Topic: Hard Copies of your Digital Masters (Storage)

[terabyte23]

As others have said, redundancy is the key.  My setup (sorta similar to Brian's):

1) Masters stored on HDD onsite.
2) Sync nightly (via rsync) to a backup server, also onsite.
3) External drives stored offsite, brought home every couple of weeks and rsync'd, then returned offsite.
4) Many processed masters distributed via torrents or the LMA.

All systems in 1-3 have identical disk capacity.

But I totally understand the satisfaction of holding the finished master in your hand.  I might do something similar to the OP if I ever find the time, at least for some key shows :-)

[trustthex]

So, no one's using "commercial" tape backup (DLT, LTO, etc)?  I've got a raid setup and distributed storage at the house; but platters rattle.   

[drewloo]

There is a newer kind of DVD out called M-DISC that seems like it might be great for archiving if/once the 25gb blu-ray variety comes out.  It uses a rock/mineral substrate to store data instead of the dye that is used in most dvds.  It needs a burner w/ a special laser to burn the disc but can be read by most dvd drives.  Certified by the DoD to last 100's of years. 

The problem is that currently a 4.7gb disc costs about $3 so it's not really cost competitive w/ hard drives right now.  Also some people feel that dvd players won't be around in the not-too-far-off future so the discs will be useless sooner rather than later.  That may be true but for super important data/shows these discs might be the ticket for some folks.

[robeti]

I have two HDD (storeage + backup) stored at the same place. Not very safe. I should be storing one somewhere else.

[morst]

I stopped adding plastic to my archives a couple years ago, now I've just begun to bring them back online to hard drives.

Using this guide and the free software - http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia
you can tell who manufactured your media. At-Risk (low grade) media should be the highest priority to re-rip...

So far, all the Apple-branded discs from 2003-2004 are fine, but I know I've had Sonys fail that were only a couple years old. My habit was to burn two copies on two different brands, so we'll see how that worked out...

[noahbickart]

One other, minor thing: I always format my micro sd card at the show, so there is a failsafe "backup" (its really the "master") of the most recent show, unless my deck is actually recording one.

[Chimney Top]

I've lost alot of data lately.  Has anyone used Solid State Drives for backup?  SSD's are about $1,000/TB right now, $100+ for 120GB.  But when it costs $1,000 to recover data from a 1TB hard drive... HD's are cheap now, but they fail frequently.  Even when sitting on a shelf...

[dabbler]

It's still cheaper to double/triple up on HDDs than rely on SSD (which may still fail) for long-term storage.  I split my HDD purchases over time to get different batches/manufacturers to minimize the chance of hitting a bad batch/model.

[OldNeumanntapr]

I remember a DAT trader that I traded with years ago used to say 'Parallel backups - trade with as many people as you can, to ensure that your recordings will survive.'

In the early 90s, when Marantz came out with a pro CD recorder (for like $8-10,000) I thought that was going to be the future answer to my long-term archival needs. I bought an HHb CDR 800 in '98 for $1,800 (man how prices have come down) that is thankfully still running. Now that I am finally almost done transferring all my DAT recordings to CD, I'm realizing that CDRs don't last as long as the DATs will. Sigh.

I've been pondering the question of archival storage for a long time now. I don't have anything on my hard drive, except for 160 gigs of Apple Lossless files for my iPod Classic, which is used basically as an external drive for my Alpine car stereo.

I played around a little with XACT and tried FLACing some of my discs to try and get the hang of it, but it seems like it would take forever to do all of my shows.

Is there a preference to storing recordings as FLAC, opposed to AIFF files (on a larger hard drive?) Other than the size of the file, is there a reason that I should be storing them as FLAC? My computer is upstairs, and my stereo - DAT recorders - CD recorder is downstairs, so I can't really feasibly incorporate them all together.

Computers have always had kind of a high learning curve for me. That's why I'm much more comfortable with tape recorders. I still use DAT to master shows with.

It just scares me to read these posts about people losing a lot of their recordings because of optical disc failure as time goes by...

[dabbler]

Is there a preference to storing recordings as FLAC, opposed to AIFF files (on a larger hard drive?) Other than the size of the file, is there a reason that I should be storing them as FLAC?

FLAC has built-in checksumming, so it's easier to report/detect corrupt files than using external checksums.

Also, smaller file size means slightly less hard drive wear on playback.

Regardless of storage medium (CDR, DAT, HDD, SSD, SD), data can get corrupted.
It's always good to keep redundant copies around and periodically test them.
Some/most(?) FLAC playback software will report corrupted FLACs on playing.

[shownomarcy]

I have the edited shows on my pc (Flac) - iternal HDD but
its copied to external HDD too also with all master (Wav) files.
Same with videos. Because its more than 2 TB (full hd vids...) Im about to buy an other 2 TB and have everything doubled.

It's quite bad that we should be paranoid. This is a bit weird because what's more important than data???
Im a new boy, so I missed to record on tape. I just transferred some MC to Flac.
The only good point of digital tech and not having a "master tape" is that there are no x generation copies, no need to search lower gens.