where to store/backup all my massive raw video data on a budget

[Brellivids]

Best disk money can buy is the Westerndigital 3TB Red atm. 

 

-low power consumption

-fast continous write speed

-silent 

 

It's such a shame that they havent launched the 4TB Red yet. 

 

A USB 3 dock like Bruno suggested is a very good idea. The only problem I see with such approach is that the connectors may eventually brake down due to wear. 

 

Another solution is a Large case with a lot of HHD slots then you keep the case open and just swap the cables when you need. (such is my workstation right now)

[Sean Cunningham]

I'm not ever likely to trust Western Digital drives for archival.  For a few years half of those purchased to do back-ups failed and I stopped buying them altogether.

 

CD's aren't longterm storage either, not unless they're someplace where the conditions prevent the various layers and glue and such from breaking down.  High quality or not, they deteriorate over time.  Plus, they're just too darned small.  I've got single photoshop files that won't fit on a CD.  

 

They and DVD-R are just too slow as well.  Burners/players are prone to failure over time too and can have a nasty habit of, on their way to the big landfill in the sky, writing discs that can have issues being read later on.  I've got discs from a Super-Drive that barely lasted two years that are unreadable on some new, functional drives but not on others.

[Brellivids]

I'm not ever likely to trust Western Digital drives for archival.  For a few years half of those purchased to do back-ups failed and I stopped buying them altogether.

 

CD's aren't longterm storage either, not unless they're someplace where the conditions prevent the various layers and glue and such from breaking down.  High quality or not, they deteriorate over time.  Plus, they're just too darned small.  I've got single photoshop files that won't fit on a CD.  

 

They and DVD-R are just too slow as well.  Burners/players are prone to failure over time too and can have a nasty habit of, on their way to the big landfill in the sky, writing discs that can have issues being read later on.  I've got discs from a Super-Drive that barely lasted two years that are unreadable on some new, functional drives but not on others.

 

 

Interesting. My WD*s have worked like a charm and I have plenty of them from different eras. I might consider Samsung as well.

But .. my guts tells me that even tho they are not that practical the tape solutions are the best and most secure method one can easily obtain from the market at a reasonable cost.  I how ever have not owned any kind of tape based storage solution

[simondm]

For big backups, I can't recommend cloud storage, but for important files, I always leave a copy on Dropbox.

Although recently I've run out of free gigs and I'm not sure I want to go for the paid solution, as it's quite expensive.

I've just discovered Copy, a new cloud storage solution that offers a lot more space than Dropbox for free.

You get 15 Gb for free to start with, and another 5 Gb for free if you sign up with this referral link:

https://copy.com?r=yx223v

 

There you go, sharing the good tip...Enjoy!

[Sean Cunningham]

Tape?  No.

[PicBackMan]

For me External hard drives are doing pretty well. Without malfunctioning. They are reliable, affordable, easy to attach, use and de-tach. You don't have to be a techie to handle external hard drives. So my vote is up for hard drives.

[Brian Brown]

For archiving tapeless footage, I use BD-R discs AND external HDDs. Single-layer BD-Rs hold 25GB and cost around $2/each. I keep hoping that double-layer 50GB discs will come down in price, as now they are around $10/each. I believe that some backup software can span multiple optical discs, but I don't presently use it. I always verify media written to BD-Rs, and have a bad burn about one in 50 or so.

 

I don't trust that HDDs will give long-term archival storage, that's why I back-up everything to both optical and HDD. It's "saved my bacon" once when I had to resurrect an old project from optical disc that I couldn't get off of a failed external hard drive.

 

If I chose to ONLY rely on HDD, I would back files up to at least two different HDDs and keep the HDDs in separate places (to insure against fire, flood, theft, etc.)

[tehgeek]

This is a big problem of the digital age. Uploading is probably the best bet these days but yeah it isn't always cheap. 

[Caleb Rasak]

I suggest getting something that is expandable. Also make sure that if you are shooting in raw that you are charging the client for it. I always get an estimate on how much media I will be using to do my project for a client so I can charge them appropriately for storage before the shoot even begins.  If its personal film stuff then your going to have to make it work in your budget maybe shooting raw isnt a good idea? A good product is the G-Dock for storage and I highly recommend it. 

 

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-dock-ev-thunderbolt

[tomekk]

I'm not ever likely to trust Western Digital drives for archival.  For a few years half of those purchased to do back-ups failed and I stopped buying them altogether.

 

CD's aren't longterm storage either, not unless they're someplace where the conditions prevent the various layers and glue and such from breaking down.  High quality or not, they deteriorate over time.  Plus, they're just too darned small.  I've got single photoshop files that won't fit on a CD.  

 

They and DVD-R are just too slow as well.  Burners/players are prone to failure over time too and can have a nasty habit of, on their way to the big landfill in the sky, writing discs that can have issues being read later on.  I've got discs from a Super-Drive that barely lasted two years that are unreadable on some new, functional drives but not on others.

 

WD has released couple of new lines with better reliability and better technology to protect the drives. There is 4TB option too. You might want to reconsider ;). They're more expensive though.

 

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/enterprise/

 

altough ultrastar-7k4000 might still be better with mtbf of 2mln

 

http://www.hgst.com/hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/enterprise-sas-drives/ultrastar-7k4000

[Rob Bannister]

I use a synology ds1512+

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/overview/DS1512+

 

Its about $700 plus you want to load it with 2TB drives, its a 5Bay raid with Dual gigabit, USB3 and ESATA. I liked this because I had a really bad experience using a drobo. So you can start out with what you need anyways on this and keep expanding disks. it has dual disk redundancy, you can also back up to external drives via the esata or usb. My favorite part is that it can expand out to 15 disks via the 512 expansion.

 

The interface is really great too and it is a very solid performer.