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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Now the big Q... How do you store all your footage??

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Fernando

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Yeah... you tested, shot, and edit...
And at the end how do you store all those nice images?
Footage you dont want to get rid off...


What do you guys use?

lots of External drives?
 
8TB Raid/LTO

Mike C
 
That's the big question isn't it? I think it's all going to come down to solid state storage expanding and becoming more affordable. High capacity CF cards could work right now but they're a little slow. Then you've got to worry about keeping the cards safe and everything. Even then, from what I hear, solid state storage isn't permanent either but still much better than normal hard drives.

Bluray discs are another option but it's the same thing as storing stuff on DVD-/+R/RW. How long can a consumer-grade Bluray possibly last? Even if it did last, what if you needed to make another copy? Things are much better than they were but you still need to ask these questions.

Then we've got holographic storage around the corner but that's been around the corner for a while now. Supposed to be great stuff though.

RAID's are basically all we've got right now. Preferably RAID 1 or RAID 5 for safety reasons.

I know this isn't much help, but unless you make a film out to a 35mm print or have a master in 1080P on tape, there really isn't anything that can be done about storage and archiving. It's all iffy and requires maintenance.
 
What's in your price range?

Tape is going to be the most reliable (LTO 3A is the most popular it seems), but it's also the most expensive.

Jack_Felis said:
RAID's are basically all we've got right now. Preferably RAID 1 or RAID 5 for safety reasons.
Click to expand...

Going to a mirrored Raid or Raid 5 is preferable on set, but for archival LTO tape is fast becoming the industry standard. It has been used to archive data in other fields for a while and is very stable.

Plus most bond companies require transferring the footage to LTO at some stage.
 
I have question . About BluRay . Ok it is fast to record , better thet LTO , but wat about security . You can put LTO Type in Archive for 30-40 years , and BluRAY ?
We are looking fot LTO solution and as i understand better to get LTO 4 if you have no old LTO 3 . Problem that we have that not all LTO 4 working with APPLE in XSAN FIBER , Sow you need Windows pc with software in Apple SAN to work with LTO types.
 
LTO3. Is it cheap or expensive? It really depends on how you look at it. Personally, when compared to what it's replacing in most video workflows for the industry, I think it's cheap . What is it replacing? A tape deck, which is not cheap. Just to give an example, in a 1080 HDCAM workflow, you will normally archive your footage to an HDCAM tape. To do that you need an HDCAM deck and the cheapest one you can buy that can record is going to set you back around $30k, you are then paying about $35 per tape, that will hold around 50 minutes of 1080PsF 23.796 material. In comparison, with a Red LTO3 workflow, you can pick up an LTO3A drive for around $7k and a $35 LTO3 tape is going to hold close to 200 minutes of REDCODE 4K 23.976p material. On top of that you have the bonus that this is data tape and not video tape, so you can store all kinds of things on there with your footage (i.e. project files, clip notes, grades, etc. etc. the list goes on and on). You can't do that with video tape. LTO3 is proven and reliable with a shelf life of 30 years and it's use in this industry is just getting started. I'm pretty certain that we are going to see all kinds of great tools and uses for LTO3 as it is very quickly being adopted and integrated into the film and video industry. So to the prosumer, yes it's expensive, but in the professional film and video industry, which is not a cheap industry by any means, LTO3 is a very affordable solution. Just my 1 1/2 cents.
 
Been doing it for 3 years now....and it's simple for me:
All footage backed up to hard drives
Then two additional backups are made and I back these up every few months when new footage is added.

LTO is great, but I've never had a need for it and my select footage is placed with a stock agency that does this. But with three disk backups i HIGHLY doubt I'll have a triple catastrophic failure. But LTO is next on the list after a few thousand other toys.
 
Biba said:
I have question . About BluRay . Ok it is fast to record , better thet LTO , but wat about security . You can put LTO Type in Archive for 30-40 years , and BluRAY ?
We are looking fot LTO solution and as i understand better to get LTO 4 if you have no old LTO 3 . Problem that we have that not all LTO 4 working with APPLE in XSAN FIBER , Sow you need Windows pc with software in Apple SAN to work with LTO types.
Click to expand...

