Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

So one of my editing drives failed catastrophically today - from 100% health to a gazillion bad sectors and system file errors. I noticed something was wrong when yesterday's wedding took 20 minutes to load into premiere when normally it takes about 10 seconds.

Long and short of it is the drive is kaput and I cannot get any files off it. A good reminder of how important backups are. I have only shot 4 weddings so far this year and they were all on that drive.

Apart from the time spend re-copying the files and the expense of a new drive (about £100) no drama

Pete

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

No drama! That's the best thing that can come out of something like this...

I have back ups of mine, though I would lose any current edits (changes - not footage / audio) under my current working system.

I'm going to be running a RAID 5 once I can afford a large one that runs with Thunderbolt 2.

Definitely shows how important they are though!

Good win under your belt there, Pete! :D

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Sorry to hear that Peter but glad to hear you have the original files.
I've had 2 WD blacks go on me but got them replaced under warranty.

With one of them, out of the blue for some reason, three of my wedding project folders went missing.

I disconnected the drive and inserted it into a caddy, powered up the PC again, it then wanted to scan the drive and after that, the missing folders were back.

Glad you got sorted.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

This was a Seagate Barracuda - about 3 years old - I have a few of them and this is the first I've had an issue with

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

My Barracuda 's are OK, so far, it was the WD Blacks that let me down.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Aha, so it was the drive :) we had 5 drive failures over the past 10 years, 4 where all seagates that where used in my wife's pc, one was a 1tb wd black from my edit station.

I've had one of my archive drives fail. way less of a worry than any of my main drives as all these weddings have long ago been sent to the client. There's another good copy of it still anyway. STill though, I never like a drive failing. It's just incredibly disconcerting!

Whats the advice on drive lifetime? Should you buy fresh every 3/4 years just to be safe?

I've always gone from a mix of using sync software to manually backing up. The sync software quite often will run into issues where some key data files go missing and so the automated sync no longer works. I've about given up on that.

I've three copies of work I've not yet done. (although i rarely backup project files as I edit which I prob should).
Then once a client has had there work for a few months it gets moved to the archive. Then on no fixed date, if I need room I delete old raw footage off the archive. But I've got the rendered videos of every wedding I've ever done just in case they come back to me in a panic - I can be their angel!

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

The wd disc that failed in my case was a edit disc and that one gets a lot of usage so they are probably more prone to failure if used extensively. I noticed that something was wrong when I started to get errors in Edius about missing videodata and some of the data on that particular disc was then effectively gone or inaccessible, when I then restarted my pc I got a disc check message and windows automatically started to repair secors from that failing disc. After a restart all was fine again but just for a short while and I again got errors. I eventually copied the entire project to another disc but even that copy process was very slow so it was clear the disc started to fail.

I don't replace my discs unless I start to get errors, I have a good backup system in place that can save me from most HD disasters :)

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Over the years I had WD as well as Seagate drives failing a lot and switched to Toshiba ones. Never a problem with them and most of them are over 6 years. Backup, backup, backup.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Surely the best way to remain OK in the event of a hard disk drive failure is to have all drives running as RAID 5s? I know it's an expensive solution, but you can get 1TB for £100 at incredible speeds using Thunderbolt 2, whilst you can get 1 TB for around £50 if you buy a server running in RAID 5. Any drive goes down, hot swap, and carry on as you are...

Anyone against this?

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I have no budget left this year having just bought my A7s II and Atomos Ninja and a couple of CFast cards (Ouch - how much???)

My PC has 2 X 3TB editing drives (as well as a 2TB system drive) that are 7200rpm (and need to be for Premiere Pro) and I have a collection of 2 X 3TB and 2 X 4TB backup drives. To replace all these with RAID and Thunderbolt 2 would be pretty expensive - nice idea though

P

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Yes.. Raid 5 is slow to work from, its not designed for fast access of video files, backups are easy. I use Syncback Pro which handles backups, and it runs every hour on my editing machine, syncing changed files to a NAS. (Realistically once the backup of the media is done, you only really have to backup the project file in premiere pro). I don't bother backing up the cfa/pek files as they are created by premiere when the project is first opened on a machine. Syncback has the advantage that you can also create folder names using variables such as date or time, so I have one job which takes an hourly snapshot of project files (not source footage) and another that syncs the whole disk onto my nas.

I have also found this little drive invaluable: its a battery powered portable hard disk, that has a built in sd card reader, you can either control it from a smartphone or tablet, or set it to automatically back up any sd card you push into it. very useful for backups on the road, it also means all my footage is ready to go on a hard disc by the time I get back to the office.

