Master video file storage best practices

[Talon Six]

I'm interested in hearing some suggestions for storage of master video files. I'm asking because Eric Cheng (formerly of DJI) had his laptop mistakenly given to the wrong person by the TSA today. If that happened to me, my masters would all be gone because I store them on my MacBook's SSD, which I realize is not smart.

Just FYI, I keep all my source video and FCPX libraries on a 2TB thunderbolt drive.

So long story short, I'd love to hear how some of you manage all your stuff...

- Matt

 

[nathan]

I upload to a dedicated external SSD, then copy the files to my computer for editing. I suppose I should have a second external HD to use just as a final backup, but... I don't.

 

[violetwolf]

Coming from the music business which is similar. My mentor used to say "if it's not in three places it doesn't exist". One copy stays on the studio computer, two backups are made to external hard drives, one stays in the car the other comes into the house.

For video I do similar, but often only have two copies: one on the studio computer and one comes home. In this scenario I try not to erase the cameras cards until absolutely necessary due to another shoot etc. Cards and hard drives are cheap compared to losing the clients work.

 

[Petr Hejl]

I have an 8TB distributed parity external drive, with all backed-up on SOS Backup (the best deal on "are you nuts?" plan that I could find), and my photo collection also on Dropbox.

 

[Petr Hejl]

For actual jobs, I use a separate card for every location, in some cases for every flight (when flying over water, events, etc). That way if something happens to the card or the drone, I have at least everything up to that point. I've had a card fail before and it was not pretty (luckily it was a RE job that could be re-done). I also immediately back-up on SSD, and ask clients to dump he cards on their drive. So ideally, when the job is done, we have client's copy on their drive, my copy on my drive, and all the files on the cards.

 

[John Doecliff]

I upload to my desktop first then edit. All final cuts are saved on my desktop, an SSD and my work PC.

 

[violetwolf]

Mods, this could also be a good topic for the pro forum. I'm thinking the more active topics over there the more likely to attract and retain professional users

 

[Old Man]

After every shoot I transfer the files to a multi terabyte external hard drive. They get moved from there to other points as post work takes place. I've tanked a couple computers over the last couple years and won't store the only copy of anything on one anymore. I just don't trust the cloud for any level of digital security so nothing goes there I can't afford to share or lose.

 

[Chris Morace]

I'm interested in hearing some suggestions for storage of master video files. I'm asking because Eric Cheng (formerly of DJI) had his laptop mistakenly given to the wrong person by the TSA today. If that happened to me, my masters would all be gone because I store them on my MacBook's SSD, which I realize is not smart.

Just FYI, I keep all my source video and FCPX libraries on a 2TB thunderbolt drive.

So long story short, I'd love to hear how some of you manage all your stuff...

- Matt

New app called Dragonfly (http://dragonflyapp.com) just launched to solve this problem. It works for DJI drones and allows upload in the field from drone to phone (which then transfers file to cloud the next time it connect to wifi) or there is a web uploader where you can drag an entire collection and it moves it all to the cloud. It's better than dropbox or something like that because there is an app where you can browse your videos on the map, galleries of your videos, friends, and the community, auto created mixes, etc. All videos are always backed up in full resolution and you can download them at any time (or share them if you want). Might be worth checking out.