Hello,

Quick one. Using an HVX 200 - and MacBook Pro to offload LOTS of P2 footage, backing up footage to 1 primary and 2 back-up TB drives, BUT 2 of my G-Raid 1 TB drives went down! Yikes...Getting them refurbished and backing them up...again. *Sigh*

Needless to say, I am worried about these potentially fickle drives.

So, I am now looking at Blu-Ray as a Hard back-up to my footage so i will have it in 3 drives AND backed up to Blu Ray just as a precaution...Ideas?

I have just finished filling up my first TB and with 2 back-ups, am now trying to figure out which Blu-Ray Burner to buy (best deal, price, recommendations, etc), any info on discs to purchase or overall advice, as these 2 recent drives going down have understandably got me panicked.

Basically, any and all information about the Blu Ray world, as the online forums have left my head in a tizzy especially after almost losing 2 hard drives recently.

Help.

And thank you!

Cheers,
JC

We use blu ray to back up our files from a Sony EX1. Right now the cheapest discs are the 25 gig ones. I think we were able to get them for around $5 a disc or so.

The 50 gig dual layer discs are much more expensive and harder to find.

We use Toast 9 on our macs to burn the discs using external burners through USB. Not the fastest way to do it but it was pretty cost effective.

Daniel Weber

Have you looked into LTO instead? Much more reliable long term and more suitable to long-term backup than Blu-Ray.

Noah

'ppreciate the help guy.

think i am going for a blu-ray just as a precautionary measure.

you guys rock.

For short term backups, blu-rays, dvds, etc - will do. Long term, data tapes (DLT, SDLT, LTO, etc) - are the best.

Does anyone have a favorite recommendation for specific DLT, LTO drives? At my old work, we had the Quantum DLT-6000, which was okay, but a bit slow and clunky and it was pretty costly as I recall, somewhere around $6-$7k. Looking for a good longterm backup for a lot less money, if it exists.

Dan

Yes - CDW sells one Quantum DLT tape drive for less than US$1K. Connects via USB 2.0 and eSATA. Use eSATA and you can get pretty good speed.

CDW Product Overview : Quantum DLT-V4 Tape Drive-USB2.0 and eSATA (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1125097)

Other websites can get slightly lower prices too.

Hi Ting Sern:

This looks very interesting. In the specs, it only lists compatibility with PC and Unix, I wonder if it will work with Macs?

Dan

Hardware wise, I don't think it pose an issue. As long as you have an eSATA card plugged into the Mac - and have an appropriate device driver loaded for the eSATA card, the device should not pose a problem for the Mac.

Software wise - that will be a problem. I don't know of any tape backup software running on Mac OS ...

Alternatively, if you have a PC, you can connect the tape drive to your PC. Then toss your Mac files into a USB portable drive - then you can transfer the data to your PC and backup to tape that way.