Hey what have you guys been tossing around as means to store data? Short of backing up to HD Cam what have you guys thought of? Taking hard drives and storing them with all the video files on them?

I use hard drives. Panasonic also suggests using data tape back up systems in a white paper called P2-Workflow (which is different from the HVX200_FCP_WkFw.pdf). I will send it to you if you want.

I back up all P2 cards to DVD-R and harddrives.
In Photoshop I make a contact sheet from the ICON .bmp files and print that on the DVD-R as a handy reminder of what is in that backup.

I use hard drives. Panasonic also suggests using data tape back up systems in a white paper called P2-Workflow (which is different from the HVX200_FCP_WkFw.pdf). I will send it to you if you want.
Thanks Kathy that would be great.

Fred,

This question has been addressed as a side note in several different posts but the short answer is, HDD's are the most cost effective and stable method for archiving HVX footage.

Since everyone is using different wording I'm going to post all the links for the threads I can find regarding archiving, back up, backing up and other storage of P2 media.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=64792&highlight=Back+data

Well I guess it's only one. In that one someone refers to another thread found via HVX200 + storage, but I can't find it.

I 'was' shoving hard drives into my computer, but now my computer tells me that 10 devices are enough, two optical, 6 internal drives and 2 external drives.

So now I'll have to swap out or something. I really just wait for a good bargain on (external link) and then shove a drive in. I'm a collector and don't like to dump footage, even if I can recapture, but I'm sure I'll have to change.

I know that Lacie is coming out with some 500 gig plus externals that look pretty nice.

I've used CDs, and then DVDs, and now ditching DVDs in favor of hard drives. I finally have an SATA PCIe card on my QuadCore Mac for external storage with hot swappable drive bays. I am now building a collection of hard drives instead of way too many DVDs. I keep the hot swap drives in a dust free cabinet. With the new Seagate perp drives coming in at 750GB, I believe 500GB drives will be coming down in price soon. So I'll scale in storage by getting 500GB drives soon. 12 X 500GB = 6TB. :) If I could afford it, 12 X 750GB drives = 9TB.

And.. Blu-Ray on the way! Hopefully end of this year, so that can become an archival medium. I'll still be using hard drives in a huge way though.

buy.com has a 500 gb external usb hdd for $250 right now... outpost.com has a no-rebate, 500 gb seagate internal drive for $220.

if you like bargains, watch the hot deals forum on fatwallet.com... i've been getting seagate hdd's for about the same price per gig as a dlt tape... but you save a grand by not having to buy the tape drive.

HDDs are not stable IMHO unless they are mirrored or in a RAID5... ask anyone at a big audio or video production house how stable even the BEST HDDs are... you will find ALL of them back up to tape or have Raid5s that get backed up every so often...



ash =o)

What's the cost of backing up to tape drives?

What's the cost of backing up to tape drives?


And my question is, would use of tape drive mean that to get access to the footage again, would you end up capturing on a 1 to 1 time frame like you would from a DV tape, or would that be more like copying a file from a hard drive. I haven't had any experience with tape drives.

And my question is, would use of tape drive mean that to get access to the footage again, would you end up capturing on a 1 to 1 time frame like you would from a DV tape, or would that be more like copying a file from a hard drive. I haven't had any experience with tape drives.
ditto. 10 Character minimum

Tape drives - no thanks. Talk about expensive and slow. I'll deploy redundant hard drives over tape drives until Blu-Ray hits. And as I've stated before, regarding longevity and data integrity, if you're worried about your media lasting for decades, most likely the format will grow obsolete before the media fails. But then again, car accidents happen. Live life while ya can, which includes using technology that's easy to use. :)

BR appears to be the best solution going forward, tape drives are indeed over-priced and PAINFULLY slow.



ash =o)

BR appears to be the best solution going forward, tape drives are indeed over-priced and PAINFULLY slow.)

Actually I hadn't thought about the following yet. I wonder how slow Blu-Ray burning will be. If it's anything like Dual Layer DVD-Rs, it's gonna be a big reality slap. :P Bring on more hard drives!

Even if BR is slow at first, you can burn a disc a night with the days footage on it. Remember that a P2 Store drive takes 8 minutes to copy/confirm 4 minuntes of 1080i footage!



ash = o)

Okay guys, I have to ask this question. Is the tapeless capture aspect all it was said to be, or has it created its own issues ? My understanding is that the format is preferred, but if we had a tape drive running at a higher speed able to capture the format, wouldn't that eliminate a lot of these storage issues in the first place. You guys have been at it for a while now, is the near instant access on harddrive worth it ?

Tapeless aquisition has created its own set of issues, but it is (IMO) a step in the right direction and will only improve as time goes on. The biggest issues thus far have been software support and backup/archival of the footage...

IMO, it makes most sense to work with and backup the footage on fault-tolerant hard drive arrays (RAID 1/3/5). For long-term archival it seems that different people prefer different methods, but the top two options seem to be using more hard drives or a tape system. Archival to DVD/HDDVD/BR disc seems expensive and time-consuming.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of storing devices like hard drives on a shelf for years. Perhaps it's because I have done that and haven't had much luck with it. For long-term archival, the two methods I would recommend are:

1 > A good tape system -- they're not as overpriced or as slow as most people think. Current tape drives/media can handle upwards of 80 to 120 MB/s, which is as fast or faster than most people's hard drive setup unless we start talking 4+ drives in a RAID. Which tape format and type of drive to choose is entirely different for each workflow and user. But don't scoff at a tape solution until you have seriously investigated it.

2 > A "live" archive on hard drives in the form of a SAN or expandable, growing RAID. Build an archive based on redundant and fault-tolerant arrays. These arrays are continuously added to and upgraded over time, but your archives are always available and will continue to evolve and be usable as your computing hardware changes. It doesn't cost much more to do this than it does to write data to hard drives and shelve them and it is more reliable and allows the data to be handled as needed over time for better efficeincy.

Of course, for larger shops or users with huge amounts of data to deal with, a combination of the above two may be attractive. For a small operation or people working out of their home, this is probably not an option, but to pick either option 1 or 2 above shouldn't be too much of a problem. Both will be similar in price, but which one to go with will depend on the work enviornment they need to integrate with.

Good article here:

http://www.jts2004.org/english/proceedings/Wheeler.htm

The discussion is on using hard drives for archival. He talks about the implementation of of fluid dynamic bearings yielding far superior reliability. I believe this has been the trend since 2001 in hard drive manufacturing.

I'll let you know how my hard drive shelf life real world experiment turns out in 10 years or so. :)