How Do You Store All Of Your Video/Photo Footage?

[AerialPerceptions]

I am just curious how you guys store your archive footage? Do you store it on USB Flash drives or an external HD? Do you save all of your footage or do you save your best clips?

I just want an efficient way of keeping my footage and was curious on how some of you do it.

 

[The Editor]

I am just curious how you guys store your archive footage? Do you store it on USB Flash drives or an external HD? Do you save all of your footage or do you save your best clips?

I just want an efficient way of keeping my footage and was curious on how some of you do it.

NAS storage RAID 1

 

[pixl45]

Read this thread here: RAW DAS/NAS Storage

 

[RaptorMan]

I have my work storage on my desktop image/video editing PC which has two 6TB WB Black HD's. I also keep 3 external HD's with a copy of everything so I have 4 separate HD's. I do the same with my still images BTW.

I will need to adjust this strategy soon as I'm nearing the point when my externals need to be upgraded to handle the capacity.

I also have a NAS that's a couple years old but it's painfully slow and I'm thinking of getting rid of it for that reason.

All totaled I have about 1.3TB of still images going back to film that was scanned in dating back to the late 70's. I have about 1.8TB of video from all sources going back to 1993 and Hi-8. And I have about 600GB of 4K video from my Inspire 1 Pro drone.

Edited to correct the numbers -- I'd posted that I had 1.3GB of still images and that should have been 1.3TB of still images. Similarly I posted I had 1.8GB of video when I actually have 1.8TB of video. Something of a dyslexia kind of thing I think...


Brian

 

[sturgisphoto]

For editing, MacPro, 64gb ram, 1tb ssd. Pegasus 18tb raid for storage Thunderbolt version. Recently added a couple of Thunderbolt connected USB hubs which are excellent. Finally Lexar Professional Workflow Hub Thunderbolt card reader which made a big difference. Takes about 1 minute to transfer 6gb from a micro card.

 

[m00se]

The method I have always used is the following:
dont delete the files from the capture device until necessary, that way you have another layer of backup until you need to delete them.
Everything is on a NAS which uses autobackup from all the families mobile phones. I back up photos from cameras manually onto this NAS.
Once every couple of months I do a backup manually from the one NAS to another NAS. I make this backup into dated folders, that way I can easily tell when the last backup was made and just backup the new files.
Every couple of months the backup from the second NAS, which contains dated folders with the photos and videos taken since the last backup, is transferred onto my laptop and a set of SD cards.

Finally, there are external HDDs used and as these fill up, I have found that due to the high capacity these days, I simply buy a new one, normally about three times the size, copy everything onto the new one and stick the old one with some silica balls into storage. There are some of these old drives stored at families houses in different countries etc. That way I stand to lose only a couple of years worth of photos even if my house burns down.

I only backup files that cant be downloaded again, IE personal files and photos. Music and films can sod off.

I have taken a look into long term storage. My opinion on this is the following. Nothing is long term in the IT world, I have spent hours and hours looking into this, HDDs fail with time, approx 10 years. USB is junk over time. Magnetic is too expensive and needs to be temp and humidity controlled.
The solution? PRINT YOUR PHOTOS. anything short of a flood or fire wont see them off for decades. and if someone robs your house they cant use a stack of photos for anything and will likely leave them behind, while they steal and format your nice shiny NAS.

For long term digital storage I have a bunch of 64gb micro SD cards, they are inside a 3d printed caddy to keep them neat, inside a sealed metal container, with silica gel in it.
SD cards seem to be the most robust form of storage that is commonly available at the moment.

M-DISC is something I am looking into, I have a laptop capable of burning it, but I need to actually bother to buy some, they will then go into a peli case, and that will be a great long term store.

Can anyone tell im paranoid about losing files?

 

[pixl45]

The method I have always used is the following:
dont delete the files from the capture device until necessary, that way you have another layer of backup until you need to delete them.
Everything is on a NAS which uses autobackup from all the families mobile phones. I back up photos from cameras manually onto this NAS.
Once every couple of months I do a backup manually from the one NAS to another NAS. I make this backup into dated folders, that way I can easily tell when the last backup was made and just backup the new files.
Every couple of months the backup from the second NAS, which contains dated folders with the photos and videos taken since the last backup, is transferred onto my laptop and a set of SD cards.

Finally, there are external HDDs used and as these fill up, I have found that due to the high capacity these days, I simply buy a new one, normally about three times the size, copy everything onto the new one and stick the old one with some silica balls into storage. There are some of these old drives stored at families houses in different countries etc. That way I stand to lose only a couple of years worth of photos even if my house burns down.

I only backup files that cant be downloaded again, IE personal files and photos. Music and films can sod off.

I have taken a look into long term storage. My opinion on this is the following. Nothing is long term in the IT world, I have spent hours and hours looking into this, HDDs fail with time, approx 10 years. USB is junk over time. Magnetic is too expensive and needs to be temp and humidity controlled.
The solution? PRINT YOUR PHOTOS. anything short of a flood or fire wont see them off for decades. and if someone robs your house they cant use a stack of photos for anything and will likely leave them behind, while they steal and format your nice shiny NAS.

