Media Company Computer setup HELP

[Jerrin Uecker]

Im trying to figure out the best way for us to set up our computers. We have 3 video/photo editing monster computers, but only 2 people. So we were thinking about setting one up as a rendering computer... Any thoughts on that??
Also, right now we each have 1 TB SSD's that we run our programs off of. 2 4TB hard drives in each computer, one used as RAW file storage and the other used for all other random files such as microsoft documents and such (not photo/video). Obviosly 4TB wont last us long, what should we do. Continue adding 4TB drives into our machines or get a RAID system, right now those RAW files are not backed up... because we only have one drive. What RAID should we look at, and how should we connect it to our computers? Should we make that 3rd computer a RAID system?? Thoughts?? Can anyone share their complete workflow from start to finish? From shooting, to dumping cards, to backing up, to finish product. Maybe File structure would help also??
Thank you!!

 

[Keith Van Orden]

It depends on what kind of data you're looking at. Most media companies deal with hundreds of terabytes or more over the span of a year, but if your needs are much lower than that, you really shouldn't make the mistake of investing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in a massive raid system. Ideally you want a system that leaves room to grow without breaking the bank.

Firstly I would recommend before spending any money, arrange a sit down with an agent from a data management solutions company (after doing a fair amount of research) and discuss your needs at the moment and for the future with them. They'll probably try to set you up with something thats a little too flashy for your needs, but even if you can't figure out a shared media solution through them, it will give you some insight into how things can be done at a higher end level. The advantage of having a data management solutions company handle your technology is that all the troubleshooting falls on their shoulders. If you end up building your shared media system yourself, and your company grows, eventually you'll be stuck managing your data around the clock and you'll have no time left to be a creative person.

All of that said, if that doesn't sound like an avenue you want to explore at this moment (which is more than fine) and you're looking for just an entry level solution to keep your data safe, here's what I'd recommend.

Get a MacMini.
Get two 16 terabyte raid drives, set them to Raid 5 or Raid 6 (do some research if you don't know the difference). I like Lacie and G-Tech drives, to each their own. Thunderbolt is great, but more expensive. Etc. Etc. Name one master and one backup.
Install the OSX server app on the mac mini. Set up your sharing settings so your 3 terminals can access whatever files they need off of the Master Drive. Use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to "smart backup" your master drive onto your backup drive every night.
Get 2 fast, thunderbolt, big drives that go out into the field. These are your production drives.

Then your workflow might look something like this.
-You shoot onto cards, then on set, you dump onto both production drives. I like to use ShotPutPro, but to each their own.
-The production drives come home with you, and you migrate the raw footage onto slower, less expensive drives that you bought specifically for this project, if possible (bury the cost of these drives in the budget of the production if you can). Now your production drives are free again.
-Transcode from the production drives or the project drives onto your big fat fast Raid Arrays (unless you're editing in raw, in which case, just move everything). All of the project files live on here until the project is 100% wrapped. Edit edit edit, deliver.
-Move everything, project files, transcodes, etc. onto the production drives, and stick em on a shelf.

Now heres the thing; Every external hard drive in the world will fail in the next 20 years, no question. The life span of these is close to 5 years, and thats if you plug them in and spin them up from time to time. It's not a bulletproof long term storage solution by any means. Do you have to keep all of the files for wrapped projects from now until the end of time? Of course not. But clients ask for files of old projects all the time. You might want to use old footage for a pitch. You might want to use old footage for a reel. Keeping external hard drives works, but it's not really professional.

The best solution (in my opinion) is to invest in an LTO 5 drive, bury a box of LTO 5 tapes in the budget of a production. LTO tapes last like, 40+ years, and they're getting cheaper all the time.

So to recap;
Camera --> Camera Media --> Production Drives --> Editing Raid --> Project Drives --> LTO5.
Backup everything.
Never have just one copy of everything.
Do your research.


I really hope this helped, and if someone has a more affordable/practical/bulletproof solution, I'd love to hear it. By no means is this the be all and end all way to do things.
Keith

 

[Tom Sefton]

You could pay hundreds of pounds/dollars for specialist consultancy and you wouldn't get a better answer than the one above - best practise on set DIT, office storage and editing and then long term backup.

One minor thing to add - itemise storage and long term backups for your clients on an invoice. Charge them for rushes that have to stay on your production drives past the delivery of a project and without an agreed strategy to deal with them.

 

[Matthew Quinn]

Jerrin. In my office we have a fully decked out mac pro for editing raw files on premiere, we have also started using avid media composer and its great.. we have a synology disk station we use to back up big projects we have going on, then dump those files to external hard drives to back up. Depending on the project we usually make THREE copies of the RED MAGS, and put them in different geographical locations, this is honestly the best way to insure a back up.

we have been looking at this product to replace our synology http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-studio-xl-thunderbolt-ev-series-bay-adapters looks VERY helpful and will streamline a lot of workflow issues, and you can put the new mini mag readers into it.

so on set we use a small DIT station with a new laptop and hard drives provided by production, it has the ability to trans-code dailies after the DIT does a quick pass with davinici, this helps get the files ready to return to the studio