Zachadoodle
Well-known member
I recently found out that my scripts on my computer were deleted, but thankfully I had a paper copy lying around. It goes to show that having a paper copy can be as helpful as a digital copy in terms of a back-up.
Print Out Your Scripts
- Thread starter Zachadoodle
- Start date
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I would say it is better to have digital backups on multiple drives or cloud. How is it you only had one copy of your scripts?
Zachadoodle
Well-known member
I was showing off my script to a relative, and fortunately I had it laying around the house. I did manage to find it. It was on my other hard drive on the computer, but I am glad I have a physical copy just in case something odd happens to my digital copies.
El Director
Veteran
I agree with printing copies of the script. The other thing I do is email them to myself. I was able to find one of my first scripts by searching through old e-mails. It was the cloud before the cloud.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
If you guys aren't backing up your scripts properly, it makes me wonder what (if anything) you are doing to back up bigger files like video clips. graphics, music, NLE project files, etc. Rather than relying on hard copies or emailing yourself attachments you should really figure out a more comprehensive method of backing up everything on a regular/daily basis. There are as many methods of backing stuff up as there are people who back stuff up, so I'm not going to suggest HOW you do it, just that you do something. Anything.
El Director
Veteran
My email tip allowed me to recover a script from 2007 before clouds were really a thing. I was 21, had no money for extra storage or anything. And yes, back then I didn't back up any media files because 1. I couldn't afford to, and 2. I was shooting on MiniDV had that for a backup. When I started shooting on solid state media in 2010, yes, I started backing stuff up to multiple drives. It then became a cost of doing business. And don't worry, I'm still backing up to multiple avenues today. You mention ANYTHING, that's what email or printing was for a broke filmmaker over ten years ago.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
You can do whatever you want but let's not pretend that USB hard drives, thumb drives, and Blu-ray were too expensive 15 years ago to make proper backups. Even for a college student.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
That's pretty interesting to hear as a concept. I still have files in my archive that were created in the mid 90's that got handed down from drive to drive. Pictures taken on my first digital point-and-shoot (a Canon ELPH, after having the APS-C film versions prior to that) in '97 that never got printed out, they only exist in file format. Of course this was long before the cloud also, so I backed up to multiple drives. I've had my share of drives fail over the years, but it's been a very rare occurence that I didn't have a backup somewhere. I actually need to put more stuff into the cloud--a physical event like a fire in my office would be a big loss--but at least it's all on multiple drives as well as a RAID with redundancies.
Over early pandemic I did a big cleanout in my office and re-checked a bunch of old Firewire drives to make sure that everything was off them onto newer drives. It was interesting to see how many of them were still working. The oldest was one I bought with my first Final Cut setup when that came out in '99. It didn't work when I plugged it in, but after opening the big chunky enclosure I found a lot of extra electronics surrounding a standard internal drive, so I pulled out the drive and plugged it in directly with a SATA adaptor, and it spun right up, 21 years after I first put it in service!
Over early pandemic I did a big cleanout in my office and re-checked a bunch of old Firewire drives to make sure that everything was off them onto newer drives. It was interesting to see how many of them were still working. The oldest was one I bought with my first Final Cut setup when that came out in '99. It didn't work when I plugged it in, but after opening the big chunky enclosure I found a lot of extra electronics surrounding a standard internal drive, so I pulled out the drive and plugged it in directly with a SATA adaptor, and it spun right up, 21 years after I first put it in service!
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
My experience is the same as yours. Every time I had a drive go bad it was due to all the other components inside the enclosure and not the drive itself. When I cracked it open, pulled the drive out, and used a SATA adapter every drive that seemed dead has come back to life.
So about 10 years ago I stopped archiving to those kinds of drives. Now I only buy naked internal drives that have no enclosure whatsoever, such as this one.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._internal.html
I use them in mirrored pairs: A and B drives mounted in a simple docking hub like this. I call it a two-slice toaster. After one pair is full, I just eject the drives and switch to a new pair. Whenever I need to pull files from an older drive in my archives I don't have to swap cables or plug that drive into an AC outlet. I just eject a drive fromt he toaster and drop another one into the slot and it shows up on my deskstop.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...usb_3_1g2.html
Every drive gets a label with an ID number and goes into a plastic storage box that also has an ID number.
https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Prote...s%2C115&sr=8-3
I have an app that will automatically catalog the enitre contents of any drive in about 10 seconds, and then I can use that app to manage, search by keyword, etc. anything in my whole library without me having to plug in a drive to see what the hell is on it.
The A drive stays at my office and the B drive gets stored off-site.
No cloud storage for me.
