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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 :)

Archive Wisdom

Archive Wisdom

  • standard 3.5" HDD (fearless!?)

    Votes: 19 26.8%

  • standard 3.5" HDD x 2 (fearfull..)

    Votes: 27 38.0%

  • LTO 2 or 3 or higher (no fear!!!)

    Votes: 14 19.7%

  • LTO (as above) with 2:1 compression (wise choice?)

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Other (please be kind enough to specify)

    Votes: 10 14.1%
  • Total voters
    71
Archiving options.

Archiving options.

Well REDCODE RAW is just data. So all the IT domain options are open to you.

But its a great question to poll everyone on.

Do you intend to use data tape - such as LTO, DLT, AIT-5 ? All 400GB / tape

Or to 3.5" hard drives 1 TByte 3.5" drives available soon from Hitachi.

Or Blue Ray optical? 50GB disk burners are available soon from LaCie
 
Other:
Ideally I'd like to be storing on self-contained RAID 5 SATA systems, with either Gbit LAN or FW800 connectivity.

For really, really old "I'll probably never use it" footage, maybe a lay-off to tape (or by that point most likely high-capacity optical or holographic storage) and re-use the RAID drives.
 
I was wondering this same question yesterday. What's the most cost effective and long term/durable method for archiving data?

Archiving is one area where I feel safer with film.
 
3.5" hard drives are easy deal, just get one naked, connect to firewire enclosure, archive and lay it on a shelf.
now tape, even it might be lower $/GB value, is a bit steep investment to start, as one needs a recorder..
so I go 3.5", yes it might be risky but it´s easy.
 
zuvis said:
3.5" hard drives are easy deal, just get one naked, connect to firewire enclosure, archive and lay it on a shelf.
now tape, even it might be lower $/GB value, is a bit steep investment to start, as one needs a recorder..
so I go 3.5", yes it might be risky but it´s easy.
Click to expand...

But how risky is it really? My understanding is that a parked hard drive is actually quite reliable. Obviously you'd want to store it in a location away from vibrations and excessive temperature/humidity variations, but I don't think it would be significantly less reliable than tape.
 
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Stuart English said:
Well REDCODE RAW is just data. So all the IT domain options are open to you.

But its a great question to poll everyone on.

Do you intend to use data tape - such as LTO, DLT, AIT-5 ? All 400GB / tape

Or to 3.5" hard drives 1 TByte 3.5" drives available soon from Hitachi.

Or Blue Ray optical? 50GB disk burners are available soon from LaCie
Click to expand...

hi Stuart! thanks!

i am undecided. :confused: by the time im ready to buy a Red (before 2008) i hope to see a reliable medium that is also cost effective.

it seem that technology is moving faster than its safety net.
 
zuvis said:
3.5" hard drives are easy deal, just get one naked, connect to firewire enclosure, archive and lay it on a shelf.
now tape, even it might be lower $/GB value, is a bit steep investment to start, as one needs a recorder..
so I go 3.5", yes it might be risky but it´s easy.
Click to expand...

No. Bad.

Hard drives are not designed to sit for long periods of time on a shelf. Sorry, it's true. Most large data centers these days with huge volumes of data to manage and archive have gone to "live backups". Think redundant RAID storage networks that can easily be expanded just by adding more RAID nodes. Backups are stored across the SAN and archives are still offloaded to tape for long-term archival and off-site storage. So when you read these articles on the net how so and so Fortune 500 company now uses hard drives for backup, this is what they're talking about, not placing data on drives and shelving them. I've built, maintained, managed, etc.. enough networks and storage systems over the years, that I will never trust a backup to a hard drive.

Unfortunately for long-term storage the most reliable and cost-effective method is still tape. I know tape systems are expensive, but you have to look at the total investment over time and the costs of volume tape purchases. Figure out your data requirements and then price out your various options... If tape is too expensive, then you obviously don't need it. Try to maintain redundant live backups on HDD (not saying you need a SAN, but a nice secondary RAID5 box that stores multiple daily or weekly backups may be in order). This should work until BluRay becomes more reasonable over the next year.

But there's lots of tape options out there... One of the most reasonable for smaller operations, and one I've recommended to the HVX200 crowd is VXA2 tape. Tape drives can be had with external Firewire interface and including a single tape for about $1K. Tapes hold uncompressed 260GB each. Blank tapes can be bought for less than $20... VXA2 becomes cheaper than hard drive storage (taking the upcoming Hitachi 1TB drives at an estimated $370 street price tag into account) at about the 4TB mark. So that's definitely something to consider. And VXA2 tape is indeed designed to sit in its plastic case, on a shelf for years and years, or at least until something better comes along and you can regroup and re-archive your collection.
 
