How do you all go about archiving your raw video? As we all know video files can take up a lot of disk space. What is your solution for archiving files for videos you have already edited and rendered. What do you do with the source files and all?

When I started I kept very little, only finished films really, no edit files or raw footage.
It was all in one directory on a drive.
Then an old small drive with all my sounds failed, this made me scared....

Since that happened the price of drives and plummeted so the hard drive is now my archive of choice.

I struggle with maintaining a disciplined system, but this is what i aim to do now.

Most of my projects are quite small and i try not to shoot miles of tape when filming.

All raw video and edit files, sounds, pics, test renders all go in one folder for each project on one big pc drive.

A copy of this is made every few days to another internal drive.

When a project is finished the done film only is archived on one internal drive, I then clean up the project file (remove rough renders) and save it with all raw footage to a removable hard drive.

This is not fail safe and not the end of the road for me when it somes to security and peace of mind.

With my next pc I want things safer and less messy, this is the plan;

1) Inside the PC - 2 1Tb drives in RAID 1 configuration for media only.
2) Removable hard drive caddy for archiving finished stuff.
3) Automated back up software.

I dont and wont keep raw tapes cos I am crap at having a system - I prefer to keep raw footage on discs.

I am no teccy expert and supect there are smoother soloutions. I suspect raid 5 box may be better but I have no expirience if raid and would be intereste to hear from those who have.

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Great thing about digital media is it is so darn easier to work with than film or tape but the bad thing is it is so easy to lose.

As amateurs here is how we archive our stuff.

Most of recent stuff is miniDV so as you know about 13gig file size per hour of tape.

I write those BIG avi files to a new pc hard drive and when it is 3/4 full I pull it and store it carefully.

Then I open those "raw avi files in my editing timeline and cut them into rendered avi pieces that will fit on dvd data discs - avg 3 single layer discs per hour.

Then I make backup copies of those discs.

Then I render the BIG avi files as mpeg2 and burn that to dvd data disc.

So I have all that raw along with multiple copies of my finished and edited program saved as .vob folders and on dvd discs.

Finally, I carefully store/archive the original miniDV tapes as a final but constantly deteriorating layer of protection.

YIKES - I have 8mm and 16mm film home movies from 50 years ago and my still negatives from almost that long ago that are all still in great shape so I like the digital but fret about its' fragility.

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Every person has a different level of comfort with different ways to archive.

IMO - anyone who would put entire trust in some company's distant server to archive their personal and important family photos or documents doesn't understand the frailty and exposure to loss they are at risk for.

Multiple copies in different formats using different media like we do is okay but not perfect but better than putting our faith in strangers and their storage devices in a distant state or land.

Sure, if someone thinks their personal digital content is so compelling or exciting that they must upload it to some server to share it with the world that's okay but in our opinion that is not a safe way to sole locate archival storage.

I prefer to store my files locally aswell, either by using a second internal hard disk, a large external hard disk and also make copies onto blank DVD disks. With the price of both internal and external hard disks at an all time low, you may want to think about purchasing one or the other.

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