Media Storage and Archive

Hess

PRO user
Hi Everyone,

How is the year going so far ???

I have a question about storing and archiving media. Not sure this is the right forum for this, but thought I would start here. I'll probably post this on the news/chief photog forum as well.

I think it's a simple question, but I really know it's not.

A little background...

We shoot P2 on Panny 3100G, edit on Premeiere CS5 and CS6, depending on the edit system you are cutting on.
We shoot primarily on the AVC Intra 50 format to optimize card space.

About 2 years ago we started shooting sports full time. I follow our local college on the road for Football and Basketball. We had been doing well with the storage in the computers we edit on. We have about 5 TB on each edit system.

Now we are to the point where we are running out of space on the edit systems and are looking to options for long term storage.

Our Engineering dept has procured 10 TB shared storage system, but we are looking for ways to maximize space.

I know we need to melt things down and not keep whole games on the systems, but is there a way to keep the metadata intact while making smaller files??

Do I want to compress everything or physically pare down all of the games down??
Which format/codec for compression? Now we use MP4 and if I need a small file size I use a YouTube codec.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks as always.

Hess
 
If you want to use the shared drive system the best option is probably to just archive the highlights. Personally if you are sharing with news I think that 10tb will go quicker than you think so I hope that is a scalable system.

The other option you have is to get some usb3 drives, or thunderbolt if you are set up for mac. And store locally in the sports department. I have seen some guys that go this rout the most organized one had them split up by sport and possibly even team, so he would just shelve the football drive/drives after the season and switch over to the basketball ones.

The drawback here is you do not have the redundancy that the raid gives you unless you copy to two drives which most guys don't. Though from a practical standpoint it is probably about the same as pulling an archive tape to discover it is bad as long as you stick to smaller drives and not the 4tb monsters that you can get now. Also I have never personally experienced a archive drive which had been put up in good condition go bad. I do know guys who chew through drives but usually they are putting a lot on and off of the drives continuously. think editors, but if it is an archive it should be safer.

Now for my personal archive I use bare drives (which are cheaper) and a slot type reader. I keep one in the house and another at a separate location in a firesafe. I wouldn't say that they are totally synced but at worst I might lose a couple of recent shoots which should that happen should still be on my system drive.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?fr=chr-greentree_ff&p=Bare+Drive+Docks&fr2=p:s,v:i&.bcrumb=8DLOkEFC.NT&save=0
 

Ben Longden

Well-known member
We use a series of 2Tb external drives, each with a 2Tb backup in case of HDD failure. We also archive to DVD ROM and store those off site.

Files are kept original, and each story is archived with its own EDL as well as the final broadcast version.

We have filled a heap of discs, but only ever had one HDD fail. When that happened (ten years ago) we would use two drives in parallel.
 

Necktie Boy

Well-known member
I was going to suggest what you are already doing.

You could get a G-Tech or other maker's small test server. The ones that you can swap out drive. Put it on the network, so it can be access by users.

But these are a short term solution. The LTO tape is for the long run. Or getting your own server for sports. But you would want it to be able to grow as you gather more footage. For safety, you would still want a second backup.
 
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