How do you back-up your video data? (non-tape solution)

How do you back-up your video data? (non-tape solution)

  • Single drive

    Votes: 15 50.0%

  • RAID 1

    Votes: 4 13.3%

  • RAID 5

    Votes: 1 3.3%

  • DVD/Blu-ray disc

    Votes: 7 23.3%

  • D) Online backup (ex: Mozy or Backblaze, etc...)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • F) Custom...(explain how)

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • Total voters
    30
Personally I use two similar 600 gig external drives...one in the field for workflow, then after everything's settled down I copy to the second drive.

I keep this data as long as I possibly can, but with a little fudge factor so I don't fill the drive completely.

Long term backup is done to data DVD's and most of the time only includes specific footage, assets, pictures, music, templates, project files, etc. Basically just enough to bring a project back from the dead, in a bare bones way, if a client happens to have a catastrophic disaster.
 
4TB Raid 0 array, back up to DVD+R's, external portable HDD. DVD's for archive, HDD to carry around. You can't have too much backup :smile:
 
I will use BluRay when the price comes down. For now, large raid5 storage.
At work massive Avid Unity and Thomson GVG. IBM is making proposals for truely unbelieveable corporate wide storage for all divisions.
 
DadinWestchester said:
I will use BluRay when the price comes down.
Click to expand...

When the price comes down to what? It's already cheaper per unit and per gig than HDV tape. What's your "breakover" point?

I started archiving to Blu-Ray in July, and haven't looked back.

I'm writing an hour of 1080p XDCamEX to Blu-Ray plus a proxy, a 1080p mp4, and a 1080p WMV for streaming. All for $5.50 - $7.50 per disc.

Try that with tape.
 
I back up to two raid 10s each on a different computer (I keep my old computer simply as a storage computer) I don't like it to be on one system only, so that no matter what happens I can access the footage quickly.
 
DVD-DL .75 - !.00 in bulk. Mini .22-.99. Try Shop4tech, supermediastore. BluRay will be down in this range, just a little longer in this economy.
 
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DadinWestchester said:
DVD-DL .75 - !.00 in bulk. Mini .22-.99. Try Shop4tech, supermediastore. BluRay will be down in this range, just a little longer in this economy.
Click to expand...

The only disks that were sub $1.00 were Riteks (never heard of them) and Memorex which I make efforts to avoid.

Verbatims, which is a brand I do use are $1.20 a disk. At 8.5GB unformatted capacity that's about 15 cents a gig.

Imation 25GB Blu-Rays are about 3.25 each or about 13 cents per gig.

http://www.techonweb.com/products/productdetail.aspx?id=A026NV&src=NT

For me, the math just works out. Blu-Ray's are cheaper for me to archive to than miniDV tape and are now getting cheaper than DVD-DL.

But, to each their own.
 
Dan, I am PC. Closest I came to owning an Apple was a NeXT (Black hardware).

I am using a LaCie D2 burner. It has USB2.0 and Firewire 400 connections. It's a little slow, but work's just fine. And I can hook it to my desktop and laptop with equal ease.
 
I did a lot of soul searching on this topic. For the past few years I've been doing external HDD. I keep my current media internally w/ back up to external, then when I need to move stuff off internal, I back it up on a second drive. Basically I keep two identical external drives for archive.

This sucks and isn't sustainable. I can't just keep stacking on external drives. Sucks juice, makes lots of noise, and puts off lots of heat. And that's pretending I'll never have a failure.

I put in for an LTO-4 drive and hope to have that in the coming weeks. Bru PE should actually be released today.

I really looked at Blu-Ray, but had three issues. One was the on-going price, but certainly on that matter it's a good forward looking option as disks will come down. Two was speed. Even the new 8x drives are slow, and of course the faster media is a premium. I'm a one-man show and can't put that much time into workflow. Lastly was capacity. Working with 25/50 GB is limiting for HD. I'd have to span multiple disks and have partial disks. The DL disks again will be a premium. Again, I really don't want to invest that much time in workflow.

I also have a PDW-U1 here I use for ingesting and someday allegedly they will release Mac firmware to write. That's cool but even more expensive than Blu-Ray. I'll probably find a use for this, however, since I have a library of XDCAM disks.

Certainly YMMV and not knocking Blu-Ray. I'd love to burn video to Blu-Ray for HD output. My situation was I have some money in my budget this year and decided the best long-term soltuion is to spend it on something completely unsexy like backup. The tapes are cheap, reliable, large capacity, and relatively fast. Plus, this will make the burden of backup do-able.
 
LTO is a TERRIFIC option if you can go that way. I couldn't as we have removed all tape from our shop. Video, data, etc. Only my historical videotapes are left.

I don't produce enough video to justify LTO anyway, so not a problem. But good on you if you've got the budget! :) Those things are FAST too from what I can see.
 
I've gone through over 15,000 Riteks(printable kind), and I've had a few coasters, but these are pretty rare.

I think they're good discs, and I'll keep buying them, cause to be quite honest at about 25cents a disc they make sense(single layer).

I think the disc doesn't matter quite as much as ensuring that you check the data after burning it and placing the media someplace safe.....and by safe I mean IN A SAFE, lol.

On top of this you should always wait to erase old data until the backup is safely stored.
 
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