Best Back Up Method????

84K · 18th October 2005

Hey Everybody,

I would like opinions on what you think the best method for long term back up / archive is??? When putting a project to bed, I currently use:

1. AIT Tape back up
2. DVD back up
3. FW Hard Drive back up
4. 2" Tape (if it was recorded that way)

I know, that is excessive... what do you think the best way is? What will always be retrievable? The Library Of Congress (USA) still uses analog tape. That is the only thing they trust. Well?? What's best?

Sui_City · 18th October 2005

Having worked in the IT sector for a few years in corporates, I would go with AIT,2 copies and have one shipped off to an off-site backup storage facility.

AjD · 18th October 2005

Lots of good thoughts in this thread (plus some of my own!):

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=42737

Adam
drawingroom

84K · 18th October 2005

Thanks for the input thus far.

Thanks for the GS link...

I started this thread, not for options, but for, 'What is the end all and what will be retrivable.' A little different. I do not want to sort through all the current options, I want to try to come to a single medium that will last beyond...

Mike Caffrey · 19th October 2005

I buy all my drives in pairs, give them the same name and label one A and the other B. At the end of each session or change, I drag from A to B.

I have some drive B drives in a separate location in a fireproof safe ($49 from Office Depot).

I assume that at some point the data will have to be moved to a new storage medium. Hopefully we won't lose backwards compatability so that you've got data on a new medium that can only be used by an old computer that can't interface with that new storage medium.

Have you tried authorizing a copy of MasterList CD lately? The authorizer is a floppy and Macs haven't come with floppy drives in 4-5 years.

natpub · 19th October 2005

Quote:

...'What is the end all and what will be retrivable.'...

better hide this thread from Albini

T_R_S · 19th October 2005

AIT HERE

Anderson · 19th October 2005

1- Don't buy cheap HDD.

2- For the HDD your work on: buy 2 good SATA drives and put them in RAID 1

3- For backup: buy 2 high capacity HDD caddies - hot swap OR Firewire system ... put them in RAID 1 as well. Store them in a different location at night.

This way if the drive you work on dies, you have an immediate backup, and at you make a dual backup as well. Super safe - takes max 5 minutes everyday.

4- At the end of every session or when all the takes are done, do a "Save all project in folder" and burn a backup DVD. A song per DVD is usually what you get.

5- If the drive is used intensively every day in good conditions, expect it to last max 18 months.

6- Long term storing: DVDS seem the best option nowadays. Put them in a safe @ your bank. It's cheap.

Mike Caffrey · 20th October 2005

I think DVDs are a mistake. I think of long term storage as 10-20 years. DVDs will be obsolete in 5 if not sooner. Then as you upgrade your system to new gear that doesn't have a DVD drive because no one uses them any more and then people stop making peripheral drives because no one uses them any more and it's now 6-8 years later, how are you going to retrive the data?

I've seen this happen with floppy disks, certain tape drives and some special Sony medium that was once fairly common, but in NYC seems to only still exist at Sony.

I'm not saying that I have a great solution, but I knwo that it would be a mistake for me to use DVDs. with FW, I know that as I upgrade I'll be transferring over. If there's ever a medium that replaces FW, I'm optimistic that it will be bigger and faster and that it will be natural to transfer everything over to that medium.

Althoguh if the software ever changes say DSD only and you've got you PCM digial on somekind of MO media and you need access to the data, you'll find youself going back to an old PCM system that runs on a computer that can only interface with FW, which no one uses 5-10 years down the road.

It may be necessary to keep the system the data was authored on to truly have a usefull storage medium, if you wnat to be sure that you can access teh data in the future.

I saw an interesting article on a new computer design for a sort of universal OS for libraries. It might have been specifially the Library of Congress so that they can keep up with all mediums and platforms. They have to be able to play any meduim for at least 75 years. That's a lot of new media and platforms.

Fletcher · 20th October 2005

There is a recommended delivery standard that is probably a good way to go... at least for the next few weeks

http://www.grammy.com/pe_wing/guidel...liveryRecs.pdf

Tibbon · 9th December 2005

I've been looking into serveral backup solutions lately. The main problem is that I really don't have the money at the moment to invest in anything, even something as critical as this. I have two FW drives right now, but they are both too full to make a RAID 1 stripe out of them (each about 60-70% full).

