How do you pros backup and store large sessions?

[Studio Studio]

I'm looking into online storage like Mozy. One fire in you facilty and all your handy ait tapes and harddrives are gone. Might be a slow option though because of upload times.

[Will Russell]

This is all very informative! I have been using AIT for a long time with Retrospect and developed a love-hate relationship with it. On the plus side it has been reliable and robust. On the minus side I have a number of gripes. First off, clients often balk at paying $50 a piece for backup tapes. Replacing my AIT drive when it failed cost me $1200! Retrospect has rendered backup sets obsolete with new versions of their app, causing me to have to start new sets on new tapes at another $50 a pop. Restoring from a backup is time consuming and annoying if project spans more than one tape. Also, I need to have 2 copies of all the tapes (one stays in the studio, one comes home with me) and lugging a bag of tapes back and forth to work is a nuisance.

Recently I began using 2 500 gig firewire hard drives as backup, using Retrospect to duplicate or mirror the project folder. I lost the incremental part (I can think of maybe one time in the last 10 yrs where i needed an old snapshot) but backups are fast and easy, restore is a simple drag and drop! I now carry a single hard drive back and forth to work and the drives take far less space than the hundreds of AIT tapes I have overflowing my closet shelves.

[Howardk]

I never store any clients data and i let them know that up front and at the end of the session.

I also make it clear I am not responsible for long-term-storage. There are just too many risks. . . There too many formats of tape so these days I provide the client with a hard drive and DVDs (Roxio Platinum), and I charge for the time/materials it takes to do so.

[PMoshay]

There is no reason for a studio these days to be storing master sessions for a client unless you are charging a premium for it. Way too many possible headaches from doing it.

The music that the client records belongs to them, you have no rights to it and can not do anything with it unless you own the rights to it. EVEN if you say i can sell their masters back to them at a later date when they need them, how does that make you look when you try to gouge them for backing up their songs? How much will you charge to give them a backup of their own session that you already charged them for? Maybe 2 hours? after you spent at least 1/2 that time already backing it up?
Any artist i had given a backup to at a later date grumbled about paying me the hourly rate to restore their data...... so whats the upside?
Maybe you can force them into having you do their remix because you have their session, but that seems like an uncomfortable position to put yourself in, if they want you to do it, they will ask you to.

I say, Be VERY clear and tell the client that they need to be responsible for their music/data. I have it posted in the studio
" Artists/Clients are solely responsible for their Data/sessions, No client data is stored here once the session is deemed finished"

At that point, if you want to store the data for your own personal collection...... its a bonus for the client and maybe you can do a remix on your own time and show it to the client and tell them it will cost $.......? if they want to use it, i've done that myself and that works. Not every session is worth archiving......... and some can't be trashed fast enough

[Mark Wheaton]

Although I tend to agree with the idea that it should be the client's responsibility to maintain their own long term storage and backup; while a project is ongoing, the studio is responsible for making sure that work done is not lost. Therefore it becomes necessary to backup while in the midst of a session. At the end, you already have your backup, and you hand off the client drive and then you are providing a service if that client loses or damages their drive, because you have a backup.

I don't see where you can pretend you don't have to backup while in the midst of work for a client. That work could be a week or month of daily sessions in your studio, or it may be a year of a couple days a week, where the client appreciates leaving the drive at the studio, so they have less danger of it getting damaged or lost in transit. It is in these circumstances that backup strategy is important and professional, even if the studio has to bear the brunt of the cost and time, because this is your only insurance against losing work that the client has paid for.

[mixer]

i always have the option for the client. he is responsible for either purchasing his own drive. or paying studio time and media for other types of backup. the most important thing is to configure your contracts properly so the client understands the costs and has the responsability to purchase backup materials and time costs for backups. i don't store any media for clients after the project is finished. a hard lesson learned after 30 years in the business.

[Howardk]

the studio is responsible for making sure that work done is not lost. Therefore it becomes necessary to backup while in the midst of a session.

