Keep media on SD cards?

[Tariq Peter]

Hi All,

When shooting weddings in the past I have always copied the media from my SD cards onto my computer which also runs time machine for backup. Having spoken to a few people over the last few days it was suggested to me that I should also keep the media on SD cards just incase I have a major system error and loose everything. It's unlikely to happen but it could, I was wondering if anybody else did the same and kept the media until the job was done.

[Paul Mailath]

I'm not sure about time machine but I assume it's making a copy for a separate drive.

SD cards aren't an efficient way to store data other than short term due to the price. You need to transfer the data to your hard drive and back that up to a separate drive. A removable drive is suitable but a RAID array is best.

A 4Tb RAID 5 setup isn't that expensive and it's pretty bullet proof, the only thing you can do to improve that is have off site backup which isn't really feasible with the amount of data we handle.

[Chris Hsiung]

I like SD cards as a temporary archive on top of a backed up working hard drive. For $25 I get a 32 GB card which is affordable. It's nice to store projects separately that can be easily taken offsite. I find it convenient to copy the card, lock it, and store it knowing I can always go back to it.

Have no basis for it, but SD seems more reliable than storing it on a hard drive offsite unless that too is raided.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

it was suggested to me that I should also keep the media on SD cards just incase I have a major system error and loose everything.

You should have at least one off-line copy of the video files. Having an off-line copy is important because it protects against a number of user and software errors that a RAID doesn't protect against. Keeping the SD cards until you're done editing is a possibility. I have a USB drive on which I keep copies of the original files from the cameras. This drive remains off-line except when I'm adding new footage to it after a shoot. I'd use two drives, except most of my footage still originates on tape.

[Noa Put]

I use 3 drives for backup; one internal drive and 2 external drive where I store all raw footage and a copy of my project files. One external drive only gets connected when needed, just to make sure if lightning strikes it won't get damaged. The second external drive I keep at my parents just incase a plane would crash on my house :) My sd cards are only used for recording and offloading footage, each new project the card gets ereased.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noah

Me too!!! One extra thing I do is have enough cards in my case (at the moment I carry 8 16GB cards with me) so as well as copying to drives (I do it as soon as I get home so it's done at 1am often !!) I also set the cards for that wedding aside so just in case the card data didn't transfer correctly, I still have it on card!! Once the edit is done and I'm happy all the data is good I deliver the bride's DVD's and only then I put those two cards back into "circulation"

Just a little extra precaution!!

Chris

[Noa Put]

You actually do it a bit better then me :) The data on my sd cards gets ereased the day before every new project.

To minimize that risk of having corrupt data I do load all transfered footage directly into Edius right after it has been copied to my internal disc, then I place all footage on the timeline and quickly scrub through it. If a file would be corrupt, Edius should give an error and not load it.

I still have a 4 year old xh-a1 combined with a sony hvr-dr60 disc and having all my footage on mini-dv tape as well gives me much more peace of mind, from that camera I can still retrieve footage that was shot years ago. For my dslr's my workflow has dramatically changed and I pay a lot of attention to be absolutely sure I transfer and backup all footage.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

It really depends on how much work I have in the pipeline. At the moment I'm sitting with 5 x 16gb cards of of 8 that are "out of circulation" as I had a wedding on Friday and Saturday which accounts for 4 cards already. I have another on Thursday but the first wedding will be edited by then so two cards can be erased in the camera. By doing it this way my cards also are forced into a rotation order so they all tend to have the same amount of use.

I only hold back the card to make sure that the raw footage is OK..I have had isolated cases where the footage had a second of green squares all over the image and deleting the files and copying it a 2nd time off the card showed that the copy process must have caused the problem!!

Chris