What are people using to archive footage that has been recorded to disk? There are several options, and there's always new stuff coming out, I'm trying to guess which one's the one. Some people record to MiniDV and disk at the same time. That's a neat idea but the kind of 'archive' I'm looking for is more in the lines of a bit for bit copy of the disk (or chip, etc) you shot with.

The only main contenders that spring to mind are DLT and DVD (data, not video). DLT is fast and proven in the computing field, with media cost almost equal to MiniDV, but the drives are expensive. DVD drives are cheap but current disks are small and expensive compared to MiniDV and DLT (although there might be 50g DVD's next year if someone would agree on a standard).

I'm asking because:
a) someday I'd like to get into disk recording, and it'd help to have all the support equipment set up and proven

b) instead of doing MiniDV dubs of things I tape, I am going to start capturing them and backing them up to another medium. This will save me some time as I don't always edit things right away, so when I get around to it I could just restore a DLT and be working in an hour instead of waiting to capture twelve tapes.

So, what do you back up those firewire drives with? Thanks for any opinion...!

Use harddisks as backup? Buy a large harddisk that you could
archive several projects (hopefully) on and put it on the shelf.

Actually I was wondering about something more based in long-term storage. Hard drives would cost more per media to archive:

Quantum SUPER DLTtape II, 300/600GB SDLT 600 Tape
400~ gb @ $103 = $0.25

Western Digital Caviar SE Hard drive
200 gb @ $129 = $0.64/gb

OTOH, hard disks are random access. And, you don't need to buy a $4200 tape drive. ::Ponders::

Well, then, it looks like the choice between tape or disk (using the examples you gave) could be decided principally by how much footage you plan on archiving.

If you can amortize the cost of a $4200 tape drive over many hours of footage, the cost per-arbitrary-time-unit shrinks ... possibly far enough to justify that route.

If you're archiving enough only to fill one, or a few, hard drive(s), that would be cheaper, by the same measure.

JS

Keep in mind that most consumer tape systems list their
COMPRESSED (not gonna happen with DV!) maximum size
instead of the real size (usually half of that). Most professional
drives list the real and compressed size, like the Quantum one
posted above (300 GB for real, 600 GB max with compression).

DO NOT forget with tape to RESTORE each backup to a TEST
location before putting it away on a shelf. It is VERY important
to make sure the tape backup is 100% okay (you can only know
this to do a verify), the tape backup program might include a
verify option as well which should do the same basically.

Hard drive prices are dropping steadily: Pricewatch lists a 160GB drive for $66 (41 cents/GB), and I think I saw one that size in a sale ad recently for $30 after rebate--that's less per GB than the price mentioned here for DLT tapes.

I personally have never tried it but I have heard very good things about "DV Backup". It is a program that allows you to make a Data backup on DV tape using your camera or DV deck. Unfortunately it only runs on Mac OSX as far as I know (which is what I use anyway). Currently I just archive the final data on Data DVD's or if it's too big I just keep the tapes, project file and the logs and maybe the final timeline and burn it to DVD or a HardDrive that then gets removed and stored by using a neat little Drive Dock from Wiebetech. You don't have to buy the biggest and baddest hard drives you know. You can buy 40-80GB drives for pretty cheap and then store them away.

The link for the DV Backup software is:
http://www.coolatoola.com/

Or if you want to see it on the Apple web site with screen shots go to
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/dvbackup.html

The Drive Dock is on this page. They have a few different kinds if you scroll down.
http://www.wiebetech.com/products.php

Very cool!

Thanks for the links.