My Passport Wireless - Wi-Fi Mobile Storage

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

How's the Atomos Ninja? Do you have to record with much larger file sizes?

Yeah, pretty much. I am thinking for this year's investment (end of the year), to get the G RAID Studio XL 32TB with a new iMac 5K maxed out. I realise it's a huge investment, but it's also a great fail safe and move for the future. With a gimbal thrown in, 2017 will be pretty sorted.

That's awesome!!! Have you heard of the drive corrupting any cards? That's my biggest worry. Otherwise, for moments when you are available to do a back up, that's awesome! From what I've just read though, it seems as though transfer rates are quite slow?

As for the NAS back up - that's great too. Massively cost-effective as well. My NAS could be used in the same way, and I might look into doing that. Thanks!

RAID 5 is actually rapid via Thunderbolt 2 with 8 drives. You're still looking at stunning speeds, which is why I'm considering a huge investment into it over buying a set of smaller drives. In effect, you can have peace of mind over your editing station as well as your NAS. I realise it may be OTT, but it's also 'almost' as good as RAID 0 depending on the controller (from what I've read and understand), which makes the transition from a RAID 0 drive (which I currently use) quite appealing. Especially as I'll be jumping from Thunderbolt 1 to Thunderbolt 2, with more drives and much greater speeds for 4K edits (further down the line, as well as for ceremony and speeches currently).

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Craig I use the Atomos purely for backup purposes - with my old EA50 I could record dual onto SD card and Flash Drive but only recording onto one card with the A7s makes me nervous so for the ceremony and speeches I use the Ninja Star as backup. It would be nice to have it for all day but the extra weight/bulk/cable would be a hindrance - plus the prohibitive cost of CFast cards

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Thanks Pete. I like the idea of doing this, but like you, I am also at the end of my budget for this year... if I hooked up the Atomos to a GH3, would I be able to get unlimited time recording, or would it still end on 30 minutes?

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Hi Craig,

Atomos recorders are recording whatever the camera is putting out "live" over the HDMI cable, so if your camera continues the live HDMI video output Atomos will just keep recording whatever you send it.

I have older HDV cameras and can record straight to Ninja 2 for many hours without interruption even if I'm changing tapes every hour!

Thanks

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Thanks for this Jeff - I'll do some research, or get the GH4R.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I was in a similar situation; I went for the GH4r. Having worked with it for several months, I now plan to get another. An external recorder is still potentially on the cards, but I find the GH4r very reliable.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Thanks Steve, have you used 4K mode and ran it for an hour???

I am planning to get the GH4R for my next church wedding in June. Peace of mind. Seems to sold out across the country though.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Yep, I ran it for 2 hours though changed the battery for peace of mind. However I've ran it continuously for 1 hour 15 mins on a couple of occasions.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Thanks Steve! Will pick it up in a week or two when it's back in stock!

Thanks again!

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

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Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

If you go for RAID 5 you also need backups. RAID 5 will only protect you against a single drive failure, more if you have more redundant disks in the array. But you still need to be ready for entire array failure, fire, theft, corruption etc. I lost an entire Buffalo Terastation a few years back as a power blip caused the unit to loose its network config and its IP became 0.0.0.0 and there was no way to set this without it having a valid network address. Meant the entire array was lost. But I had backups.

Our current setup is a RAID 5 array for our master editing system (we use Synology Diskstation units) which backups us all current projects to a USB attached drive.

That has a real time replication of everything except the video source files to another NAS offsite. We don't use the internet for transferring the video files, just too slow so we do that manually with a hard drive. That also performs backups but once a week rather than daily.

So if we delete something by mistake, save a project by mistake we can go back to a point in time.

A full write up is on our blog

Storage and Backups for Small Businesses ?*Minty Slippers

There are very few scenarios we arent protected against and it does help me sleep better. Just imagine how sick you would feel when you get that hard drive fail and you loose a clients wedding. Thats when you check your insurance is valid :)

As for replacing drives I would say there is no need to have a replacement program. Chances are every 5 years you will maybe look to increase your capacity anyway to meet your growing business needs and its then you replace them.

We use WD Red drives. Designed for constant running in NAS units. They run cooler for longer life, handle vibration better and have great transfer speeds.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Hi Danny!

Thanks for this informative post!!

Scary that you lost an entire system! That's why I'm moving towards a Thunderbolt 2 editing station, with a Synology server running as its back up, with both systems working in RAID 5.

