Safekeeping of your digital data

[ShubiSnax]

I wanted to know how others use, transfer and store their data.

I've seen posts here and there about this, but I didn't find a thread specifically about it.

There's different options to consider here and with the ingenuity in the members of this forum, I'd be interested to hear your solutions, as this is an integral part of our work.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's to back-up. Then back-up. Then back-up again.

I have a 10 year-old cheap external hard drive that still works, and passes tests.

I've also had internal 3.5 drives from reputable manufacturers completely fry on me within 1 year of purchase.

With a steadily increasing amount of sessions, sounds, and media building up, I don't want to be that guy who buys news external drive every year, building a collection of different sizes and manufacturers.

About a year ago I decided to purchase an external RAID tower. After doing some research, and hearing horror stories from Sans Digital owners(which on paper, was ideal for what I needed), I went with a lesser known company, in DAT Optic. Found a 4-bay tower with FW800 and eSATA for a reasonable price and I loaded it up with 2TB WD Caviar Black, in a RAID 5 array. I set hard disks to always on and now I have a 6TB partition, readable in Windows and OSX, plug and play.

I feel safer knowing that if a drive fails, I can rebuild the array (hopefully) without a hitch.

I store all my data on this, and I work from it as well. All of my ProTools sessions are saved there and I haven't had an issue bouncing down a mix even at 2 hours long.

Inside my PC, I run my OS(W764) on a 60GB OCZ SSD, with most logs and files on a WD CB 640GB drive. And last but not least, I have a 1TB Seagate drive to backup the first two drives.

I can handle some of my clients just by emailing files, and most I can handle by using a free service like DropSend. I've considered using FTP clients like FileZilla, but I haven't gotten to the point where it's necessary.

I also have a couple bare drives that I can slide into a front bay on my PC, fill up and mail for those really big projects.

Just wondering how others go about all this..

Thanks

[Michael McQueen]

i have one of the OWC Raid 5 units. 4 2tb drives giving me 6tb. but i also have other drives that i'll keep important backups on in another location and in a fire proof safe.

[chris_bollard]

Backing up is important.

As storage is so cheap I make one backup to an external drive, usually one per project. I also backup to a dedicated server (running Windows Home Server); great, flexible, easy to run. I have it set to duplicate important folders (built in data redundancy)

I tend to only keep data for twelve months after the show has gone to air.

[Marc Wielage]

I'm with Chris. I'll keep client projects a year or so, but after that, they're on their own.

I had a funny situation a few years ago: a post client of mine "finished" a project, and a few months later I wound up leaving that company. Just by a fluke, I made backups of all my projects and took them with me. A year later, the client called me up and said, "uh, we finally sold our film, but the distributor wants to make some changes. Can we redo that project from last year?"

As it was, all the changes took less than a week to completely deliver the project (three different versions). Probably saved the guy at least $20K -- all because I had saved everything on a $50 drive. If I hadn't kept all the files, we would've had to start over from scratch.

[ShubiSnax]

That's a good story Marc, no such thing as last minute changes. There's always another minute after that "last" one.

Do you charge the client an archiving fee? There must be a fee if you're potentially saving the client $20k!!

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a home server. I have an old pc running linux I'm sure I could utilize somehow.

When I interned with mastering engineer Bob Katz years ago, I was always blown away at how he had different studios in his house, 17 different computers and they could all talk to each other, with gobs of network storage. Not to mention clients just go to his website with their own unique log in, then upload or download their files.

Keeping copies of data in different locations is an essential practice as well. Can't go wrong with a fireproof safe.

[Toy Robot]

I use my Mac's Time Capsule to backup data to, however I also backup to DropBox as well since I send files to people that way, and if my house burns down I still have everything. DropBox also has an amazing feature called 'Pack Rat', which stores a copy of everything you have ever uploaded to DropBox forever. So even if you delete it from DropBox, you can retrieve these files forever, at any time. Generally, my backup procedure is as follows:

1. Files originate in the field (backed up in field) - 2 places now [+Primary, +Backup recorder]
   
2. Files are backed up on Mac in DropBox folder at home - 4 places now [+Mac, +DropBox]
   
3. Files are backed up to Time Capsule automatically - 5 places now [+Time Capsule]
   
4. Files are removed from field media only when all backups to Time Capsule and upload to DropBox are complete - 3 places now [-Field Primary, -Field Backup]
   

It seems complicated, but it's quite easy. Record in field, place in DropBox folder at home, and DropBox and Time Capsule do the rest automatically. Done. Also, this only works because audio files are so much smaller than video files. Backing up to DropBox is not an option for people shooting RED footage, for example. But for my purposes DropBox is where it's at, and I love the fact that no matter what happens, I can get a file back forever. To me, that's worth the monthly cost of the service times ten.

[Marc Wielage]

That's a good story Marc, no such thing as last minute changes. There's always another minute after that "last" one. Do you charge the client an archiving fee? There must be a fee if you're potentially saving the client $20k!!

The director was a personal friend, so he just bought me dinner. (Miceli's on Cahuenga -- much better than the Subway Tuna.)

Bob Katz is a great guy -- I love his book on music mastering. Very knowledgeable guy.

[Tom Visser]

RAID is not backup. It is certainly good practice and helps keep data uptime, but should never be used synonymously with backup. I can think of situations that would take down even a RAID 5 or 6 volume, not to mention things like fire or theft.

[Marc Wielage]

I vividly remember a situation at a post facility where the RAID controller card failed and toasted all attached drives, in one fell swoop. I think that was a 48-hour period of huge, steaming, hell, that involved much swearing and many unhappy I.T. people frantically trying to get our session back up and running. We had backups, but getting everything configured and reloaded was a monstrous undertaking.