If your computer died right now

[ClintVideo 1]

I'm working on a project right now that was originally completed before I came to work here, and is now up for re-edit. The computer it resided on lost one of its drives, the one with the project file, graphics, batch lists, etc. on it. This is a 15 minute video. The drive went kaput when the power supply flaked out, took the motherboard with it, and the drive was an unfortunate casualty. I found the video on the internal RAID, was able to save some logging data from that, but it's been reconstruction city so far. I have the master tape to compare to as far as laying these shots into sequence, but the graphics, music and narration will be interesting.

 

Backups are underrated.

 

Cf

[graymachine 0]

Just bumping this as a kind reminder!!

 

My backup drive just died, so I'm backing up to another drive as I speak. Back up your data, kiddeeez!

[JoelD 0]

Just bumping this as a kind reminder!!

 

My backup drive just died, so I'm backing up to another drive as I speak. Back up your data, kiddeeez!

 

 

That sucks Hope it was just "backup"

 

My work partner made he mistake of leaving his laptop in the car--which got brken into and was stolen. That had a backup of a big job we just finished. The main project server was his G5--which died on him a week later (this is during xmas vaca)/ luckily he had bought one of those nice cheap USB drives--a 500gigger and dropped that off with me days before this chain of events happenned. That was scary.

 

Backing up is really an issue these days (not like it wasnt b4--but I remeber when backup meant a couple of jaz disks or a cd or 2) . Files and output get so large--you just keep needing bigger drives and more of them--then theres the whole thing where you have a TB drive for instance filled with HD footage--and if that dies--then thats just that much volume of work thats lost. Luckily the prices are so cheap now--you can buy often and not have it break the bank. But its a cycle that is spinning out of control especially with everything being HD now.

Edited January 29, 2008 by JoelD

[scott frizzle 0]

I'm not so sure it's spinning out of control; drives get cheaper and cheaper each year. But it is a cost you have to factor in if you're going to be serious in this business. As a mograph person you could factor in an extra $25 or $50 per project for archiving and probably pay for all of the backup storage you'll ever need. The bottom line is that if your data is not in at least two different places at any given time, you're leaving yourself wide open for the shaft, and the shaft will find you.

 

What annoys me is that fact that I'll never need 99% of the stuff I have stored on these drives, but there's no telling which are the projects that will get resurrected on me.

[Mission ONE 0]

i would lose noting every evening all the work refs music and etc. is back up to an external drive and every week i sync additional external hard drive and put it in a different location

[raven52321 0]

I've been considering a tape drive for all my backups- anyone had any experience with these? It seems like a waste to keep buying external hard drives, which probably won't last as long as tapes.

[aspekt 0]

we just had a 2.5 TB drive go down the other day...Luckily it was attached to a junior editors station & there wasnt anything too important on there. But it certainly lit the fire under someones ass. We should have a 20TB back up server installed shortly.

[Beaver 1]

Nightly backups - the only way to go! 20TB sounds pretty nice!

[speunfed 0]

Has anybody found Time Machine to be a huge lifesaver yet? I just got it set up on my machine and I find it's making things a little bit sluggish, but you can't be too careful when it comes to valuable data. Just curious what others thought of this feature.

[aspekt 0]

Nightly backups - the only way to go! 20TB sounds pretty nice!

 

yup thats what were doing. only 7K to put the system together..most of which is just for the hard drives. already have most of everything else.

[JoeSki4D 0]

After being burned in the past pretty badly, remembering to backup comes much easier these days.

 

My workstation now has dual internal drives setup with a mirror RAID... so both would have to crap out. But I still use SuperDuper for weekly/monthly backups to an external FW drive.

 

What I like about cloning the drive is that it's bootable... when you loose all your data, it's amazing how much time and effort is spent just reinstalling software, setting preferences, extensions, passwords, etc.. This pretty much eliminates that. The only thing I would really like to improve is keep a cloned FW at a separate location incase of fire or theft.

 

Work is important, but replaceable... thousands of personal photos are not. iTunes library is replaceable too, but would be a PITA.

 

There is great comfort in having a solid backup!

[snakedogman 0]

computer @ work:

all the media files on my workstation are backed up every day on an external HD. All project files are backed up on our server.

 

computer @ home:

I have a second internal HD that I use for backups. I've been using a program called synctoy that let's you easily back up specific folders at the click of a button so I think I'm pretty safe there as well.

 

The only thing I don't have is offsite backup, although at least since I've switched to gmail, I won't lose all my email history if my house burns down I'm considering getting myself an external disk to make an image of my internal backup drive once in while and take that over to the office or something.

[Jeff McBride 0]

I've been considering a tape drive for all my backups- anyone had any experience with these? It seems like a waste to keep buying external hard drives, which probably won't last as long as tapes.

 

We started using a tape backup system from Exabyte a couple months ago. It seems to be working pretty well and is relatively hassle free. Its fairly expensive media but its nicer than doing DVD backups of projects.

[graymachine 0]

computer @ work:

all the media files on my workstation are backed up every day on an external HD. All project files are backed up on our server.

 

computer @ home:

I have a second internal HD that I use for backups. I've been using a program called synctoy that let's you easily back up specific folders at the click of a button so I think I'm pretty safe there as well.

 

The only thing I don't have is offsite backup, although at least since I've switched to gmail, I won't lose all my email history if my house burns down I'm considering getting myself an external disk to make an image of my internal backup drive once in while and take that over to the office or something.

 

The worst case scenario is always something worth considering. I was working with a marketing person from a large insurance company a few years back. Their office was in one of the WTC towers. They had rendundant backups and hard copies of all their records offsite in another office... in the other WTC tower.

[speunfed 0]

The worst case scenario is always something worth considering. I was working with a marketing person from a large insurance company a few years back. Their office was in one of the WTC towers. They had rendundant backups and hard copies of all their records offsite in another office... in the other WTC tower.

 

My goodness...

[Ghost Fish 0]

It's easy to get complacent if you haven't had a drive failure in a while. Every time it has happened to me I make statements like

"never again!"

"why Jesus why?"

"Next time I'll back up everything!"

 

a few months go by and I get lazy, start running out of room, and backups aren't a big concern.

 

Thanks for the reminder, I'm backing up my current freelance work as I type.

 

"never again!"

[the_Monkey 8]

FYI...

 

If you use SuperDuper (and I know a lot of folks around here do), Shirt Pocket just released v2.5 yesterday which is finally Leopard compatible.

 

-m

[Beaver 1]

 

Just had a drive crap out. Thank goodness mograph.net made me a neurotic backer-upper.

[ClintVideo 1]

I just did my monthly backup to external HD and stuffed it back into the fire safe, and put some backup DVDs in my safe deposit box at the bank yesterday. At work I do nightly to external HD and put that in a giant fire safe as well.

 

Cf

[_gl 0]

Big Time Machine fan here. I love the convenience of it. It's still a good idea to use something like SuperDuper for more permanent/archival backups.

 

-gl

[andrekada 0]

Man, time machine is now my piece of mind. Don't even need to leave it on all the time, just when I think I've done loads of significant changes on jobs.

 

I've read that you can even rebuild your recent desktop with all programs, settings and stuff in a different machine. Have never tried to check if it works though....

[AromaKat 1]

Daily Incremental backup to a network 50 TB raid 6, and a weekly full backup.

 

The raid 6 is backed up to tape and archived in the vault every two weeks.

 

But don't think I would even know how to do this on my own - that's office IT procedure and its pretty much done for me.

Edited May 6, 2009 by AromaKat