Archive completed Projects?

[bove]

How do you guys archive your completed projects? After completing a CD project, we can easily have 100GB of data lying around... Ideally, I'd like to save these files for a period of time in case the clients need something from it. Any thoughts?

[d_fu]

Hard drives... Used hard drives.

I also ended up with around 100 gigs of original multitrack data for a recently finished project, plus a good deal extra for bounced files in various format, plus a separate multitrack bounce that excludes unused material, etc...

Bought a few second-hand 120 gig SATA drives (Seagate & Maxtor) from a commercial dealer for just over € 20 each, the drives were tested and came with a one-year warranty. Saved the stuff on them (twice at least) and put them in the shelf. Will let them spin up every once in a while so they don't put on rust. Planning to buy a number of 400 gig drives for a bargain price... But smaller ones are better, you lose less in case of failure.

DLT would have been an alternative, but it takes forever, and if one out of three tapes fails, the whole thing may be unretrievable. Trying to save all that on DVDs is out of the question.

As for the fact that the drives are used, I would tend to trust a drive that's been running well for some years at least as much, if not more than a new one. If they do, then hard drives tend to fail more often quite early. Once a disk has been running for a while, it's less likely to fail out of the blue, I believe. Of course there are exceptions, and any drive, old or new may fail any time...

This is also why I usually let new disks do some fairly tough work (storing files form various destinations, plus copying files) for hours or days after I buy them. If a disk is prone to failure, I want this to occur before I actually start working with it...

There are plenty of solutions today for connecting SATA (and IDE) drives without opening the computer, either through USB or eSATA, makes handling really easy.

Just two examples for SATA drives:
SHARKOON Technologies GmbH
SHARKOON Technologies GmbH



Daniel

[Corran]

I try to hold on to the multi-track files for at least a month, and then I delete them. I keep an archive of master CDs though for backup as well as for my personal enjoyment. But I tell clients that when everything is finished, they have to keep up with it and it's not my problem, especially in terms of the multi-track sessions and stuff. Not in those exact terms of course...

[temetrepo]

i get these from here
Western Digital 120 GB 7200 RPM SATA 8MB Cache Serial ATA Hard Drive: GS_WD1200JD JustDeals.com Inc.

haven't had a problem yet

and connect them with one of these to my computer
Micro Center - BlacX 2.5"/3.5" SATA to USB/eSATA Hard Drive Dock Station

piece of cake when backing up stuff

[Plush]

Check Data Robotics Inc.

They make the DROBO.

The DROBO gobbles up your files and holds them safely until needed later.
It has very good redundancy.

Data Robotics, Inc.

[fifthcircle]

I don't archive things. I record way too much and I cannot be held responsible for client's data- it is a liability issue for me. What if something happens to it? What then? Hard Drives crash. It is a fact.

If I client wants their data, I have them buy hard drives- usually a decent quality firewire drive. However, if a USB drive is all they have, than that is what is used. Anything that gets restored for use just gets put back on one of my internal drives. In any case, then the archival is on their dime and their responsibility/liability.

-Ben

[zoom]

after you have finished the complete project, hand out together with the master the 100GB-drive with all the files to the customer!
calculate your prices that this drive is included (should be not so much nowadays).

or an other possibility: mention it in the contract that this data will be deleted after 6, 12 month or so. (this is what i do)

why keep all the files? if you have a good and customer approved master - who needs a remix? if you intend to make an additionaly surround-mix make it during the project. or never.
after 10 years there will be a problem to read out the data anyway...

cheers
stefan

[d_fu]

I tend to archive pretty much everything - that may just be my hamster mentality (german expression, don't know if it translates well) - I tend to hang on to things...
Part of it is that most of my customers would have no use for the original files anyhow (and why should they know how I did the mix?), and I keep them mostly as reference for myself - interesting sometimes what I did 5 or ten years ago.

Most of my predominantly live recording projects will fit on one single- or double-sided DVD-RAM (i.e. 4 or 8 gig). Sometimes, I bounce spot mic tracks down to 16 bit to save space. If that still doesn't fit, I mostly used DLT. I've only recently started to do hard drive backups.