Spending £500 for 10TB of offsite data seems expensive, but with two years cover, it's not so bad. I may look into adding iDrive, though it's another thing to eat into your profits.

My system also includes a UPS (I basically copied as much of your old blog post as I could when I first started out).

My back up system is currently:
4TB Thunderbolt 1 RAID 0 editing station
20TB Synology Server with UPS attached running in RAID 5

Every wedding I shoot goes first onto the editing station that evening, and then the footage is transferred to the Synology server overnight. That way, I always have three copies of their film, from the SD cards, to the editing station, to the NAS.

I'll soon use a RAID 5 editing station with similar storage to my NAS. I most likely won't use the USB ports in the back of the Synology server to back up that way, I'm more likely to use the iDrive long term. I've only shot six weddings thus far though, so I think my back up system is pretty good for a start up, and will be solid long term.

I'm 'happy' to lose my week's editing, but I do want to have a system to ALWAYS protect my footage, which is why I may opt to have an 8TB hard drive that's kept at a relatives, rather than pay for an online service. Each wedding that I shoot, I go to my relatives, take my hard drive, make a duplicate copy of the footage onto that drive, and then take it back the next day. I feel that's more affordable than using iDrive and backing up 300GB after every wedding that you shoot?

*EDIT* Getting Tave Studio Manager tomorrow as well, Danny - I know you raved about it, so I'm going to make the investment.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I was thinking of getting 4tb but wanted a reliable one. I saw this article https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-...s-for-q2-2015/ Seagate looks awful and HGST good but Amazon reviews indicate the opposite. I'm not sure if this is do to an article skewing to sell a manufacturer or consumers giving premature good reviews based on limited time of ownership or enterprise vs consumer use. But I am aware of negative Seagate buzz.

Does rpm matter anymore 7200 vs 5400?

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Absolutely! If you want higher performance you need 7200rpm. You may not need highest performance though if just using the drives for archiving rather than editing so if you are looking at lower cost per GB you might choose the slower drives.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

You should never lose a week's editing or even a day's editing. You only need to copy the project file to the cloud to protect your work. Render files etc can be recreated. All you need to continue with your work is a copy of the project file & copies of the raw footage.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

After a days editing I always backup my project folder to an external drive.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I have all my non-footage \ project files backed up on Google Drive and a backup hard disk. 3 Copies of the data.

Once back from a shoot I used Shotput Pro to copy it to my main project drive and two back up disks which are put in seperate rooms (off-site would be too much of a hassle)

So I always have three copies of all of my data. Just last week a client requested (paid) changes to a project that had been signed off and deleted from my main project disk. I retrieved my first back up disk to find it unresponsive. Then I went and got my second back up disk, corrupted. Lucky I had also edited this project on my laptop and there was still a copy on that. Close one!

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Hi Nigel,

I'll be honest, I know that I always create a new Library for every project that I create in FCPX, but once I optimise my footage, these Libraries become insane in size. When people mention the project file being backed up, I would obviously have the RAW footage as well (as that's already on two separate drives), so do you simply copy the project by selecting it, CMD + C to copy and paste into the Finder of the drive that you wish to use? I have looked online (not greatly), but I cannot find a simple solution for this. I think I've found a video, so I will watch that later. Thanks for giving me the impetus. I really do care about the client's footage as much as the next videographer, but I've never had the same respect for my own time - as long as the couple's footage is safe, I can sleep.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I'm the same way I keep the original footage on the card until I'm done. FCPX unfortunately puts everything in one file (library) and that file grows to almost 300gb when transcoding to prores. Makes difficult to backup on any regular basis.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

I haven't tried this with FCPX but in Premiere it's just the .prproj file (that's sort of an xml file with a list of all the in & out points & filters etc)

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

10TB is a lot cheaper now. That setup was speced out a good few years ago now.

The off site backup is also used for live work. We have one at home and one in the office and the instant replication means if I decide I cant be bothered to trek into the office I can just work from home and have it all there ready to go.

For off site before we had the office we used to just use a couple of cheap 2TB USB drives.

Re: Hard Drive Failure - It does happen
 

Hmm! Interesting. I wonder how these drives would go in the field backing up Sony FS7 XQD cards via Sony's XQD reader via the Passport's USB 3.0 port on the drive as it says:

"Ultra-fast USB 3.0
Quickly transfer large amounts of data to the drive using the ultra-fast USB 3.0 port."

I need to investigate further me thinks?

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney