Hard drives as video storage: is it becoming viable?

[Reese Leysen]

Since you can get a 500GB hd for 100$ now, what do you guys think about using hard drives as storage?

We're considering doing this for our movie because a 500GB hd can hold about 38 tapes, those are tapes that will never have to be logged in again to work with so it would speed up a few things drastically.

What do you think?

[David Delaney]

I used to have a Seagate for storage until it died. Having multiple backup of the drive is the only way I will go now. Drives can die just like any other electronic/mechanical device. Backups are always needed.

[Jon McGuffin]

Originally Posted by Reese Leysen

Since you can get a 500GB hd for 100$ now, what do you guys think about using hard drives as storage?

We're considering doing this for our movie because a 500GB hd can hold about 38 tapes, those are tapes that will never have to be logged in again to work with so it would speed up a few things drastically.

What do you think?

I agree, at $100 for 500Gb, give yourself $200 for two drives, then take one off site. The chances of both going at the same time is virtually impossible.

[Reese Leysen]

We're on an extremely tight budget so it would be hard disks without backup or tapes without real backup... But is the reliability really such an issue?

[Jim Andrada]

Hard drives are extremely reliable - until YOURS suddenly fails.

Seriously, on a statistical basis you should get years and years of use out of one. But there is a statistical failure rate, and some day, you WILL lose one.

On the other hand, some day a tape will break or unravel or get chewed up in the camera.

Nothing is forever. My philosophy is to always make a copy or two or be prepared to be philosophical about it when it fails!

[Steven Davis]

I store tapes and harddrive backups in seperate places, I'm anal and redundant, so if something happens to the tapes, I have the drives, and visa versa.

I have a bay from icy dock that sits inside the front of my case, I can switch out drives at will and work on various projects.

But back to your question, I'm not a big fan of putting all my eggs in a basket, when and if direct to disk becomes a viable option for us, I would probably make two copies of each of my important projects.

[Reese Leysen]

Originally Posted by Steven Davis

But back to your question, I'm not a big fan of putting all my eggs in a basket, when and if direct to disk becomes a viable option for us, I would probably make two copies of each of my important projects.

Oh I concur, it's just that we're really penniless :) . I think I'm gonna go with hard drives...

[Emre Safak]

Great one, Jim! May I quote you?

[Jim Andrada]

Certainly - feel free to quote at any time. No license fee involved for a fellow Bostonian (although I'm living in Tucson these days) :<)

[John Faulks]

I have been using HD's as permanent storage for almost three years now.

The price of drives has gotten to the point where they are actually cheaper than tape!

I just add $100 to each budget I estimate, use a new hard drive for each project, and when it's done, I put it in it's static free bag and on the shelf.

Months later if re-work or other issues arise, I simply plop it back in the computer and it's like I never stopped editing that project!

At $100 for 250 gig plus, how can you NOT work this way?

[Daniel Browning]

Originally Posted by Reese Leysen

We're on an extremely tight budget so it would be hard disks without backup or tapes without real backup... But is the reliability really such an issue?

There is no such thing as a budget too tight to include backups, except when it's actually cheaper to re-do the whole project than to buy a backup in the first place.

Backups don't just protect against unreliability, but also "oops, I deleted some files", viruses, malware, "oops, I dropped it", fire, crackers, theft, and more.

Losing just one hour of work is disheartening. A full day's work would be crushingly devastating. Your use of 'we' implies that the work of multiple people are going into the video, which multiplies the catastrophe.

[Reese Leysen]

Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

There is no such thing as a budget too tight to include backups, except when it's actually cheaper to re-do the whole project than to buy a backup in the first place.

Backups don't just protect against unreliability, but also "oops, I deleted some files", viruses, malware, "oops, I dropped it", fire, crackers, theft, and more.

Losing just one hour of work is disheartening. A full day's work would be crushingly devastating. Your use of 'we' implies that the work of multiple people are going into the video, which multiplies the catastrophe.

You're right, I've been thinking about it too, thing is that we're actually going with an extremely modest lifestyle right now just so that we can do this movie.

But I think there could be a compromise:
Put simply: We could use tapes of which, upon logging in, we make heavily compressed mpeg2 files for editing. But also a full DV copy of the tape is kept on hd until there's a semi-lockdown on the edit, then all takes that are not used for the edit are deleted from the hd (but the mpeg2 files are always kept cause they take up little room).

This way the editor can always go back and edit because he has all the footage and worst case of timewasting is that stuff would have to be logged in again for post production, but this would only occur when the editor eventually still decides to go with different takes.

And the worst case of data loss is losing a tape while only having the takes that are used for the edit on hd, which is not a catastrophe.