Editors: How long do you store client project files?

QuickHitRecord

QuickHitRecord

Veteran
I'm mostly hired to shoot, but I have a few years of freelance editing projects piling up on my RAID. It's starting to fill up. I've never defined in a contract with my clients how long I would hang onto these files after I delivered their final edits. I could start backing everything up to other drives, but is that the expectation? Obviously, there would be some expense involved. I haven't heard from some of these clients in years. Should I reach out and offer to back up their materials for the cost of a drive? And if not, what is a good grace period for hanging onto project files after delivering a project? A year? Two?

I'd appreciate any ideas.

Thanks.
 
When I shoot and edit I always save everything as hard drives are so cheap. Sometimes I sell older generic footage as stock footage so this has been a good thing. But if I only were hired to edit I'd probably wouldn't save things to the same extent if it took up a lot of disc space.

It's a good idea to get in touch with customers and ask them if they're interested in you keeping the files for a small cost. They might even return to you with other jobs.
 
The answer is: Factor in the cost of an eternal hard drive to the quotes.

IE archive charge 100 USD. With a note that if they don't take up the archive option and they come back to you more than 6 months after delivery date there is a 1000 USD "recovery" charge for you to recovery the files.

That way most should take up the "cheap" option of an archive charge. Then your problem is where to store all the hard drives...:-)
 
jagraphics said:
Then your problem is where to store all the hard drives...:-)
Click to expand...

I steer away from this approach because it then leaves you liable IF the files get corrupted/destroyed etc. and sometime down the track the client comes asking for them.

I prefer to add a small fee that goes towards having multiple backups but not telling the client the files are backed up.
 
doubledark said:
I steer away from this approach because it then leaves you liable IF the files get corrupted/destroyed etc. and sometime down the track the client comes asking for them.

I prefer to add a small fee that goes towards having multiple backups but not telling the client the files are backed up.
Click to expand...

Very good point... in which case as you suggest add in cost for doing it but don't tell the customer. External HDD are inexpensive these days. Come to that so are SSD's. Where the storage requitred is less that 240GB I use an SSD. The USB interface cases for then are <10USD I have a small stack of them. However they do need storing somewhere.

NOTE there are two types of "Fire Proof" Data safe. One that is good for paper and the more expensive ones that are good for digital media. From memory the standard data safes are water proof and heat resistant to the point where paper won't spontaneously combust. The problem is that temperature is way above the point where most plastics melt or deform. ditto the PCB's in SSD's and HDD's which have plastic, grease and bearings in them. Digital Media Fire Safes will keep the temperature inside a lot cooler for a lot longer.... Thus the media does not deform or melt. In most situations.

So make sure you have a good computer Media Data safe.... there go the costs again :-( OTOH if it is openly a few customers etc then it might be cheaper to buy two SSD's per customer anmd store them in two places? Rather than buy an expensive fire safe.
 
Forever! A few months ago a client called about a trailer I did 13 years ago, wondering if I still had the files. Back then I was backing up managed project files to DVD's. Popped the disc in, and it still worked! I generally save all the raw materials for 6 months to a year, then consolidate it to a managed project file and store it to mirrored hard drives. About once a year, I back up to a hard drive I keep in a fireproof safe.
 
Because hdd are so cheap compared to several years ago I would suggest 3 copies; two are on-site and one is kept off-site.

Designate one drive as MASTER (could be a RAID, or a single drive); then in a seperate enclosure(preferably one that allows quick hdd swap) keep your backup drive.

Do hourly/daily backups; whatever suits your work-flow.

Then rotate your current back-up with a second back-up drive at daily/weekly/monthly intervals.

This procedure means that one drive is always physically off-site, protecting against fire/theft at your workplace and if applicable, protects against having your data fried from lightning strikes.

Keep in mind that this is not a "true" back-up; any data loss/corruption on the MASTER drive will get carried across ALL backups.

On a Mac I use Carbon Copy Cloner to schedule backup frequency.

With video I also use a 4th drive; all the media from the shoot gets stored on this drive and the drive is never accessed again. I do this just in case a file gets corrupted on the master drive.

Once the project is delivered, the data is deleted ready for the next project.
 
What about an agreement where all footage is deleted after final project delivery? Does anyone do anything like this?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top