Medium Term Storage for pro-tools data and audio files

[tracken99]

I'm new to the Pro Tools world and am getting conflicting responses on DAT backup.What is the best way for me to store pro-tools data and audio files for the term of say 6 months to a year?I would really appreciate any advice and expierences anyone has had.

[coaster]

i have been burning data cd's for backup. I burn two copies for everything i care about, and put one in a safe place in a different area. i have been using this method of backup for two years and can assure you it has held up better than any da-88, adat, ar dat tape i have used to archive. i have not had a succesful burn go bad and not be recoverable. i have burned a few coasters, but i knew they were coasters right away. i have had a few years taken off my young life by unsuccessful *tape* backups
hope this helps.

[tracken99]

Thanks for the info Coaster.I'm a little concerned about size and i realize i will need to to do back ups of different types and will have to store multiple copies in two different locations.I'm still looking for as many expiernces with storage mediums before i shave any years off my life.

[Keith Lynch]

Tracken99, and Coaster,

I agree with Coaster's CD approach, or if you can afford it, our M/O approach. (We use Nikon Belugas, 2.3 gb each, and it works great. We actually play back audio directly from our Beluga M/O's, saving all that transfer time. Beluga A/V's will do 9 track max playback from each drive, but that's more than enough for our needs. Too bad they're discontinued... you might still be able to find one if you look hard enough. The Media is pricey, but totally reusable. We have .7 TerraBytes in M/O right now, without a single file loss due to media failure.)

If you need more than 1 gig simultaneously accessible, try the DVD-RAM format. It looks promising for large scale backup, but you'll still have to do the file transfer thing.

Forget tape. It's a dinosaur, and it costs way more than CD, if you count your time as valuable like Coaster did. The shelf-life is poor, it is hideously slow, and just about a blind-write as far as file integrity is concerned.


k.

[coaster]

i've been checking into this DVD-RAM setup and it looks very cool. huge amounts of information. medium and writers are still EXPENSIVE but like CDR i'm sure prices will drop with time. at work we have a hewlitt packard surestore t4 tape backup on a windows NT system. i'm not sure how much info is stored but it is not a fast system to recover. we do NOT use this for audio, mostly posters and blueprints and such. it has been trouble free since the beginning, (except that it's an ibm with a tape drive and it's hooked up to more ibm's)
keith- i'm curious, what is your nikon belugas? is it removable media? can you still find media for it? it sounds really cool.

[This message has been edited by coaster (edited 10-21-99).]

[Keith Lynch]

Coaster,

Nikon Beluga. It is a special Magneto/Optical format that Nikon developed, very similar to regular M/O but twice as fast. Digi supports it, with certain caveats. (check the "approved drives" PDF on the digi website, and see notes 9 and 10)

Beluga drives use "LIMDOW" which means "Light Intensity Modulated Direct Overwrite". In otherwords, it writes to M/O in a single pass, instead of two passes like regular M/O. Nikon had high hopes for it, and so did Digi (and me!).

Nikon even created an A/V certified version called the Beluga A/V. Unfortunately, Nikon has now chosen to discontinue this product, and it is no longer available, as of September 99.

We have nine of them, and they are really wonderful. The media cost is 75 dollars per 2.3 g.b. (1.1 gb per side) The drives retailed for about 2k, but can be had for less.

They are pretty reliable as drives, and of course the M/O media is totally bulletproof. (we've never lost a file in six years of M/O usage)

Best of all, there is no archive time, since you can read/write the session right to or from the M/O media. It was a cool thing. We are in a bit of a scramble to find the replacement right now, and DVD is looking like the best available option.


k.

[coaster]

this sounds like a very nice media. it is unfortunate that companies cater to the lowest common denominator, by discontinuing fast, cheap media. i realise this situation is more complex than a one sentence gripe, but i see many outdated media systems that are fast and inexpensive being phased out for the iomega (slow and expensive) backup(?) systems. my jazz disc sits on the shelf next to my zip discs. even with the newest driver these discs are too slow to use. your nikon system sounds like a winner.


** on a different note, one of my ibm buddies (yes, i talk to those people) has a peice of software that will allow you to burn a multiple cd session. i.e. you have a 767mb file/ this software allows you to burn the first 650mb to one cd and the rest to the next cd. it then re-assembles the data intact when you recover it. this is neat- i am not aware of anything like this for the mac. (darn ibm people)

[hrob]

I agree that tape is real unreliable (OK, it sucks). The higher capacity formats (8mm Exabyte, 8mm AIC or Mammouth, DLT, etc) are more reliable, but you have to make at least two copies.

8mm Exabyte is the cheapest of anything for media cost. CD-R is probably next.

Somebody fairly dependable on daw-mac posted that DVD-RAM drives are pathetically slow (he claimed 3MB/minute -- not second, minute).

DVD-R drives are just coming out, now. They burn disks that hold 4.5G and are compatible with standard DVD readers.

Sony makes a 5+ Gig LIMDOW MO drive, now. I think Maxoptix makes one, too (they definitely make a 2.3G LIMDOW, it wasn't clear if the new 5+ Gig one was, too -- they may have forgotten to mention that...)

[PMoshay]

I have had no problems with over 50 DDS-3 b/u tapes.

CDR is great except it's only 650mb per disk, so youre most likely gonna have to split up sessions.
I have a Plextor 820, 8x is a minimum for me.
Backing up suck enough as it is, speed is essential

I also have had good luck with my ORB drives for sessions that are active.
Heck $29 media for 2.2 gig ultra drives?
who'd have thunk that would have happened...........

[tnie]

What about ONStream drives ?????