I used to do backups to CDs, but that failed on me a few times (bad burns, or the archives later couldn't recover all the way). I'm slightly afraid of DVD backups for this reason. I would ideally backup to Firewire drives daily, and then have my system have a Tape Backup attached (maybe to another server) that would backup in a Grandfather-Father-Son scheme (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly rotations) and send them offsite for storage.

The problem is as my datasizes have been increasing, the cost of tape backup hasn't fallen much really. After I get my next hard drive i'll probably be pushing 1TB of data total, if not more. I'm doing more things with Film work now too, this projects taking yet even more room. And for the most part this just my personal freelance (as in I do most of it for free). I could easily see myself using a XServe Raid with ~4TB of space if i was working commercially at 192. There just isn't a decent backup solution (short or long term) for 4TB of data. Of course you can run in RAID 5, but if your facility gets torched, then you are screwed.

Just even the time to back up ALL of your data would be huge. Perhaps I need to look into somehow backing up and logging just data that has CHANGED, but then this gets really messy in retrevial.

Forget new convertors and mics.... someone needs to make a really clear and 100% solid solution for backup that Filmmakers and Engineers can use for backup. Think for a second, fully uncompressed HD quality video takes over 1.5Gb/sec. A 140 minute movie would take over 12TB uncompressed. That is just too much data to be able to backup well with current technology. Even with new higher capacity DVDs and stuff that might reach 100gb, that would require over 100 DVDs to backup one movie, and that wouldn't even factor in 6+ channels of uncompressed sound at DSD quality, or at 192PCM.

Igotsoul4u · 9th December 2005

I always do a firewire and DVD BU. I can't wait for bluray. AIT is the worst, especially with mezzo. I have AITs that I can't get to load up anymore since I upgraded my mezzo version.

T_R_S · 10th December 2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Igotsoul4u

AIT is the worst,

AIT with Retrospect since 2001 over 150 - 50 GB tapes - not one failure

rickrock305 · 10th December 2005

retrospect is where its at for AIT. mezzo dropped the ball a long time ago.

orange · 10th December 2005

retrospect is great - both with tape and disk backup.

FWIW AIT is a great, well proven, tape technology - I prefer LTO myself but use both . Never had a AIT failure (yet ?!). I've lost a couple of LTO2 tapes (out of over 2000 used !!!!).

The lesson in that is ALWAYS DO MULTIPLE BACKUPS.

si

djui5 · 10th December 2005

I'm getting one of these and will store everything on HD's until the time comes for me to change things.

http://www.cooldrives.com/blackicelcd2x.html

At some point I'd like to set up a couple servers for storing data to, that way if a client needs them, they could just get a password from me and have access to their directory.

aintnosunshine · 10th December 2005

If you have a cheap minidv camera, you can use it as a backup device with some software off the net. Very cheap solution... unless you don't already have a minidv camera, or you wear the heads out on your high end one!

warhead · 10th December 2005

I keep ongoing projects on the main storage drive in my PC, and back up to an external firewire or USB drive after every session. At the end of the project I archive to DVD-R and store it in a cool dry place.

I don't do label work etc, so this would be considered lame by many. I've yet to have an "uh oh" though.

War

Mike Caffrey · 11th December 2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by warhead

I keep ongoing projects on the main storage drive in my PC, and back up to an external firewire or USB drive after every session. At the end of the project I archive to DVD-R and store it in a cool dry place.

I don't do label work etc, so this would be considered lame by many. I've yet to have an "uh oh" though.

War

It doesn't take many years for a drive to become obsolete.

HAve you tried authorizing Masterlist CD lately? It's got a floppy for authorization and floppy drives have not come in computers for years. Maybe your DVDs will survive fine in a cool dry place, but 3 years from now when everything has switched to MO, it might be harder than you think to find a DVD drive.

Doublehelix · 11th December 2005

Hard drives are the scariest drives to use for backup. Guaranteed to fail after not being run for a couple of years!

cdog · 11th December 2005

Norton Ghost

www.norton.com

People usually remember to backup the audio and song files.

Yes, back them up to high heaven. And keep a backup in an offsite location.

But when the drive with your OS, DAW, hardware drivers, and 50 plugins, dies, you're EFFED. No work for at least a day, and thats if you know where all the install discs are and all the serial #s etc.

