R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: archiving, backing up, mirroring  (Read 1876 times)

j.hall

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3787
archiving, backing up, mirroring
« on: June 18, 2006, 04:25:25 PM »

so, as i get busier and busier, i'm starting to desire a better archinving scheme.

right now, i'm a total idiot and only have one drive, and when projects are done i'll rip DVDs of the things i don't already have on DVD from the client.  like, my PT session docs, mixes i've printed, and effects or sound replacer i've printed.......

i'm starting to think with drives as cheap as they are, i should be running some kind of software that just automatically backs up what i've done that day to another drive.

what are you guys doing for back up, archiving, mirroring, whatever.

raid arrays?


Logged

craig boychuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 409
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2006, 09:30:23 PM »

This subject really gets me going.

Ideally, I think I'd like to have an array for backups.

Right now I'm using individual drives & dvd copies, although I'm super lazy about the copies. Which is funny, 'cause I'm totally paranoid about loosing stuff.

I have a "current" drive that is inside the computer...all the "backup" drives are in removable caddies - this way they don't have to be spinning unless I'm using them, which is hardly ever.


-craig
Logged
Capture the pasture rapture.
www.cbaudio.com

j.hall

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3787
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2006, 05:57:25 PM »

so do you just mount your basck up drives and archive what you've done that day?

what about when your mixing and your saving the session doc all the time?

i think i'd like for an archive drive to be run with some sort of archiving software that whatever i drag to it, once a day it will look at the source drive and update any changes that have been made.

i believe this kind of software exists, though i haven't checked into it yet.
Logged

Joe Black

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 456
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2006, 08:28:15 AM »

Absent of an automatic back up system, I would suggest at minimum copying work for the day to mirrored drives in case your working drive fails and then archiving on a minimum of two mediums: DVD (till something else comes along) and external hard drives. This will give you some protection against disk failure. Storing archived material at separate locations (DVD and hard disk)  protects againt theft, fire or water damage.

The best schemes involve doing some sort back up every night (or day) of material to a spearate medium (like tape) and storing previous back ups off site in case of fire or theft. Seagate has a good explanation of back up schemes.

http://www.seagate.com/products/tapesales/backup/A2g1.html

When I worked as a technolgy consultant in the photo industry, this was the most routinely ignored advice I gave, and the most devasting to a business when the inevitable happended - data loss through theft, fire or water damage.   It is so hard to stress protection against something that MIGHT happen. If you do decide to do something, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing backup EVERYDAY as part of your routine. Every other day or once a week doesn't work. It is HUMAN NATURE for people to want to put off something like this till tomorrow.
Logged

Joe Black

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 456
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2006, 08:39:34 AM »

A little bit more to help you think through things, I apologize if this seems obvious.
There are three subsets of data collection:
categorizing
back up
archiving

categorizing is a methology that helps you find things. Some back up software systems have great file find and retrieval schemes. Others feel like tech manuals written in Japanese and translated poorly. Third party software, like Canto Cumulus, are elegant and powerful. If you have years of data, there's nothng like powerful software to help you keep it organized and retreivable. A poor mans way of categorizing is printing out folder directories of thier drives and storing them in binders.

back up is by it's nature temporal - you need the data for a specific amount of time (till the jobs done).

archiving is just what we all think it is. You want it forever. You archive data when the jobs is done for either yourself or because you think your client will want it again someday. Most business in the photo and graphics industry's charge for customer data storage and retrieval. Again, if your data is not categorized when it is stored, the your going to spend a lot of time looking for stuff.
Logged

Buzz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 717
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2006, 03:01:20 PM »

J I use dual 250gb Sata drives as a mirrored array ( both drives are written to at the same time !) and also an external firewire drive for archiving ( or  secondary backups )

LAter
Buzz

The Mirrored drives are great because you dont even have to think about it !!! , Get a second drive ASAP if you drive dies YOUR DEAD IN THE WATER !!!!!!!!!!!! and recovery is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ if even possible

Iain Graham

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 361
Re: archinving, backing up, mirroring
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2006, 04:15:38 PM »

We use LaCie's SilverKeeper for backup. It's free. Once you establish a backup set between 2 drives, it checks through the data and synchronises between the source and the backup.

We'll backup at least once a day, on heavy tracking days, after working on every song.

When the project is finished, depending on size, we will either burn several different DVD sets, on different DVD brands, or we will dump it onto the clients drive. We provide drives when needed.

As my boss masters the majority of the projects we work on (he does some mixing and all mastering, I do all tracking), we burn DVDs of the mastering session and the final mix files.

We no longer keep any data, we had a couple of archive drives fail, so we are no longer interested in storing data.

Most of our clients are not interested in keeping the multi-track files. The ones that are will not pay for the studio time to ditch all the excess data and burn DVDs.

In projects of my own, I burn mutliple DVDs sets to different brands and hope. I should really buy an archive drive as well.

I'm interested in tape for long term archival, but can't see this being any more or less relaible really. Heard too many mixed storys.
Logged
Iain Graham

www . iain - graham . com

http://www.myspace.com/iain_graham

www . soundart . com
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.078 seconds with 20 queries.