Going from tape capture to P2 capture is leaving me somewhat worried- and with my OC, anxiety-prone, worrywart mentality, I have entertained many possible scenarios where the P2 data completely disappears from the Hard Drive. (after all, with tapes, you do have hard backups).
I was wondering- what are some methods of efficient backups? Should I get another external drive and make duplicates of all P2 files dragged onto desktop? I would use one external drive to cut movies, and another just to store backup files?
I intend to shoot 1080p24p or 1080ip24p- I have one 1 TB drive, and am thinking of getting another to serve as backup. I am sure there is some stupidity lurking here somewhere.
Re: methods of P2 backups by JeremyG on Dec 14, 2006 at 12:30:44 am
I have been backing up to SATA drives that I get from newegg for cheap. You can make two copies if you are really worried. You can also get yourself a cheap SATA enclosure from Firmtek, set up a RAID-1 with two drives. That way you drag once, copy twice. If you have a MacPro, the enclosure will not be necessary as the mac itself can act as your enclosure. Some people back up to DVD-R or dvd-r DL depending on your card size. This will not be viable too much longer with bigger card sizes coming out soon.
Re: methods of P2 backups by original Idiot on Dec 14, 2006 at 1:08:49 am
Yes I have a mac-pro, so why not set up RAID-1 with two 1TB drives? This is still drives... I'm thinking hard backup. I searched this post going back 6 month and someone mentioned blu-ray burner by Lacie.
Re: methods of P2 backups by Mariusz_NYC on Dec 14, 2006 at 2:43:00 am
Another proven method of backing up data is LTO tape drives like Quantum and Dell is providing. They worked well in financial institutions and tape last many years. Good thing about that solution is that tape is 400GB uncompressed and drive is still much cheaper than VTR recorder.
In my opinion this is best solution now before Blu-Ray or another high capacity optical media is proven.
Just my cents,
Re: methods of P2 backups by doka15 on Dec 14, 2006 at 5:41:07 am
I use good old dvd's. I shoot with 4 gig cards and each card fits snuggly on a disc. I use binders of 300 to store them in and it works just fine. I have never had a disc go bad but I am sure it can happen.
I purchase the Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R and get 200 at a time which breaks down to 25 cents per disc. These are as good as the Apple discs I use to buy, high quality but much cheaper.
Re: methods of P2 backups by original Idiot on Dec 14, 2006 at 5:05:30 pm
Does anyone else back up P2 to DVD-R? What are your experiences?
Also another question, if I back up to DVD-R, do I dump hard data on the DVD (i.e. the P2 folders), or does it need to be formatted for DVD (for example, the "burn straight to DVD" option in iDVD).
************
I use good old dvd's. I shoot with 4 gig cards and each card fits
snuggly on a disc. I use binders of 300 to store them in and it works just
fine. I have never had a disc go bad but I am sure it can happen.
I purchase the Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R and get 200 at a time which breaks
down to 25 cents per disc. These are as good as the Apple discs I use
to buy, high quality but much cheaper.
Re: methods of P2 backups by Mariusz_NYC on Dec 14, 2006 at 11:05:26 am
Take a look at Dell's PowerVault 110T LTO-3 specs on their website. It has transfer rate of 80MB/s with capability to record 288GB/h. LTO Ultrium 400GB tapes are cheap but tape recorder costs more. It is good investment though since you can use it to backup your all computer periodically. I see it as great solution for small production companies.
Also, you may take your hard drive to place where they can back it up for you LTO tape and if your hard drive fails in years just go to that place again and recover. I am sure in couple of years Blu-Ray or something else will affordable solution that works very well.
Re: methods of P2 backups by tcw on Dec 14, 2006 at 4:47:51 pm
Just to share what I am currently doing.
Here in Singapore, a 320GB Seagate SATA II hardisk cost just $162 or about US$110. My client shoot DVCPRO HD into the Firestore 100, so one 320GB hardisk can store 3 times the data. I told them, what they save in tapes, they have to spent on hardisk to backup.
After their backup to the hardisk, I will ingest the data into FCP and then store the hardisk somewhere safe. In this case, we would have a "ingested" copy and also a backup copy at all times.
After the completion of the project, we can decide whether we want to keep the backup rushes or reuse the hardisk.
My only wish is to have the hardisk like some sort of "write-protect" slider like on a tape where it will prevent the hardisk from accidentally being erased.
Re: methods of P2 backups by JeremyG on Dec 14, 2006 at 4:54:34 pm
[tcw]"My only wish is to have the hardisk like some sort of "write-protect" slider like on a tape where it will prevent the hardisk from accidentally being erased."
Re: methods of P2 backups by JeremyG on Dec 14, 2006 at 4:53:36 pm
Yeah, that's awesome and all, but it's SCSI. I am not going to add a whole other PC machine with a SCSI card just to backup. i have plenty of Macs laying around here and most importantly, I need it to backup from my main editing drives and the FW800 drives that come back from shoots. I tired to take a look an the quantum, but I couldn't find anyone to sell it to me or get enough concrete info except for what I found on the website and a post I started a while back. SATA was, at the time, the best possible solution for me. I had to buy and buy now as every last Gig was being filled up quickly.
Re: methods of P2 backups by original Idiot on Dec 14, 2006 at 5:07:36 pm
has anyone else backed up P2 to DVD-R? If so, what are your experiences?
Question: When backing up to DVD-R, do you dump hard data on the disc? (i.e., P2 folders) or do you need to format it beforehand? (for example: "burn straight to DVD" option in iDVD).
Re: methods of P2 backups by JeremyG on Dec 14, 2006 at 5:30:52 pm
Get the burning application, Toast, and make data DVDs. Or you can burn data DVDs straight in OSX. SImply put in a DVD-R, drag the data to the disk and hit burn.
Re: methods of P2 backups by doka15 on Dec 14, 2006 at 6:52:55 pm
You don't what to use iDVD because you are not making a DVD video disc. I use Toast and I burn the 2 files that come off of the P2 card the Contents folder and the ever important LASTCLIP.TXT
With that on disc you can import right from it as well. It costs me about 6 cents per Gig doing it this way but you end up with lots of discs. Again I store them in large 300 disc folders.
Re: methods of P2 backups by Indyplayer on Dec 15, 2006 at 4:37:23 am
I use external SATA drive enclosure. It is cheap. Using a raid is too expensive, if a drive of mine actually does die, I have an unmount esata backed up on my self
Re: methods of P2 backups by doka15 on Dec 15, 2006 at 7:08:10 pm
You know I don't factor in that cost. That was just my out of pocket expense. I have my laptop on the shoots and I upgraded my DVD burner from the default one that came in the PowerBooks. When I finish a 4 gig card I pop it into the laptop and make a DVD backup of it while I shoot on a second card. When I finish with the second card the first DVD is finished and verified and just swap the cards and pop in a new DVD for the next burn.
The discs are my masters and that seems to work for me. So, there is no time that I am sitting around waiting so I don;t charge for that time.