Security? I think you are asking about longevity.
If DVD backup is any indication that we can derive experience from, it is not bad especially the long life DVDs.
Tapes you have to rewind from time to time, BluRay you can recopy instead of rewind every 10 years.
 
What about obsolescence? [of all these medias]

What happens in 20 years, would you be able to read the LTO tapes from today?

Or do you have to re-backup everything in 3-5 year cycles [which is unacceptable].
 
karapetkov said:
What about obsolescence? [of all these medias]

What happens in 20 years, would you be able to read the LTO tapes from today?

Or do you have to re-backup everything in 3-5 year cycles [which is unacceptable].
Click to expand...

You have to systematically re-copy all your backups no matter what method you choose. I think LTO is the most reliable thing we have, and up to now it has maintained backward compatibility so that each new generation will read the tapes of the pervious generation.

I have 10-year old SCSI disks in good working order, and I can still read my QIC-tapes from 20 years ago, but I would never trust irreplaceable data to any single legacy technology. Data has to be kept alive, or you risk losing it.

I am also scanning my 30+ years old Eastmancolor negatives, and I think it is rather too late to avoid loss of quality. Once i get them digitized, I will be able to keep them unchanging as long as I back them up from time to time.
 
Harky said:
Tape is going to be the most reliable (LTO 3A is the most popular it seems), but it's also the most expensive.
Click to expand...
Really? It should be much cheaper per gigabyte than, say, blu-ray optical discs.
 
Barry Green said:
Really? It should be much cheaper per gigabyte than, say, blu-ray optical discs.
Click to expand...


Upfront costs. Yes, more expensive.

Per gigabyte once you have a system in place, well, you're right, not so much, however, I can only assume blu-ray will go down in price, whereas LTO will probably not IMHO.
 
oldphart said:
You have to systematically re-copy all your backups no matter what method you choose.
Click to expand...

You probably want to systematically re-copy all of your backups periodically, just because advances in storage technology make everything more accessible and more physically compact. People think they want an archival format that lasts for 20 years. Some applications really need this, but the vast majority don't. When most people say they need an archival format that lasts 20 years, they're not thinking through just how long that is, at the pace information technology industry moves at.

Think back to 1988. The hot new technology in the commodity data storage market was the 3.5" 1.4 MB floppy, introduced the previous year. How many people have important information still archived on 1.4 MB floppy disks? Practically nobody. Everyone moved that information to newer media. And why not? All the digital data a typical computer user had 20 years ago now fits into a few cents worth of hard drive space.

It's hard to wrap your head around, but 20 years from now 800 GB LTO-4 tapes will seem nearly as quaint as 1.4 MB floppy disks do today. A simple exponential projection of drive capacity advances of the last decade or two indicates that typical consumer drives should be in the range of thousands of terabytes in 2028.
 
Is LTO-3 A series really superior to LTO-3 HH series for Red footage? From Quantum's web site it describes the A series as being MXF aware, which is great if you are using Avid and/or Panny cameras, but it doesn't say anything else about different file types (like r3d).

Looking at LTO-3 HH drives on Pricegrabber shows an internal SAS HH series drive at $1,400 while the A series seems to be around $7,000. $5,600 seems to be a lot of money for a feature you might not even be able to use. The newer LTO-4 HH series can be had for $2,300.


My current plans involve building the following Linux (openSuSe) repository:
Lian Li PC-343B modularcase w/ server grade 1200W power supply
3Ware 24 port SATA RAID controller (openSuse capable)
Western Digital GP 1TB drives (as needed for RAID 6)
SuSe friendly dual core Mobo with 1Gb/s networking and SAS ports
Firewire 800 adapter
Internal Quantum LTO-3 HH drive (unless LTO-4 gets Linux Certified)

This will be used in conjunction with two Mac Pro workstations running RedAlert!, FCP, CinePaint, and GraphicsMagick on a 1Gb/s switch.

Workflow it to shoot to Red Drive, offload via file copy over firewire, and backup to LTO tape (which goes offsite). Work is done by workstations over the Gb ethernet.

Anyone see any flaws in this hardware set or approach?

Bob
 
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