Topic: Hard Copies of your Digital Masters (Storage)

[purple-nation]

The only thing I don’t like about flash drive recorders (like the Edirol, Zoom, Sony) is that after the show you don’t have a “hard copy” Master like the old days when you would have a Cassette, Mini Disc or DAT that you could hold in your hand and say “this is IT” !!  So, I have kind of made my own Hard Copies.  I like it, and it feels “safe & secure” ... if you know what I mean.



What I use is :

AVERY 8163 Label
SUPER JEWEL BOX Case
SONYDVD-R Media

I put the Ticket Stub in the Case.  I have all my Masters done like this (even the ones that I recorded on Cassette, Nini Disc or DAT).  I like it.  On the DVD itself is the mastered, transferred and tracked FLAC Files, Pictures of the show (if available), Text File, MD5 checksums, and the untouched WAV files.

Does anyone else have a "neat" what of storing their Masters?  I like discussion like this !

[Gordon]

dvd-r doesn't last forever.  redundancy is key.  I stopped even burning to dvd.  multiple hard drives is all I do now.  I listen via my server (hard drives) so no need for an actual copy.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

Bit perfect digital has taken some of the unique-ness out of "Masters", but I do hear what you are saying...  there is a nice feeling when you hold the physical media... 

Terry

[JackoRoses]

dvd-r doesn't last forever.  redundancy is key.  I stopped even burning to dvd.  multiple hard drives is all I do now.  I listen via my server (hard drives) so no need for an actual copy.

I have more confidence in a DVD lasting longer than any spinning platter HDD.
If it really matters there are medical grade dvd discs with 100 years lifetime and in decent storage I'd bet they would last longer.
Just need to keep a spare dvd drive with your masters since the technology will be dead and they will be using something new by than :p
Albeit by that point there won't be SATA/PATA drive connections and USB will be gone as well.
Redundancy is key though, as of now I keep both HDD and dvd media for mine. (and archive.org for the bands that allow it)

[runonce]

I have already had many untouched DVDs become unreadable...

[scb]

I have more confidence in a DVD lasting longer than any spinning platter HDD.

I have many dvdr discs that I burned and put away that are unreadable.  They were *never* used and just sat in a closet for a few years and are useless.

I don't trust dvdr media at all

[vanark]

I share everything I record.  That is the redundancy I need.

Like Gordon, I use multiple hard drive copies.  I spin them up only when I am backing up to them.  But, if I lose the master, it is all good - the show is in circulation.

[page]

I have more confidence in a DVD lasting longer than any spinning platter HDD.

I have many dvdr discs that I burned and put away that are unreadable.  They were *never* used and just sat in a closet for a few years and are useless.

I don't trust dvdr media at all

I'm with Gordon et al on this one, I've got a rotation of drives that I backup in triplicate.

Where as even my Verbatum CDRs from mid-98 or so have developed some rot in a handful of instances (I'm actually up to about mid-99 as the last safe point where I don't have any CDR rot). I'm going through periodically and trying to copy all of the stuff off to save it now. My VHS tapes lasted longer than that...

[bhadella]

I have 2 HDD copies (on-site and off-site) of the masters and flacs and a DVD copy of masters (just cause I still have DVDs that need to be used).

[JackoRoses]

I have more confidence in a DVD lasting longer than any spinning platter HDD.

I have many dvdr discs that I burned and put away that are unreadable.  They were *never* used and just sat in a closet for a few years and are useless.

I don't trust dvdr media at all

I hear what you guys are saying, I just can't agree completely about the reliability rap you give DVDR media.
I guess I just have been the exceptional case; as I have cds that are 16 years old that are still readable. ( I probably still have a working HDD that old too so...)
coincidentally they are mostly verbatims. Now if only my cd/dvd drives would last that long. (well my 4x plextor still is rocking but it can't read dvd's  )

[Gordon]

I have more confidence in a DVD lasting longer than any spinning platter HDD.

I don't expect hard drives to last that long either.  that's why I have multiple copies and can easily add new drives every few years to be the "main backup".  then the old ones are backups of backups.  plus it's easier and more convenient to access the shows via hard drive than dvd.  not to mention much faster to copy/move files.

I actually have all my masters on three drives.  one that is in my server for listening and then two backups in a fire proof safe.  and as rory pointed out circulating everything is another way to know you will never loose anything.  it would be a much bigger pain in the ass to get everything back that way though.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

circulating everything is another way to know you will never loose anything.  it would be a much bigger pain in the ass to get everything back that way though.

Indeed...  I lost one of my Stereolab masters and now I'm unable to find a Seeder...  Oh well... 

Terry

[George]

I have 3 copies of my masters across three hard drives.  Consistency in copying everything is key.  Once I get home from a show, I copy the wavs off the sd card to my D drive, then E drive then external drive once I finish mastering it for playback.

[Brian Skalinder]

I have DVD-R copies of a lot of my recordings, but stopped burning to optical media a couple years ago and don't expect them to last.  My current setup is:

• Internal HDDs, onsite.  Primary storage.
• Internal HDDs_Bkp, onsite.  Mirror of HDDs, nightly.  Protects against HDDs failure.
• External HDD, onsite (but offline).  Unscheduled / ad hoc updates.  Protects against simultaneous failure of HDDs and HDDs_Bkp (e.g. power surge trashing my entire PC).
• External HDD, offsite.  Updated quarterly.  Protects against localized catastrophic event (e.g. house burns down).
• Shared copies with friends / family / fellow fans and music lovers, obviously offsite.  Protects against damn near any conceivable event.  If an event occurred that rendered even this option inadequate and unavailable, I'd have far bigger concerns!

For anyone considering setting up redundant HDDs, it's easy to do.  No need for RAID (in fact, for most consumer use I recommend against it).  Here's an old, but still relevant, thread:  Reasonable Redundancy without RAID.

[ilduclo]

upload them to LMA or a blog for others to enjoy. As J Hudson, Seedsman, says "preservation through dissemination"



http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/