Backup suggestions

dpvollmer wrote on 10/1/2007, 10:21 AM
From reading a number of posts I infer from them that hard drives (firewire or USB) are recommended for backing up projects.

I was at a video production workflow seminar last week where the speaker said that hard drives setting on a shelf were subject to failure due to lack of use and suggested DLT tape - at an estimated cost of $8000!! I would think that tape would have problems because of the media itself and I can buy a lot of hard drives to back up projects for $8000.

He also mentioned backing up smaller projects to BluRay discs and that seemed to make sense to me as there would be no moving parts (on the disc, of course) and might be the perfect backup media for projects under 50GB. Of course additional discs could be used for larger projects. He said that the time involved to burn the discs is rather lengthy however.

Most of my projects would probably be less than 50GB or would be capable of being saved on multiple HD-DVD discs. And if I ever move to HD having a HD-DVD drive would be necessary.

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 10/1/2007, 10:59 AM
We do regular backups to DLT tapes in a Quantum Superloader. Yes, it's expensive but in our case we have several servers to back up and wanted an automated solution.

I cannot say that this is the best way to go, but we've been doing backups to DLT for many, many years and so the decision is ingrained. I think that the DLT tapes are very stable and there's never a temptation to try to work off them. Generally we just do regular staggered backups so it's not like we're archiving projects to tape.

Using a hard drive is faster, certainly, and you could set up a pair of disks for alternating automatic backups. Ideally you'd do regular backups to a pair of RAID1 or RAID5 arrays so when a drive fails you can easily recover. A pair of NAS devices ought to cover you.

The very simplest thing to do is to just have a big fat external drive that you occasionally sync up with your work drives. This at least gives you some safety, even if you don't have two backups.

Rob Mack
blink3times wrote on 10/1/2007, 11:19 AM
I would NOT do backups to optical disk! Be it HD DVD, BD,or dvd.

They do not last as long as one would think. I have dvd's that are less than 6 years old and already failing. Factory pressed disks last a long time.... home recorded ones don't. The best is to back up to another HDD or tape. Preferably tape... it is by far still the most reliable way to back up. I still have home recorded tapes from my teen head bashing music days... and I'm 46 now.
Soniclight wrote on 10/1/2007, 11:33 AM
Never done tape, don't need it, can't afford it.
May use DVD at some point, but have no use for it currently.

I'm a single person and on-one-system production, so I don't have servers, networked computers etc. but have been using computers for 12 years or so (i.e. I started out back in the days when Windows 3.1 had just come out, and a 500 mb drive was wow :)

What follows is a sort of repeat of things I stated in recent threads on backups and such.

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My experience with using hard drives for backup has been excellent.

The thing about backup drives is that if only used for that, there is so little wear and tear (needle jumping back and forth for read and write) compared to an OS or media content drives used for Vegas, etc., they therefore last.

One example:

--- I have a 7 year old WD 120 Gb on Firewire in an external case, though I took the casing off and added a larger fan to reduce heat considerably. It's now so cool, that I almost have to touch it for vibration to see if it's spinning :)

Sure, my backup setup looks a bit funky, but a) it works, b) it's cool and happy and c) it's hidden. I as other also have older smaller HDs from previous systems that I keep and these can come in handy for misc. "old stuff" backups.

Never had one die on me from "non-use." Magnetic fields, heat, and such that are the real danger to hurting them, IMO.
I keep all "on-shelf" drives in the plastic lead-lined pouches they usually come in.

With the low price of HDs and being able to daisy-chain coupled with only-for-backup use, and good ventilation, you should be able to set up a powerful, even double-backup system that should last for quite some time.

I've read here and elsewhere that very large capacity disks aren't holding up as well as 250 Gb and under, but again, it's how how much wear and tear is involved that is a factor too.

As to backup application, I use Acronis True Image (essentially an .iso/image disk based program) as many others here do. It can back up and also restore multiple drives or partitions at the same time, if so needed.

I use it mainly for my OS but but quite applicable to media drives. One can also restore selected files or folders from any TI backup up folder..

Fast, easy to use, reliable and cheap: Home edition 10 is going for USD $34 at NewEgg -- which is where I got my v.9 a couple of years ago after I got fed up with Norton Ghost (it and my OS just had a serious communication and personality conflict :)

True Image is now at v. 11, but I don't plan to upgrade since the more or less minor improvements since 9 are of no particular use to me.
dpvollmer wrote on 10/1/2007, 12:43 PM
Thank you all for your suggestions. I think hard drives are the way I am going to go. I am somewhat concerned that the larger drives may be more prone to problems than the smaller ones so will probably keep the size to below 300GB if that makes sense.

Would you recommend keeping the veg files and all related clips, pics, etc. are just the clips and files that were ultimately used? I would imagine keeping any resulting DVD folders would be recommended as well.

Would copying a finished project to Mini DV tape make sense?

Thanks again!
jrazz wrote on 10/1/2007, 12:55 PM
I have not had an issue with larger hard drives per se but you could lose more data if one does go down. You could always get the 1 TB western digital RAID external drive. It will double up two 500gb drives or allow you to use it as one massive drive but without the safeguard of duplicate drives. As for what to back up... well, you could always back up your veg file along with the finished project and trimmed media (only that which is used by the veg file) and this will save you space, but if you do it this way, you won't have any wiggle room if you need to go back and edit.

As for backing up to minidv tapes, it couldn't hurt.

j razz
rmack350 wrote on 10/1/2007, 1:43 PM
Copying to Mini Dv makes no sense unless that's what your final render was. The problem is that everything gets rendered back down to DV, including your stills.

You've got two things going on. Archiving and regular backups. You could archive to hard disk and then just put it on a shelf, or store it off site. Chances are these will last for as long as anyone would want them. Some people are afraid that a hard drive will eventually just gum up from disuse but I doubt (based on NO experience) that this would be a problem within the time span that someone might want that material, unless it's your family album.

For regular backups, an alternating system every night would be the way to go, so each disk gets the backup refreshed every two days, on alternating days. Or you could do one disk/array daily and the other one gets done weekly. Whatever makes sense for you.

If the backup device just puts the disks to sleep when not in use I'd think you'd get a lot of life out of them.

Rob Mack
dpvollmer wrote on 10/1/2007, 2:05 PM
j razz,

I like the idea of the 1 TB western digital RAID external drives configured as 2 500GB mirrored drives. I agree that "wiggle room" could become important and so would probably keep all related clips and files - at least the clips that I feel might become important down the road.

Rob Mack,

I had heard that the longer a drive sits unused it could in fact gum up but I have only heard that and not seen any studies that proved it, so you would be correct that I should get a lot of life out of a sleeping drive that is only used to archive projects.