File Storage

M

markinhifi

Well-known member
How does everybody store their digital video files? I currently have 6 random external hard drives with files spread across all them. I have no idea what files are on which. None of them have RAID. I have one big mess of a situation and I really need to clean it up.

What is my best solution? I have about 8TB of files right now, and judging by how much i've been shooting recently, it's going to be growing by about 2TB every 8 months or so. I'd also like to have RAID 1.

What's the best solution out there? I've looked at the LaCie 4big Quadra and G-Safe but those max out at 8TB and 2TB respectively. And down the road i'm just going to end up with a whole bunch of these which is what i'm trying to avoid.

Someone sent me a link to this, but I honestly don't even know what i'm looking at there. http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS1010+/index.php
 
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GB and TB sizes are not the same.

if i can get this strait,

1 - you currently have 8TB of video
2 - your going to average 2TB every 8 month or so.

to keep everything somewhat simple, lets assume you want both performance and backup capability in one device.

other than small raid solutions where you can put 2 or 4 hard drives together, there are bigger solutions that will take 8, 12, 16, 24, and you can connect more than one together, that can get a bit expensive.

what kind of budget do you have.
 
What I did for projects when I was actively a shooter/editor, was burn the files to a DVD, then archive them. One project per DVD, or dvd set. Accurate labeling
 
Amr Rahmy said:
GB and TB sizes are not the same.

if i can get this strait,

1 - you currently have 8TB of video
2 - your going to average 2TB every 8 month or so.

to keep everything somewhat simple, lets assume you want both performance and backup capability in one device.

other than small raid solutions where you can put 2 or 4 hard drives together, there are bigger solutions that will take 8, 12, 16, 24, and you can connect more than one together, that can get a bit expensive.

what kind of budget do you have.
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Yes, i'm an idiot. I meant TB. I corrected my original post. Well, first i'd like to solve my immediate problem with what I currently have and then expand later on once I have more money. I can only invest about 1k at the moment. Is that enough or should I wait until I can get more $$ together?
 
Doc Bernard said:
What I did for projects when I was actively a shooter/editor, was burn the files to a DVD, then archive them. One project per DVD, or dvd set. Accurate labeling
Click to expand...
I average 100-200GB per project. DVDs max out at around 7GB for dual layers, don't they?
 
LTO-4 tape, soo to be LTO-5 tape.

Good enough for big banks, good enough for me.

Single hard drives are NOT a viable archive solution.

Do yourself a favor and get a Drobo at the very least.
 
ok you already have 6 external hard drives, you probably don't have enough to get a big empty raid solution, or if you barely manage you still can't throw away your 6 hard drives.

there is something called network storage, you can connect a hard drive to a router or switch via usb or ethernet.

some routers and switches accepts usb as well as ethernet cable connections, so you can connect all your hard drives you already have at the same time, that won't cost that much since you already have the drives.

step two:

get internal hard drives(same size not too expensive ones(500GB or 1TB) and not more than 4 - 8 of them) with ethernet enclosures(you can get a network raid solution or just individual enclosures), that way you can at least have a decent system, you get to buy internal hard drives that would be useful when migrating to a better raid solution.

that would be a scalable system, and you would not have to brake the bank.

it can start as a storage solution and then migrate to a fast raid system.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
ok you already have 6 external hard drives, you probably don't have enough to get a big empty raid solution, or if you barely manage you still can't throw away your 6 hard drives.

there is something called network storage, you can connect a hard drive to a router or switch via usb or ethernet.

some routers and switches accepts usb as well as ethernet cable connections, so you can connect all your hard drives you already have at the same time, that won't cost that much since you already have the drives.

step two:

get internal hard drives(same size not too expensive ones(500GB or 1TB) and not more than 4 - 8 of them) with ethernet enclosures(you can get a network raid solution or just individual enclosures), that way you can at least have a decent system, you get to buy internal hard drives that would be useful when migrating to a better raid solution.

that would be a scalable system, and you would not have to brake the bank.

it can start as a storage solution and then migrate to a fast raid system.
Click to expand...
That sounds pretty good. I'll have to look into that a little bit and do some research. Any recommendations on which internal drives to buy? And what about the ethernet enclosures?
 
the drives comes down to two categories,

on one hand the professional drives like some hitachi models.

on the other hand if your going with consumer hard drives, you can always make an extra backup drive.

if it's not a raid, you can go with consumer products. hard drives usually have nice life expectancies.

you wont have more than one drive die on you at a time if at all.

just don't use the same drive for more than 2-3 years and you should be fine.

if your getting 500GB or 1TB drives, go with sata, 3.5 inch, 32MB buffer, 7200 rpm. no reason to go higher.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
if it's not a raid, you can go with consumer products. hard drives usually have nice life expectancies.
Click to expand...
I'm staying away from anything manufactured by Maxtor though.

I've had those back in the day because they were cheap. Every time I've bought one it's lasted almost exactly two years before they break down completely and destroy anything that's on the drive. Plus, they're noisy as hell.
 
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