Backup & Archiving projects - is it DVD-R or DVD-RAM

[Groovetree]

Hi,

I am interested in hearing what other studios are using for archiving projects. Many are using hardrives, but that only seems fine for backup of ongoing projects. Drives are cheap to get. They are fragile and most 'artists' are not techincal and don't have the regard as to how to care for them properly. Also, mac & pc cross-compatibility doesn't really exist. But burn an ISO9660 CD-ROM and you can go anywhere.

What to do now?, when an album is done and it's eating up 60 to 100GBs of space on your DAW's drive. This info needs to go into some kind of archive. CD-R just isn't large enough anymore. Not with 24-bit 96KHz files taking up huge volumes of HD space.

Is DVD-RAM a good choice? It's rewritable to 100,000 writes, has a 30 year shelf-life, and holds up to 9.4GB per disc. But it's slow as molasses, with the current drives only 2x. Will it be around as long as DVD-R? Is it something that's common in other studios for comaptibility?

DVD-R is up to 4x. Small improvement, only single sided 4.7GB disc.

I think DVD should be around long enough to be a useful archive medium. What's your take?

Regards,
Jason

 

[RecorderMan]

I consolidate all tracks to the same length from the beginning of the session, and dump everything else. When I do this, most 48track songs are around 1.5 GB. O got the last record I did (all ten songs, all tracks, average of 48tracks per song) down to two 4.7GB DVD's.

I now have the artist buy two 120 (110 after drivers)firewire drives that I use as master & safety drives. This lets me keep my four scuzzi drives as my "chalk boards". I also periodically back up keeper stuff to DVD. Then as then end thety got (at least) their two HD's and DVD's (I usually make mtself a DVD "just in case" copy for myself).

 

[Opus2000]

Well,
you can get a program for each platform that allows you to read the other platforms drive table so there is that option.

Not everyone has a DVD reader in their systems so that may not be a way to go.

As RecorderMan stated FireWire drives may be the way to go as this way they are pretty compatible with both platforms except of course the way it's formatted...Mac or PC.

I think hard drives aren't that bad in terms of keeping them around. As long as you don't use it as a door stop or play hockey with it

DVD is a good way of optical storage medium as it is 4.7GB and you usually can fit at least a few songs on one of them.

Opus

 

[RecorderMan]

Originally posted by Opus2000:
Not everyone has a DVD reader in their systems so that may not be a way to go.


I think hard drives aren't that bad in terms of keeping them around. As long as you don't use it as a door stop or play hockey with it

DVD is a good way of optical storage medium as it is 4.7GB and you usually can fit at least a few songs on one of them.

Opus

True about not everyone having a DVD reading drive...but that can be arranged. As for HardDrives...I consider them temp. I've had good luck with the drivers on firewire (witing for a failure thier)...but I've had not so good luck with the drivers not getting corrupt on scuzzi drives. I don't begin to feel comfortable till I got 3 copies (at the very least two).

 

[MisterBlue]

I agree that HD's are great and absolutely the way to go for temporary backup. None of my recording sessions is complete until I have copied the modified data to at least one more HD. I would also not feel too confident to keep only HD's as permanent backups - maybe doing them injustice ... )

DVD+RW's might be the way to go for more permanent storage. You will see drives at 8x later this year and as high as 12x in the first half of next year. Prices will continue to come down for both drives and media.

Might be worth the wait ... :roll:

MisterBlue.