POLL: How are you archiving?

[Bob Cole]

External firewire hard drives, doubled up for vital stuff. (I don’t expect this to last forever, but it’s digital, so at some point I’ll move the important projects to whatever emerges as the next solution.) Masters go on Beta tape and get put on the shelf too.

Speaking of “the shelf” the other aspect to archiving is off-site storage. Haven’t done anything about that yet but I really should.

After reading this thread, I looked at LTO drives. At $1000-2000 they’re not that expensive, but the only ones I saw needed a SCSI interface. I’m planning to get a SATA interface card for my as-yet-unbought SATA RAID. Is there a way to adapt SATA to SCSI?

Bob C.

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Frederic Lumiere]

We use a Quantum LTO 3 drive – tapes store up to 400 GB. Most excellent solution.

Works via ethernet as ftp server.

[Bill Bilowit]

Coming soon is Panasonic’s dual-layer Blu-Ray SATA burner promising zippier speeds.

But for 80/160GB data tape back-up that’s more affordable and non-SCSI, in my thread above I mention this:

https://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=7E4FA1DC&nplm=TM191LL/A

[Jeremy Garchow]

[mark Raudonis] “Sensitive to opposing points of view? Just a little! “

Bring it on, just don’t call people names and tell me I’m being flip. I am here to help.

[mark Raudonis] “Project files and ancillary media (stills, grfx, etc) can get burned to a DVD as data. “

That simply won’t work for us. It’s way too small and time consuming. I have had more DVDs fail over the years than hard drives.

[mark Raudonis] “Until this archiving conundrum is solved, the tapeless production workflow will remain a problem for many producers with network delivery requirements. “

Remember how I said they refuse to accept the world we live in today? That still holds true.

[mark Raudonis] “For a self contained, “in the moment” project, tapeless is great. For a project that has the possibility of long term commercial exploitation, it creates problems that many people may over look in their haste to adopt a new product. Namely, the hoops required to navigate a viable archive plan end up costing more than using tape in the first place. “

Sorry, I disagree. Now is the time to start figuring this stuff out because it’s not going away.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Tom Brooks] “I need to look for a better enclosure for the backkups. A 2-bay, removable, RAID-1, with FW800 and/or eSATA would seem to be a good backup system for making double copies. “

I use the two bay system from firmtek.

https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2en2/

With a Sonnet Technologies eSATA Express card on my laptop, or a Sonnet 1 lane PCIe card on my desktop.

Jeremy

[Mark Raudonis]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Bring it on, just don’t call people names and tell me I’m being flip. I am here to help. “

I just reread my posts. No names called. I said your response was “flip”… not you. But, it’s not a help to advocate something that may not be the best solution in the long run. To me “archiving” means long term… ten plus years. I stand by my opinion that harddrives on a shelf are NOT a viable long term archiving solution.

[Jeremy Garchow] “That simply won’t work for us”

The forum isn’t just about you. There’s plenty of other people out there with different requirements, workflows, and needs. Keep that in mind.

[Jeremy Garchow] “they refuse to accept the world we live in today”

We all live in that same world. Some just see it differently.

[Jeremy Garchow] Now is the time to start figuring this stuff out because it’s not going away.
“

On that I agree.

Mark

[Jeremy Garchow]

Hey Mark. Don’t know when this turned personal, but whatever.

[Mark Raudonis] “The forum isn’t just about you. There’s plenty of other people out there with different requirements, workflows, and needs. Keep that in mind. “

Seriously? You are funny. You recommend DVDs, but there’s no way that will work for everyone either. For example, the last project I archived was somewhere in the neighborhood of 375GB, and I know I am not the only editor out there archiving that much material. You are correct. This forum is not about me, not in the least bit. It’s about all of us finding a way to get it done. 375 GB on DVD-Rs, even dual layers, would take 44 DVDs. 44 dual layer DVDs at 30-45 minutes to burn each would be 33 hours of backup time. I can do a 375GB backup to a SATA drive in an hour or so, double it for two drives. I do know that everyone’s backup needs aren’t shrinking. DVDs just aren’t enough space. Even BluRay isn’t enough.

I am trying to offer (my) opinion of the best solution. LTO and DLT has been offered as another viable solution. That could work for some as well. Just because my picture is at the top of this forum does not make me any sort of authority. It just makes me an easier target is all. I know a few things about a couple of things, I definitely don’t know it all.

I do know that SATA drives on the shelf aren’t the end all be all, they are just what’s working for me right now until the next big idea comes along.

Jeremy

[Matt Steeves]

I am looking into this drive. How are transfer speeds?

Apple Certified Final Cut Pro 6
Mac Pro 3.0 Quad
Kona LHe
Panasonic HPX-2000

[Bob Flood]

Hey

here is a thought: I have a client who i am making a show for right now, and we were reviewing some footage shot 2 years ago, and she is saying things like “that hairstyle is too dated” and “oh that dress is so nineties” in essence rendering a good half of the stuff worthless

lets remember we work in a world where fashions and styles change all the time. Unless your subject matter is wildlife or guys in hospital scrubs, the “shelf life” of your footage is only going to be about 3 years before it start to look dated. then you would have to wait about 5 more years before you can sell it as historical stock footage!

kinda puts a different priority on archiving, doesnt it

BTW for now i used hard drives for current projects, and recapture from source tapes when neceesary.

my 3.1417 cents

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Bill Bilowit]

Good points about content of footage, but sometimes it’s hard to predict which person at the client will want which footage for what reason. Our sister company does corporate work for biz tech companies; they often need to show how solutions from just a couple of years ago need changing, so “historical” eras can vary widely.

Bob Flood: “BTW for now i used hard drives for current projects, and recapture from source tapes when neceesary.”

Yes, that’s a current paradigm, but a growing number of us are in a position of having TB’s of tapeless original footage. Recapturing becomes re-importing… but from what? How long did it take to back all that up? How much did it cost? Was the cost built in to the original budget for that job?

Archiving for the short run and the long run is a speculative, technical and economic challenge!
All this advice and these discussions along the way help make it workable.