How do you archive complete jobs?

[David Cleverly]

Hi all,

Happy New Year!

Of course one of the obvious and much talked about issues with file-based acquisition and editing/mastering is the issue of archiving and storage.

Doing less and less news these days and gaining more and more corporate clients, I am finding the need to efficiently back up and archive each project for future reference or re-editing purposes.

Hard drives are becoming much cheaper so it is more viable. For example, a 350gb external; USB hard drive can be purchased for less than $50 now (USB 2.0 bus-powered), so it is indeed a cost-effective form of backup and archiving of all vision involved in a project. Even cheap enough to purchase two hard drives for each project; one master hard drive and one backup.The drives are about the same size as a large DVCAM tape, so "mastering" or archiving doesn't really take up much more physical space than a tape, whilst keeping a very high-quality backup.

Well, I was thinking this would be my course of action: One hard drive to archive everything to do with the project and then a clone of that as a backup.

So my questions are:

1) What do you do as an archive/backup system for each client?

2) Are we obliged to provide a backup of all materials and, if we are obliged to do so, do we keep the backups or do we hand it over to the client?

3) Would it be better for the client to keep one copy and us the other?

4) Do we charge for storage on our premises for the second copy?

5) Do you charge the client for the process of backing up and, if so, do you make it known that you are charging for the process or is it incorporated into the fees?

6) Do you offer the service as an option and, if the client declines, keep no copies of any of the project whatsoever?

7) If the client does decline to pay for the process, or even says they need no copies, are we, as producers, still obliged to keep detailed records/archives of each production anyway?

I know a lot of you would have this process pretty much in hand, but being relatively new to all of this, I would be keen to learn of a successful system.

Cheers,

David

[David W. Jones]

I started backing up with a BlacX Duet using inexpensive 1TB SATA drives.

Good Luck!

[Eric Darling]

1) What do you do as an archive/backup system for each client?

I gave up on separate systems and went with a pair of eSATA RAID 5 boxes from Other World Computing. They are each 8TB, meaning 6TB of useable space - that's 12TB of online, redundant, but fast enough to edit drives.

2) Are we obliged to provide a backup of all materials and, if we are obliged to do so, do we keep the backups or do we hand it over to the client?

I'd say it's in your best interest to backup everything, yes. I would not advise handing anything over to your clients for business reasons.

3) Would it be better for the client to keep one copy and us the other?

No. It would be better for you to keep a copy on-premises, and another copy off-premises.

4) Do we charge for storage on our premises for the second copy?

You can offer it as a premium service for clients willing to pay. I find that I earn enough repeat business with most of my regular clients, that I don't want to bother them with the minutiae of how I am able to pull from their library for any given project.

5) Do you charge the client for the process of backing up and, if so, do you make it known that you are charging for the process or is it incorporated into the fees?

No. (see above)

6) Do you offer the service as an option and, if the client declines, keep no copies of any of the project whatsoever?

No. I back everything up - raw footage and edited projects.

7) If the client does decline to pay for the process, or even says they need no copies, are we, as producers, still obliged to keep detailed records/archives of each production anyway?

I'd say if your policy is made clear to your clients, you have nothing to worry about.