CLONE that drive so you have a DUPLICATE on hand in case of a failure.

Use an internal drive and after the cloning leave it DISCONNECTED.

RECONNECT in case of failure or when you need to reclone after substantial system changes (install new apps/plugs/drivers).

18th October 2005	#1
84K Lives for gear Joined: Oct 2004 Location: right coast Posts: 3,857 Thread Starter	Best Back Up Method???? Hey Everybody, I would like opinions on what you think the best method for long term back up / archive is??? When putting a project to bed, I currently use: 1. AIT Tape back up 2. DVD back up 3. FW Hard Drive back up 4. 2" Tape (if it was recorded that way) I know, that is excessive... what do you think the best way is? What will always be retrievable? The Library Of Congress (USA) still uses analog tape. That is the only thing they trust. Well?? What's best?

18th October 2005	#3
AjD Gear addict Joined: Jul 2005 Location: Dexter/Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 312	Lots of good thoughts in this thread (plus some of my own!): http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=42737 Adam drawingroom __________________ "(People) believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, & that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' - Senior Bush advisor, NY Times, 10/17/04

20th October 2005	#10
Fletcher member no 666 Joined: Jun 2002 Location: Durham, NC Posts: 10,110	There is a recommended delivery standard that is probably a good way to go... at least for the next few weeks http://www.grammy.com/pe_wing/guidel...liveryRecs.pdf __________________ CN Fletcher Professional Affiliations: R/E/P Professional Recording Engineer and Producer forums - serious hobbyists welcome SoundPure.com mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33 We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid Roscoe Ambel once said: Pro-Tools is to audio what fluorescent is to light

9th December 2005	#11
Tibbon Lives for gear Joined: Jul 2004 Location: Boston/MA Posts: 4,780 2 Reviews written	I've been looking into serveral backup solutions lately. The main problem is that I really don't have the money at the moment to invest in anything, even something as critical as this. I have two FW drives right now, but they are both too full to make a RAID 1 stripe out of them (each about 60-70% full). I used to do backups to CDs, but that failed on me a few times (bad burns, or the archives later couldn't recover all the way). I'm slightly afraid of DVD backups for this reason. I would ideally backup to Firewire drives daily, and then have my system have a Tape Backup attached (maybe to another server) that would backup in a Grandfather-Father-Son scheme (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly rotations) and send them offsite for storage. The problem is as my datasizes have been increasing, the cost of tape backup hasn't fallen much really. After I get my next hard drive i'll probably be pushing 1TB of data total, if not more. I'm doing more things with Film work now too, this projects taking yet even more room. And for the most part this just my personal freelance (as in I do most of it for free). I could easily see myself using a XServe Raid with ~4TB of space if i was working commercially at 192. There just isn't a decent backup solution (short or long term) for 4TB of data. Of course you can run in RAID 5, but if your facility gets torched, then you are screwed. Just even the time to back up ALL of your data would be huge. Perhaps I need to look into somehow backing up and logging just data that has CHANGED, but then this gets really messy in retrevial. Forget new convertors and mics.... someone needs to make a really clear and 100% solid solution for backup that Filmmakers and Engineers can use for backup. Think for a second, fully uncompressed HD quality video takes over 1.5Gb/sec. A 140 minute movie would take over 12TB uncompressed. That is just too much data to be able to backup well with current technology. Even with new higher capacity DVDs and stuff that might reach 100gb, that would require over 100 DVDs to backup one movie, and that wouldn't even factor in 6+ channels of uncompressed sound at DSD quality, or at 192PCM. __________________ David Fisher (aka tibbon) What is Noise, Blog (DIY, gear, tech, etc) Follow me on Twitter imVOX- Voice for Gamers WTB: Moog Theremin Signature Edition

10th December 2005	#16
djui5 Lives for gear Joined: Mar 2004 Location: Phoenix Posts: 6,664	I'm getting one of these and will store everything on HD's until the time comes for me to change things. http://www.cooldrives.com/blackicelcd2x.html At some point I'd like to set up a couple servers for storing data to, that way if a client needs them, they could just get a password from me and have access to their directory. __________________ _________________ "What is a crossfire hurricane & why wasn't I born in one?" Randy Wright

18th October 2005	#2
Sui_City Lives for gear Joined: Aug 2004 Location: South of South Posts: 820	Having worked in the IT sector for a few years in corporates, I would go with AIT,2 copies and have one shipped off to an off-site backup storage facility.

