Stack Reels of all finished materials.
We still shoot tape so all the tapes are archived.
We now have Blu-ray burners so we’ll be able to archive if needed, but keep in mind those discs are very expensive. Right now the cheapest Blu-rays (25GB) we’ve purchased are about $18 each.
Or put it this way, we just did an order of 25 Blu-ray discs, 700 DVD’s and 700 DVD cases. The 25 Blu-rays were more expensive than the DVD’s and cases.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
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Shane…
Your P2 archives would be best using BluRay. I have had four LaCie drives go down on me this year with the oldest drive being three years old. This happens when drives aren’t be used regularly.
BluRay has a shelf life longer than 50 years. Lots more permanent than any tape based system to date or SATA drive.
Food for thought…
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey
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