I don't agree with that assumption and make it clear that I am NOT responsible, even during a project. I mention it verbally, and it is written within the studio policies and the text is on every invoice/deposit document. Why should I assume the risk of a problem outside of my control? Also, insurance companies do not cover the cost to recreate data or tracks if there is a fire or break-in, so why should I? I let Clients know the minimum that I do to protect their data, and the associated risks. . .they are usually ok with it. I offer a second tier that assures all versions/historical data is there and I also offer a couple of off-premise backup plans that significantly reduce risk, which seem to satisfy the less risk tolerant clients, but even so I will not take responsibility to a loss, I will only provide the service. Anything more than the minimum is extra in time and materials.

Here is the text "The XXXX Studio does not take responsibility for damage or lose of digital data due to any cause at any time. Ask for information on backup and storage options if you wish to reduce the risk of loss or damage to data."

[c-tone]

...also, i can't imagine how you guys do archiving and long term backups on hard drives just from a physical size perspective...are you saying you have rooms full of drives and their clones?...when a client calls you 8 months from now and needs stems printed for a tour, or an edit done, do you go digging for a drive? Do you store all these drives with all of their power supplies and cables?

I have a FireWire 800 rack with removable Storcase sleds, and it takes about 1 minute to remove and replace raw hard drives. These take up very little space in terms of physical storage. No power supply, cases, or cables need to be stored.


This discussion comes up here fairly often, and usually generates a lot of good responses. I think there is no question that hard drive backups are easy and fast, and relatively cheap. DVD's are a fine option as well.

The real debate is over tape backup. To me it just feels like an outdated option, particularly because it involves magnetic tape. There was a lively debate about the one program you really need to use if you want to use tape backup, Retrospect, here

As I mentioned in that thread, I have had issues backing up to a DDS4 tape, with multiple problems doing incremental backups, and trying to selectively restore from the tapes was a nightmare. Also, I want to be able to access my backups with the Finder, not use a proprietary system and have to backup additional files somewhere else.

One more good source of information closely related to this subject is the NARAS Master Delivery Recommendations

Interestingly, the only acceptable Long-Term storage option, according to that document, is LTO.

The main thrust of these recommendations is to make sure that the data is readable even after many changes in hardware and software occur in the future.

[BillyT]

We usually keep the HDs cloned on current projects and do backups with Retrospect to 2 LTO3 (Each from a different manufacture) and 1 LTO2 for long term storage. We keep the 3 sets of tapes in 3 different locations.

[newburysound]

Im with you 25 Ghosts. Hard-drive is the only way to go. Yeah, AIT seems very elegant and safe like it did for me, til I experienced the first of many tape read/write errors. I can't even fathom how much time I wasted trying to diagnose a defective LaCie AIT drive which was throwing off error prompts left and right. Is it the tape, the drive, the software, the OS. The only way my AIT drive works now is if the unit is flipped upside down-no kidding. Imagine how long it took me to figure that out! I only have the drive in the event an old client wants to retrieve some ancient AIT data. Besides you have to be concerned with future software support and OS-related issues to reclaim that data in it's original state.

I use a few terabyte cat-5 interfaced network hard drives, bolted in a rack in another part of the facility (theft considerations) with QDea Syncronize Pro X software which stores it in Finder format, not random-streamed like tape. It's a snap to operate and I'm done in a couple of minutes. I only power them up during backups at the end of the day and add a small fee to the client invoice to defray the time and drive expense - very fair for both parties. In the event a drive goes down (never happened yet, due to routine TechTool Pro maintenance which I strictly abide by!) I can at least retrieve it on the network back-up using a simple drive-to-drive copy mode function and I'd be up and running immediately, not trying to futz with a potentially terrifying tape-related issue.

In the corporate realm, in this day and age, I'd be inclined to believe they don't rely on anything tape-based, but utilize MULTIPLE off-site servers around the country or world that routinely back up their data via automated systems. I doubt Bank of America entrusts their data to some greasy-fingered lackey in the middle of the night swapping out tapes with a bag of Frito's by his side. Nothing against greasy-fingered lackeys, mind you.