What should I use to backup all my video?
March 24th, 2008 | Published in Backup, Post | 6 Comments
It’s hard to sleep when I know that all of my video, from all my different shows, could forever disappear with just a small fire. I have 4 hard drives in my Mac Pro, and they’re nearly full of data, most of it video. Three terabytes of data. I also have external hard drives which I’ve been using to backup, but I’ve now arrived at that point where I no longer have room on my external drives, or on my internal hard drives.
I am almost out of space. I clearly need to go bigger. But that’s just part of my problem.
At the same time, I want to back up the data off site as well.
For the local backup solution, I’ve been looking at the Drobo with four individual terabyte drives in it. It’s an expensive solution though. All together, the package would run around $1,500 with all the drives in it. Still, most of the reviews rave about what a great backup tool the Drobo is. I can’t help salivate over the thought of the Drobo and Time Machine working in combination.
But what about the off site solution? At first I tried Mozy, an online service that would upload my data onto the internet, to store it “in the cloud” as it were. I started the backup, and after 3 days of uploading, I hadn’t even completed 1% of the data uploaded. At this rate, it would take more than a year to backup my one computer. That wasn’t feasible, so I canceled the service. Then I registered for JungleDisk which uses Amazon’s S3 service. At 15 cents per gigabyte, how could I go wrong? I started uploading, and at my upload rate, it was much faster than Mozy, but it was still going to take about 5 months. And, once you add up all the gigabytes, it was going to be an expensive solution as well. And that leaves me…
Well, I don’t know. I’m thinking that at this point, I’m better off simply copying my backups onto hard drives and storying them at a friend’s house. Maybe once per month we could swap. I’ll store their data, and they can store mine. I guess that means I’ll also have to secure my data with some sort of encryption.
What do you do for backup? Do you have any recommendations for me?
March 24th, 2008 at 8:47 pm (#)
I’m friends with former Mozy execs and use it for my typical “file” storage . However, like you, I’ve learned that video backup is NOT a good application for web storage. I’ve settled for local storage. After losing a 1TB disk with 750MB of storage on it, I am moving to a local disk “backup” of “backups.”
March 25th, 2008 at 12:07 am (#)
Patience is a virtue. It will take a long time, but separate site is the only way to have real disaster protection.
I think some of the services will let you mail them a drive to see the data (ElephantDrive offered this originally, though I could find info on the site when I just searched).
What is your connection speed? Is the chokepoint at the service provider’s end or at your last mile connection?
March 25th, 2008 at 4:11 am (#)
Hey Izzy,
I’ve been in the same place, and the biggest conclusion that I came to was for me to put any finished projects back to MiniDV tape, burn a DVD with project files and additional assets, such as sound tracks and graphics, and then have the ability to automate the recreation of a project from the original tapes in the event of HD failure.
In your case, I’m not sure if this would work, since you shoot with the EXCAM, and I’m not familiar with how you can back any of that up to tape. Maybe consider a DLT type drive?
Personally, I like the DROBO solution, but it sounds like you’d be nearly at capacity already.
BTW, I’m a huge fan of your work on Izzy Video. Thanks for all you do!
-Brian
March 25th, 2008 at 9:31 am (#)
I feel your pain. On-line “back up to the cloud” storage solutions fail for consumer use. As you calculated, it will take 5 months to upload your data. This is not a solution for people with lots of media. They are being stupid promoting this stuff to consumers. Businesses are different.
For financial records and other critical files including some photographs we have copies on a Drobo, other computers and also USB thumbsticks one of which is the in the safety deposit box at the bank.
Its too painful to backup all the music and movies. If a fire or flood strikes they are vulnerable.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:22 am (#)
Make a bootable backup of your hard drive (I use Super Duper) onto an external hard drive, so if your machine breaks you can recover from that. Then do it again on another drive. Take them both somewhere else and store them -one there and one there.
Plan to rotate/update them once a month. So don’t store them too far away.
That leaves your data - back it up to two separate drives and take those off site as well.
Set up time machine (if you have Leopard) and run that.
Now imagine you are living in a pestilence-prone area of Germany during the 30-years war, with roving armies likely to appear over the hill and burn everything. Now switch off that image and relax. It is the 21st Century and you have backed-up as well as you can.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:42 am (#)
I just came across this:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/07/parascale-promises-data-center-heaven-private-cloud-storage-at-about-1-a-gig/