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Storage
I have a 4TB hard drive that I have been using for Time Machine backup of all my video assets and projects, but I now have enough material where the 4TB drive is insufficient. What is a solution that will be cheap enough, yet large enough to handle what now is a total of 3.5 TB of material, and will double over the next 12-18 months. I am shooting all my material in 1080i on AVCHD chips and transferring raw material to an archive, then editing on FCP7 which makes .mov files for Capture Scratch when I ingest.
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2 Replies
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Not sure what “cheap enough” constitutes or what kind of hookup capabilities your system has, but I rely on the CalDigit HDOne (RAID 5). They have a range of options. If you don’t want redundancy and just speed (since you’re archiving your raw material), a less expensive option would be to create a RAID 0. I’ve had good success with Firmtek products in the past – or if your system allows you could set up an internal RAID 0 with several SATA drives. If you give more specifics people can reply with more specific options for your needs.
Cameron Clendaniel
film editor, NYC
http://www.camclendaniel.com -
Thanks Cameron–Actually I probably need a primer on good storage techniques. Right now I have an array of 4-6 external drives (total of 7TB) hooked up in daisy chain fashion. Each disk has different things on it. Two of the 1TB disks are for raw footage storage, and the other disks are for capture scratch, projects, etc. I had been Time Machine backing everything up on a 4TB WD drive that has informed me that it has run out of space, which is why I need some help in rethinking my storage strategy.
All my work is done on an Apple IMAC 2.93 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 8gb of RAM. (No E-SATA connection on the back). I am shooting the material at 1080i on AVCHD chips. After shooting, I transfer all the raw footage to my raw footage storage disks in AVCHD format, and ingest into FCP7 from there using Log and Transfer. I am also archiving all the finished pieces in a variety of formats on these two raw footage disks.
What is the best configuration for going forward, understanding that the objective would be to have backups of all the raw footage, and FCP projects. Should I be backing up all the capture scratch as .mov files too?
I see that Apple offers an 4TB RAID array system called Promise, and you have mentioned the Caldigit and Maxx Digital products. What configuration and what size should I be using to manage all this material as I increase the size of my raw footage library. Clearly I would like better speed for rendering that would come from a RAID array, as well as the ability to scan quickly through the log and transfer process, which if I am not careful, results in the beach ball from hell when I try to scrub through it.
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