Storage Solution + Workflow? (one-man-band video producer)

[Andrew Johnstone]

Yes I am all ears too.

I am in a similar situation with a SSD per project sitting on my desk, plus any number of old HD’s and drives (some are duplicated back ups of old rushes) clogging up cupboard space in the office.

I’d like to work my way back through my entire archive and back stuff up on line, just keeping current projects on project drives.

I am not sure that our current web connection is fast enough, but must be soon. I certainly want to avoid having to buy more and more external drives though.

Andy Johnstone
Wild Dog Limited
film & multimedia production
http://www.wilddogworld.com

[Bob Zelin]

the cloud is not fast enough. Your 20Mb/sec upload speed is not fast enough. You will be spending money on more and more storage for the rest of your life – not until Apple or Google or Amazon buys the cable companies.

Bob

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Paul King]

Hey Bob! Any recommendations for the original post? I know you’re well-versed in this area.

[Bob Zelin]

there is no magic trick here. If the answer is “how can I have more and more storage, without spending any money” – there is no answer.

You either buy a giant RAID array, or you buy a large Network Attached Storage system.
Either way, you are going to spend thousands (not hundreds) for a solution like this –
I don’t care if it’s from G-Tech, Lacie, Promise, OWC, QNAP, Synology or anyone else. You need
a minimum of eight large SATA drives, and you need a RAID enclosure a NAS enclosure.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Paul King]

I’m a little confused here. Not looking for the magic answer or worried about the investment at the moment. I think we’re looking for practical solution suggestions.

On the RAID front, do you have specific recommendations for the scenario outlined in the original post?

[Bob Zelin]

you can get this –
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1480231-REG/g_technology_0g10386_g_speed_shuttle_xl_112tb.html

that is a nice 112 TB G-Tech G-Speed Shuttle XL with 112 TB, that is just plug and play for
thunderbolt 3.

or you can purchase a NAS like a QNAP TVS-872XT, but this will require a more complex setup.

Nothing will be easier than buying a dedicated large RAID array.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Andrew Johnstone]

Thanks Bob,

Good ‘tell it like it is info’.

I am starting work on a feature doc (70 mins run time) and we will need to figure out a fix for storage fairly soon. For various reasons we now cut on FCPX (which i loathed to start with but now love), but one of the the NLE’s strengths is also an issue – library size. Even a small 5-7 min project for broadcast or corporate clients (in HD) yields and FCPX library of around 8-900GB, so my best guess is that a project that we will be shooting in 4k for will need massive storage. At the moment we use individual 1 or 2TB SSDs for working edit drives form small projects and then archive the finished libraries to disk without the converted media.

We already need more capacity for the rushes as our existing system is full, but the edit raid will need to be pretty sizeable too. and that is just for one project.

What we have tried to do in the past is to retire old drives and use them as deep storage for old projects and old rushes. The worry is that the connectivity ports (USB3 or Thuderbolt 2) on these old drives will become obsolete before too long. I have already had to pull out old HDs from firewire raids from 10 years ago and we use a StarTech slot in drivereader to access any material on those.

But in a nutshell you’re right. the quest for storage seems to never end. The Gtechs look like a good solution though…

Andy Johnstone
Wild Dog Limited
film & multimedia production
http://www.wilddogworld.com