For long term digital storage I have a bunch of 64gb micro SD cards, they are inside a 3d printed caddy to keep them neat, inside a sealed metal container, with silica gel in it.
SD cards seem to be the most robust form of storage that is commonly available at the moment.

M-DISC is something I am looking into, I have a laptop capable of burning it, but I need to actually bother to buy some, they will then go into a peli case, and that will be a great long term store.

Can anyone tell im paranoid about losing files?

You sound like just the guy to come over and organize my workflow storage. I have lots of good hardware*, but am generally, by nature terrible at organizing files, especially the process of saving and organizing generational files (ie works-in-progress, different formats, different sources, tagging), and have never found a system that works for me. This creates hard to find items, and items that have duplicates of duplicate of duplicates. I spend a lot of time searching for things and then wondering how I'm going to ever merge all of these identical files**.

I do agree with you about printing photos. I do print many. And most that I've printed in the last 10 years do seem to be holding up with no fading. But there's nothing like having the original file for versatility later. I'm a professional though, and I'm guessing that for every one that gets printed, 500 or so "keepers" that just stay in the digital form. Back when I was a stock shooter, that was the habit. But now that Corbis doesn't exist really anymore, and that business is no way to make a living, I haven't had the heart to do serious culls of my archive -- ie do I really need 100+ shots of this same pasture, all taken from slightly different positions/exposures? Every once in a while it's still nice -- when a client contacts me with a certain need, and there are a lot of options... but too many just confuse them anyways.

I guess what I'm saying is that my problem is less one of hardware, and more one of PEBKAC. Fix me, please


*WD Thunderbolt 4TB "working" RAID, Synology DS415+ 12TB NAS, DropBox Pro level "unlimited" cloud back-up.
**I suppose if I was any kind of hand at running scripts I could create one that eliminates dupes that are identical save date, time, etc. I've tried some commercial offerings in the past for this, but have irretrievably lost cherished work in the process, and am loathe to try again.

 

[Plingboot]

For editing, MacPro, 64gb ram, 1tb ssd. Pegasus 18tb raid for storage Thunderbolt version. Recently added a couple of Thunderbolt connected USB hubs which are excellent. Finally Lexar Professional Workflow Hub Thunderbolt card reader which made a big difference. Takes about 1 minute to transfer 6gb from a micro card.

Good call of the Lexar hub, I'd not seen/heard of one of these before - but thanks to amazon prime I now have one sitting on my desk.

 

[Raymondo]

Initial copy to RAID 0 drive. Purge definite fails, then backup to standard drive. NAS is too slow for my video editing workflow that might involve a multicamera shoot for the rest of the footage in a project. Hence RAID 0 for speed. RAID 1 gives redundancy, but I need the speed of RAID 0. When backup logs have been checked, I reformat the SD for the next project. Some customers are happy to pay for the SD to be retained for further backup. I use fast 90MBps cards for 4K, so they can be expensive.

 

[m00se]

You sound like just the guy to come over and organize my workflow storage. I have lots of good hardware*, but am generally, by nature terrible at organizing files, especially the process of saving and organizing generational files (ie works-in-progress, different formats, different sources, tagging), and have never found a system that works for me. This creates hard to find items, and items that have duplicates of duplicate of duplicates. I spend a lot of time searching for things and then wondering how I'm going to ever merge all of these identical files**.

I do agree with you about printing photos. I do print many. And most that I've printed in the last 10 years do seem to be holding up with no fading. But there's nothing like having the original file for versatility later. I'm a professional though, and I'm guessing that for every one that gets printed, 500 or so "keepers" that just stay in the digital form. Back when I was a stock shooter, that was the habit. But now that Corbis doesn't exist really anymore, and that business is no way to make a living, I haven't had the heart to do serious culls of my archive -- ie do I really need 100+ shots of this same pasture, all taken from slightly different positions/exposures? Every once in a while it's still nice -- when a client contacts me with a certain need, and there are a lot of options... but too many just confuse them anyways.

I guess what I'm saying is that my problem is less one of hardware, and more one of PEBKAC. Fix me, please


*WD Thunderbolt 4TB "working" RAID, Synology DS415+ 12TB NAS, DropBox Pro level "unlimited" cloud back-up.
**I suppose if I was any kind of hand at running scripts I could create one that eliminates dupes that are identical save date, time, etc. I've tried some commercial offerings in the past for this, but have irretrievably lost cherished work in the process, and am loathe to try again.

For personal files, ease of use isnt a problem really. I know I have duplicates here and there and its not as tidy as it could be, but I dont much care. The day I have a crash on my main NAS and lose everything will be the day that I am motivated to sort out the backups. As long as the files are there they can be found, but why waste time until I need to?

Im just looking into getting some m-disc delivered locally. I think they represent the ultimate backup solution. Other than cave paintings.