In the field backup? Jeff?

[Chad Lancaster]

Jeff or anyone else,

I'm usually filming out of the back of my truck for several weeks at a time. What would your suggestion be for the best way to back up footage? bare drives? a raid in a padded case?

thanks

Chad

 

[Louis Maddalena]

I do lacie ruggeds.. I but I have a copy of each drive as back ups..

 

[Ron Elliot]

I would use the Glyph's, they have a 2yr warranty on fail drives and they will retrive your footage if the drive goes, also the main reason I would opt for them they make a better drive than any other company and they are very dependable I never had a drive fail on me or however you will pay a little more...but the knowing your footage is secure ....priceless

 

[Elliott Balsley]

How much storage do you need? If the ride is bumpy, SSDs would be far more reliable than spinning hard disks. It could get expensive though. You could get one of these and eight 512GB SSDs for $4500. That's 4TB of storage.
http://www.sansdigital.com/accuraid/ar108x.html
A cheaper option might be finding a really good padded case.

 

[Jean Déraps]

If you really want to be safe rather than sorry, you'll also have to find a way to deal with offsite back-ups. All it takes is one thief...and you're screwed.
Perhaps courier a copy of your footage on a bare drive to a friend/colleague?

 

[Michael Dalton]

just finished a week shoot in the Serengeti. Just before leaving I updated to a Mac Pro retina and bought a bunch of WD 2tb drives. I double up on copies and keep on drive in my pack at all times and the other in luggage.

New mac pro is awesome, with 2 USB 3.0 it's easy to update in the field. Get an inverter that is powerful enough to run you computer and charging units. Best a 1000w or more.

Michael

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I would use the Glyph's, they have a 2yr warranty on fail drives and they will retrive your footage if the drive goes, also the main reason I would opt for them they make a better drive than any other company and they are very dependable I never had a drive fail on me or however you will pay a little more...but the knowing your footage is secure ....priceless

But they don't make drives... They make the little boxes that the hard drives are placed in. Anyway, their warranty and guaranty seems good... Don't know anyone that's had to put it to the test though.

@Chad... Anyway, there are lots of different solutions here, but which ones will depend on factors like your budget, amount of storage you need, your typical operating temperatures, etc.. I would avoid RAID setups in some situations because a failure on a RAID can be far more catastrophic than a fail on an individual drive. On the other hand, the best of all worlds is probably a couple RAID-5 units comprised of SSD media and mirroring one another. Presuming you would have the power to run them, space to store them, etc..

The suggestion above about sending off your footage is also a good one. I don't care how redundant my backup may be, I wouldn't want to drive around with the only repository of several weeks worth of work being my truck. Accidents happen, thefts happen.


The big questions would be:

Budget?
How fast do you need to offload / back-up?
How long will it be in the truck?
Temperature ranges?
Power?

 

[Chad Lancaster]

thanks for the info

- I'd rather not spend a ton. Right now I have a promise pegasus raid in a padded case but I know they are not designed for any type of rough environment. So something in that price range would be good
- Speed of offload isn't a concern. Its not going to dailies or anything like that
- I'm only able to get the footage off the truck every few weeks as I'm often in remote locations.
- Temperatures can get pretty hot in the southwest in the summer
- Power is not a concern. My unimog camper has 2 solar panels, 4x4D deep cycle batteries and the engine can charge them also. Theres also plenty of storage space. But the key thing is that its not exactly the smoothest ride.

Tom Lowe how did you back up footage on the road for your film?