Oooops... Correction to that above. VXA2 tapes hold 160GB uncompressed, not 260GB. Prices seem to have really shot up too. Make that 160GB for under $40 in tape if you buy bulk. That changes the dynamics a good bit, but for large volumes of data, it still comes in cheaper than hard drive storage, starting about the 6.5 to 7 TB mark. With 4K RAW footage (even 2K RAW) to archive, a TB isn't all that much space.
 
I'll start using 3,5 inch harddrives.

The rest of what I'm saying here is nonsense. I miscalculated by a factor 100. I'll keep it in here for you and everyone to read for fun purposes and a reminder to myself not to post too quickly and do some better math. My father's a math teacher for crying out loud...

I calculated an approx. 1 hour per GB datarate for the REDCODE RAW at 24 fps (correct me if I miscalculated), so a normal 500 GB drive could hold 500 hours. Lowest HDD price I found in a quick websearch ($ 64,00 for 320 gig) would make the non-RAID storage about $0,20 per hour of REDCODE RAW 24 fps, so RAID 1 would cost about $0,40 per hour.
 
Redcode Raw

Redcode Raw

4K at 24fps REDCODE RAW is a bit less than 2 GB / minute.

28MB/s x 60 / 1024 = 1.6 GB/min (plus audio & metadata etc)

So 1 TB ~ 500 minutes
 
I am yet undecided, wait and see what is available closer to the time of camera acquisition. However I can't understand when a lot of people here are on the verge of getting their hands on what will be a very expensive camera, with all the whistles and bells attached, even more so. People wanna shoot at the max rez and capability of the unit but want to archive out to the cheapest denominator. I, for one, will have to bite the bullet and opt for what may not be the cheapest archiving option but the option which at least guarantees the best security for my commodity, the stock footage. After all we are purchasing a means to obtaining great footage. To me it is more than obvious that I should be taking more care of the footage thasn I do of the camera in real terms.

Cameras can be replaced!!

My 2c worth.
Mark.
 
I´m planing opposite - start low end, as cheap as possible and build slowly from there. [my budget is deciding everything and I don´t think that if I can´t afford xraid or arri accessories I can´t shoot 4k..]
 
Yeah, for archiving the raw footage, tape drive is really the best way to go until large capacity optical disks become a reality (read: inexpensive). 50GB per blu-ray disk is small for tons of footage, but think of it as a reel of film. 20-25 minutes of footage per disk.

I'm not quite sure why people feel safer with a film negative as an archival medium. You can't clone the negative and still keep the quality intact. And you still have to keep it in a climate-controlled sealed and secured vault somewhere, and then another copy someplace else.

With a blu-ray disk, I'll just burn 3 at a time, and they'll sit there, in separate geographic locations. If 2 of them mysteriously combust into flames at the same time, then I put the 3rd one in my computer's blu-ray drive, copy the contents to my HDD, and spit out another 3 perfect digital clones.

When bigger, better holographic storage solutions become available, thenn just transfer it to those. No biggie.
 
Here's to the price of Blu-Ray disks coming down *clink*.

I'll be using HDD's for the time being. I remember reading others' opinions on the former forum that a shelved hard disk in controlled conditions is pretty stable. RAID would always be better, of course. The power company's going to just love us!
 
LTO 2 is still the best value/security balance option out there. Yes a drive and SCSI card will cost you $2K but $40 for 200GB uncompressed tapes that write as fast as a normal Harddrive is hard to beat. Plus I think all LTOs are backwards compatible, so most of the higher end post facilities used to working with Viper/F950 footage will be able to easily handle it.
 
would it be safe to make 2:1 compression on LTO for Redcode?
 
other option is S-AIT1 until holographic storage solutions become available.

Storage 500 GB (native), 1.3 TB (compressed ) MAX. SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE 30 MB/s (native), 78 MB/s (compressed1)

has anyone used a SAITe1300-F/S?
 
We only use hard drives for archiving (shelved). We have had several tape backups fail, costing us thousands in losses. We keep duplicate drives off-site for insurance purposes. Everything is databased via Disktracker - a great tool for now (Apple has just bought out Proximity - a great media management solution). Speed is also a benefit of hard drives over tape. Hope this helps.
 
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