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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 :)

Reliable backup systems?

S

Sean Sweeney

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I've got an upcoming commercial where the client has taken particular interest in backups of the day's material. We're a fairly small group with a red, so currently we're running dual g-tech 320 gig raid 0 drives as backup.

The client is willing to pay for a more elaborate backup system. What have you guys found to be some of the more reliable choices for your backups? Any hardware RAID arrays? Has anyone tried the G-Safe? Is there an 'ideal' backup system?

Thanks,

Sean
 
Sean Sweeney said:
I've got an upcoming commercial where the client has taken particular interest in backups of the day's material. We're a fairly small group with a red, so currently we're running dual g-tech 320 gig raid 0 drives as backup.

The client is willing to pay for a more elaborate backup system. What have you guys found to be some of the more reliable choices for your backups? Any hardware RAID arrays? Has anyone tried the G-Safe? Is there an 'ideal' backup system?

Thanks,

Sean
Click to expand...

I don't know about "ideal" but we have a G-SPEED software based raid and after the first or second shoot, the software had gotten scrambled and we lost our raid (thank god for backups, single g-tech 1TB eSATA drive). The G-safe looks nice for sure, given that its a softare based raid, it won't "scramble" if someone doesn't eject the raid properly.
 
There's a variety of ways to approach this, but I would recommend using R3D Data Manager (r3ddata.com) along with a pair of drives, and then doing a tape backup of each reel as it comes off the camera. This gives you three copies, in three locations.

We're using R3D Data Manager and the Quantum LTO-3A on several large shows, and this was an acceptable workflow for the bonders.
 
R3D Data Manager is a must. On our last shoot there was an error with on of the shots on a card (the others were fine) and it caught it right away. It is something we probably would have caught when we checked the proxies, but then again, it could have easily been overlooked.

Are you using a desktop or Macbook? The Sonnet Fusion F2 is a nice portable solution. You can set it to be a striped or mirrored raid (for back-up you'll, of course, wanted the mirrored) and it connects via esata, so it's quite fast.
 
I'm trying a rental only approach, unless you just have to own it. I think it's more expensive than most people want to pay. If you PM me we could talk about a sale, but for right now the rental should be $225/day for the computer only setup and $325/day for the on set configuration. All rates are 3 day weeks.

Chris
 
RAID5 + hot spare drive will save you if the data is huge.

cons: one hard drive is not in use, so less space available (total needs at least 4 drives).
pros: very reliable.

If you are talking about offline backup (archive), then backup to LTO3/4 tapes or BLU-RAY disks.
 
I love the Drobo... I've got three of them stuffed with drives.

Too slow for RED media, though, unless it's a fairly stable footage base (i.e. a one-time backup that can happen over a week).
 
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