Data Protection

How are you guys protecting your data? The BMCC produces huge files and so I'm sure there is a lot more stress on Hard Drives than their usually would be..?

Me personally, I've been lucky enough to get by with no RAID system for the last couple of months but now I'm seriously looking at getting my footage protected.

A RAID is not a backup, unless it's one of at least two storage systems containing identical data.

A RAID is relatively big, fast storage, and may include certain redundancy features for reliability, but by itself it's not a backup. "RAID=backup" is an oft-repeated misconception. So, to repeat: A RAID by itself is not a backup, unless it's one of at least two storage systems containing identical data.

A backup is a complete, up-to-date, identical copy of your data, on physical media or a remote server, that is separate from your online storage. Backups can be on a variety of media, such as individual hard disk drives, HDDs in a RAID, LTO tape, BluRay or DVD data disks, etc.

Ideally you should have more than one set of backups, with at least one located off-site to protect from disasters such as fire, theft, earthquake, flood, etc.

Whatever data storage technique you're using, one thing is certain: It will fail at some point. If you only have 1 backup of your data, at the moment the original storage system fails, you no longer have a backup: You only have 1 copy of the data on one storage system. There's a very real possibility that whatever physical cause, human error, software or hardware glitch that caused one copy of the file(s) to go missing will cause another copy to meet the same fate soon thereafter. That's why you should always have at least 2 backup copies (in addition to the original data), and keep at least one backup copy off-site.

Thank you Peter, I appreciate that but now I think what you said requires clarification. There are a number of different RAID configurations.. but not ALL have the ability to back up.

Example:

- RAID 0 configuration, is not a backup, but boosts performance.
- RAID 1 configuration, IS a BACKUP. It writes to another hard drive exactly what is written on the other drive.
- RAID 1 + 0 (also known as RAID 10) configuration does both, so it's a performance boost and a backup.

And then there is RAID 2,3,4,5, etc...



Now, back to my question from the original post. What are you guys doing to protect your data?

As I said, a RAID may include certain redundancy features for reliability, but by itself it's not a backup. Full stop.

To answer the other part of your question, to make backups I use several 3TB and 4TB bare SATA-3 hard drives that I load in & out of a 2-drive chassis (with a relatively large built-in PC-type power supply) using these:
http://www.amazon.com/KingWin-KF-1000-B ... +enclosure

... and connect via 2 eSATA cables to my MacBook Pro 17 via one of these:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%2 ... A6PRO2E34/

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Now, back to my question from the original post. What are you guys doing to protect your data?

Editing as fast as possible

With traditional hard drives being dirt cheap, I have a few 2 tb drives that i swap around in a esata raid box.
Im trying to get away from dumping footage for clients and just budget in ssd drives per shoot, and hand them over when done.

Peter is correct. RAID1 is redundancy not backup. Be sure to let me know how your back up is going if your RAID controller dies. I have used RAID1 as backup and been burned but for data there's no need for it. Get 2+ identical drives, store footage on all of them a simple copy paste procedure. Ive got 10yrs worth of footage that's sitting happy in that config. Depending on your file importance you can also image your drives to external devices to store "off-site".

A backup is a complete, up-to-date, identical copy of your data, on physical media or a remote server, that is separate from your online storage.

Hi Peter what you mean by "online storage" Thanks.

A backup is a complete, up-to-date, identical copy of your data, on physical media or a remote server, that is separate from your online storage.

Hi Peter what you mean by "online storage" Thanks.

In this context I mean the storage hardware (disk/RAID) containing the files (footage) you're currently working with.

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