19th October 2005	#5
Mike Caffrey MonsterIsland.com Joined: Sep 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 4,233	I buy all my drives in pairs, give them the same name and label one A and the other B. At the end of each session or change, I drag from A to B. I have some drive B drives in a separate location in a fireproof safe ($49 from Office Depot). I assume that at some point the data will have to be moved to a new storage medium. Hopefully we won't lose backwards compatability so that you've got data on a new medium that can only be used by an old computer that can't interface with that new storage medium. Have you tried authorizing a copy of MasterList CD lately? The authorizer is a floppy and Macs haven't come with floppy drives in 4-5 years.

19th October 2005	#7
T_R_S Lives for gear Joined: Sep 2004 Location: Canuk Posts: 5,278	AIT HERE

19th October 2005	#8
Anderson Registered User Joined: Mar 2005 Posts: 472	1- Don't buy cheap HDD. 2- For the HDD your work on: buy 2 good SATA drives and put them in RAID 1 3- For backup: buy 2 high capacity HDD caddies - hot swap OR Firewire system ... put them in RAID 1 as well. Store them in a different location at night. This way if the drive you work on dies, you have an immediate backup, and at you make a dual backup as well. Super safe - takes max 5 minutes everyday. 4- At the end of every session or when all the takes are done, do a "Save all project in folder" and burn a backup DVD. A song per DVD is usually what you get. 5- If the drive is used intensively every day in good conditions, expect it to last max 18 months. 6- Long term storing: DVDS seem the best option nowadays. Put them in a safe @ your bank. It's cheap.

9th December 2005	#12
Igotsoul4u Lives for gear Joined: Mar 2005 Location: New York, NY Posts: 2,845	I always do a firewire and DVD BU. I can't wait for bluray. AIT is the worst, especially with mezzo. I have AITs that I can't get to load up anymore since I upgraded my mezzo version.

10th December 2005	#14
rickrock305 Gear Guru Joined: Jun 2005 Location: Miami FL Posts: 10,066	retrospect is where its at for AIT. mezzo dropped the ball a long time ago.

10th December 2005	#15
orange Lives for gear Joined: Jul 2004 Location: London Posts: 1,688	retrospect is great - both with tape and disk backup. FWIW AIT is a great, well proven, tape technology - I prefer LTO myself but use both . Never had a AIT failure (yet ?!). I've lost a couple of LTO2 tapes (out of over 2000 used !!!!). The lesson in that is ALWAYS DO MULTIPLE BACKUPS. si

10th December 2005	#17
aintnosunshine Gear Head Joined: Nov 2005 Posts: 63	If you have a cheap minidv camera, you can use it as a backup device with some software off the net. Very cheap solution... unless you don't already have a minidv camera, or you wear the heads out on your high end one!

10th December 2005	#18
warhead Jai guru deva om Joined: Feb 2003 Location: South Carolina Posts: 12,257	I keep ongoing projects on the main storage drive in my PC, and back up to an external firewire or USB drive after every session. At the end of the project I archive to DVD-R and store it in a cool dry place. I don't do label work etc, so this would be considered lame by many. I've yet to have an "uh oh" though. War __________________ Warren Dent, Owner - ZenPro Audio: Gear Now & Zen

11th December 2005	#20
Doublehelix Lives for gear Joined: Jan 2004 Location: USA Posts: 1,016	Hard drives are the scariest drives to use for backup. Guaranteed to fail after not being run for a couple of years! __________________ DH "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." -Yogi Berra

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11th December 2005	#21
cdog Lives for gear Joined: Dec 2003 Location: Brooklyn Posts: 3,559 3 Reviews written	Norton Ghost www.norton.com People usually remember to backup the audio and song files. Yes, back them up to high heaven. And keep a backup in an offsite location. But when the drive with your OS, DAW, hardware drivers, and 50 plugins, dies, you're EFFED. No work for at least a day, and thats if you know where all the install discs are and all the serial #s etc. CLONE that drive so you have a DUPLICATE on hand in case of a failure. Use an internal drive and after the cloning leave it DISCONNECTED. RECONNECT in case of failure or when you need to reclone after substantial system changes (install new apps/plugs/drivers).