But a lot of stuff is still just floatin' around on my main DAW...

Daniel

[bove]

Originally Posted by Plush

Check Data Robotics Inc.

They make the DROBO.

The DROBO gobbles up your files and holds them safely until needed later.
It has very good redundancy.

Data Robotics, Inc.

The Drobo looks fantastic. I'm assuming you use one of these?

How many drives do you have in yours and how loud is it?
Is the data speed fast enough to play back a multitrack audio project directly from the drobo's storage?

[Plush]

Dis BoBo don't use no DROBO yet. But I's gonna use it.

My comments are from watching at a friend's studio and his expert comments about the box. I will be implementing this ASAP.

[bove]

Originally Posted by Plush

Dis BoBo don't use no DROBO yet. But I's gonna use it.

My comments are from watching at a friend's studio and his expert comments about the box. I will be implementing this ASAP.

Would you mind asking him about the file transfer speed in audio applications? And if he can playback and work with a multitrack project directly from the little Drobo?

I'm wondering if this is simply an archive solution, or if we could work directly from it.

[Plush]

Hello Bove,

The DROBO is strictly an archive machine. File transfer is rather slow but of course always accurate.

This is a back-up solution that uses whatever size drives you want to put in it.

[David Spearritt]

I do all of the above. Live concerts for radio production are data archived on DVD, I have 6 crates of DVD's stored in opaque envelopes vertically filed by datetime (YYYYMMDD to match chronology) and description written on the top of the envelope. Recovering stuff is quick and reliable and I am still recovering stuff from 10 years ago and its been fine, touch wood.

Larger multitrack or video "studio" work is archived to shelved HDD's and connected to the PC with USB cable when it needs to be spun up or restored.

Relying on musicians to be custodians of this valuable data has not proved to be a great idea. They always come back to me with a recovery request, you just charge appropriately for it, everyone wins.

[videoteque]

PlugNPlay your SATA drives

Looks really nice!!!

[aracu]

For old ide drives there's cru ext hot dock ide, connects with usb or firewire.

[matyas]

Originally Posted by d_fu

I tend to archive pretty much everything - that may just be my hamster mentality (german expression, don't know if it translates well)
Daniel

"Hamster-Mentalität" heisst auf Englisch "packrat mentality"!

[mark.james]

Originally Posted by Plush

Hello Bove,

The DROBO is strictly an archive machine. File transfer is rather slow but of course always accurate.

This is a back-up solution that uses whatever size drives you want to put in it.

I would use a raid box before the drobo... i've seen and heard some people losing massive amounts of data with them. they don't use real raid and can be buggy..

mark

[Plush]

Originally Posted by mark.james

I would use a raid box before the drobo... i've seen and heard some people losing massive amounts of data with them. they don't use real raid and can be buggy..

mark

Please do tell because I am about to make a move to install a DROBO.
Please relate any info you have about negative issues with DROBO.

with thanks,
Plush

[tnjazz]

I archive raw files to external hard drives and I also save a lossless compressed version on DVDRs.

Several times clients have come back to me for files that they had destroyed or somehow lost, so it's worth it to me to keep this. I make sure the client knows I am not responsible for maintaining their data and they take their chances if the copy they've bought and paid for (and taken home) craps out on them.

How in the world do you guys end up with 100gb of data for a single project though???

The biggest one I ever had was about 55gb, and that was about 5 hours of 24 channel recording.

[matyas]

Originally Posted by tnjazz

How in the world do you guys end up with 100gb of data for a single project though???

The biggest one I ever had was about 55gb, and that was about 5 hours of 24 channel recording.

At what sampling rate? At 96 kHz, 24-bit, one minute of 24 tracks of audio would take up about 400 MB. One hour would be about 24 GB!

[tnjazz]

Originally Posted by matyas

At what sampling rate? At 96 kHz, 24-bit, one minute of 24 tracks of audio would take up about 400 MB. One hour would be about 24 GB!

We do everything at 24/48, mostly in sync with video. I never really saw the need for 96K, especially in the field.