P2 Archival Ideas?

i use a dlt-v4. it gives 160gb nativ and 320gb compressed on one tape.
lto3 or 4 is even faster and with better cost/gb, but the drive is more expensive.
 
i dunno. drives are cheap and in nearly two decades ive not had a single drive "fail" where ive seen several CDs, DVDs, ZIPs, JAZs, Bernoullis, and tapes fail.

and what i like about drives is when it comes time to revisit a project, just plug it in, turn it on and BAM youre right where you left things.

i used tape a few years ago and one tape failed and the others were just more work to retrieve than i was comfy with. of course that was older versions of the technology. so it may be a different story now...
 
and you have to ask yourself. "do i need, or how long do i need to keep this stuff?"

i may be in a different work model than many folks here. but for about 60% of my work. at the completion of a project, i hand the entirety of the shot and edited content to the client on a hard drive. left as it was last used. basically putting the archival responsibility on them. as im in the business of image creation - NOT data storage ; )
 
Hard drives are by far the most cost-effective. And there's not a whole lot which can cause a drive to fail if it's sitting in (proper) storage. Not to mention being far easier to use than the alternatives.
 
If your data was shot for a client, we have been telling the clients that we keep their data for 30 days. If they want to save the footage we will buy a hard drive and transfer the footage. This week I convinced the client to buy 2 drives. We'll keep one and they need to keep one for safety. Depends on the life and death value of the footage. :happy: Most of our clients want the footage saved. So I have put it on them to pay for their storage. Pretty cheap now days.

I just found these SOLO drives. AWESOME. Fire rated at 1,500 degrees for 1/2 hour. Salt water proof at 10' for 3 days, I think.
Only about 1/3 more than the cheaper drives.
http://www.iosafe.com/
 
Seems there is mixed experience regarding drive failure (or not). Bottom line . . . it does happen--to some more than others. Yes, drives are "cheap" and in reality nothing is indisturctable . . . thus the requiremet for duplicate copies (and locations).

At 6 TB (and counting) I think you're a definate candidate for LTO tape back up. Financial institutions, State, Local, and Federal governments have been using tapes for decades. There is little doubt that this backup medium will continue to be around for a long time.

Blu-ray would be good for a low volume user but man is it ever slow, and you also have to consider how many discs you're talking about to back up 6 TB (x2). No question that hard drives are the cheapest way to go but from my experience when I drive goes it's always the one you needed most . . .

I've been burning Blu-ray discs and backing up to LTO tape for over three years (first LTO-2 then LTO-3). There's a little up front cost involved in LTO but I can pull every frame I've ever shot from all 4 P2 cameras I've owned.

Cheapest is not always best. For folks shooting backyard picnics it's not a consideration (as they're probably shooting to tape in the first place). While there certainly are a variety of solutions, for a professional (or aspiring pro) tape has a lot to offer.

Best.
 
wgzn said:
just curious dick, what brand of drive was it?
Click to expand...
using a Buffalo external - eSata and USB interface, with Toast on the MacPro (USB mode). Toast does a span of multiple disks and a verify. I have double checked the burns, and everything seems to be solid.

So far I have only used single layer (25GB) disks, a 15 pack spindle for 24.99, so prices on media are coming down.

would like to find a way to put an external eSata port on my 2006 Mac Pro, but need to do some research.

The Buffalo also came with PC software for burning BD but I haven't tried it yet.
 
Heres what I do, weather it's good for your circumstance who knows.

I edit the piece together - rough cut. Once I get approval on the rough I export the timeline as is. I then go ahead and add fx, grade and finally audio. I then export the timeline again.

These two exports go to DVD as archive. I then (usually as I edit) sift any extras I want to keep as stock etc. I then export this.

These three exports are my archive. After three months all project files stored on HDD are permanently trashed.
 
Thanks, DJD

BTW, I cannot find BD-R disks that cheap anymore. Best I've been able to do is about $3.00 apiece. Still better that HDDs IMO.
 
wgzn said:
i dunno. drives are cheap and in nearly two decades ive not had a single drive "fail" where ive seen several CDs, DVDs, ZIPs, JAZs, Bernoullis, and tapes fail.

and what i like about drives is when it comes time to revisit a project, just plug it in, turn it on and BAM youre right where you left things.

i used tape a few years ago and one tape failed and the others were just more work to retrieve than i was comfy with. of course that was older versions of the technology. so it may be a different story now...
Click to expand...

Then you weren't using DLT or LTO as they are much more bulletproof that hard drives, which WILL fail eventually.

These are the same systems that your bank records are backed up on DAILY and the tapes are good for 30+ years.

I will be investing in a Cache-A LTO4 device next year for my company.

Gig-E network device, web interface, cross platform and 800gb tapes for around $100.00
 
Then you weren't using DLT
Click to expand...
that is exactly what i was using. but everything fails at one point or another. maybe i got a bad batch. but it was enough to scare me back to drives...
 
I'm looking into using the Drobo S. Seems like a simple way to go. Redundancy is built in and it's scaleable. I can add in bigger drives as they become available/necessary or I'll just delete projects after 1-2 years - maybe having to by another Drobo along the way...
 
Having used the P2 system for a little over 3 years now .. everything has been stored on hard drives...

I use 1 set of hard drives for P2 material and another set of hard drives for projects... nothing is ever deleted...

When I started shooting I named my first P2 card D001... and archived it separately from the Quicktime Imports and projects... I thought of P2 as my negative.. used once and generally put on the shelf... I'm up to D789... these hard drives are catalogued using Disc Catalogue Maker..

Now prices of hard drives have dramatically dropped in price over the last 3 years so now it really is to me the only cheap way of storage...

I guess it will soon be time to re-archive all this P2 material... the original drives I purchased were about 320GB 3 years ago.. with the way it's going I'll be able to get some 2TB hard drives soon and I'll backup all the old P2 drives to new hard disc's...

I guess this process will continue every few years until some better alternative comes along...

Cheers
 
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