Feedback on video archiving strategy

[Haaris Qureshi]

Hi all,

 

I've trying to commit myself to having better long-term file management for basically all my stuff, now that I've finally made the move back from laptop to desktop. 

My file management up to this point has been terrible and lazy. I've basically been using laptops as my main device since I wanna say 2008 - 2010, migrating from having one family PC. I also create video content, which as you'll know is a massive storage hog. When laptops I've been handed down/owned reached end of life, usually part of this was they were full of video content that I had nothing to archive to, except external HDDs which isn't the best approach as they can be easily lost. When I moved to a new laptop, I'd start from scratch, simply holding my former laptop's HDD in an external caddy in case I needed to access the files. But I've finally built my first desktop and will be using this as my main work device. 

 

I've only just built it, so lots of free space but now I've finished my degrees and I have time to create video stuff again I foresee that filling up.

I basically want an approach where I decide on a space limit for my raw footage/edit files and a limit or my exported stuff, and once that space is filled, I will move older content on to an archive, where I will store it unless I need to move it back to my device to re-edit with or manipulate. 

This archive will also be backed up, as well as the SDDs inside my PC. 

 

I'm having some opinions about how to do these in practice and I have an idea of which is the better one, but I'll present them both in case someone's experience offers a viewpoint I hadn't considered.

Ideally, I would've liked it to be an internal SSD (nvme or SATA) so it's neater, less likely to get lost, won't use up one of my usb ports (of which I have I think only a single back one remaining, otherwise I have my front one and hubs), won't rely on USB transfer speeds. But I guess the argument against this is if it runs out of space, eventually I'll have to buy a bigger and more expensive SSD and transfer it all on there, as I can't easily swap between different SSDs split by years. 

Whereas an external SSD via USB, once it runs out, I can just buy another one of the same size and label them and if I know I need to access a previous year I just disconnect and swap it, which is easily done. 

 

I'm a massive data hog so I don't like deleting stuff I've created, so ideally I want a system I can perpetually maintain or upgrade easily, and I'd like to start as I go on. I should stress I'm working on the scale of individual creator home use - in my dreams, I'd like to have a professional studio set up, but if I do get to that point, I'll be looking at more commercial central data storage, rather than personal archiving. 

 

Cheers for any feedback! 

 

[emosun]

Well with no budget listed... no size requirement listed .... no speed requirement listed...... buy a couple 8tb external hard drives and call it a day. Let us know if theres any specifics you want to add.

[Haaris Qureshi]

33 minutes ago, emosun said:

Well with no budget listed... no size requirement listed .... no speed requirement listed...... buy a couple 8tb external hard drives and call it a day. Let us know if theres any specifics you want to add.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply!

I appreciate what you mean, but the reason I didn't provide specifics is because that's what I'm asking about. Would the size and speed affect my approach, other than having more space per unit and faster transfer? I mean you've essentially answered my question without any of those if you're saying that the external drive method is fine, that's essentially all I was asking. 

 

Budget is a tricky one because it's basically - whatever is efficient, and I probably don't want to spend more than a few hundred for something to last me a few years. I'm a recent MA graduate so I'm only just starting off money-wise.

 

I mean I estimate 1tb/year as a safe bet for footage creation - so the ideal size is really a question of how long will it take for us to develop whatever comes after SSD and that many TBs for that many years. Otherwise the size requirement is just to expand as I create more footage, so if whatever I buy runs out I'll have to upgrade, hence why I was thinking the sensible route is external so I essentially have volumes split by year. 

 

Speed wise I'm not intending to edit off of them based on practice, I'd move things to them when I don't foresee an immediate use for them, and if I do, I'd move them back to my main storage - and the times I've had to access old HDDs over the years is about a few times a year, so it's not something I'm massively concerned about, if I save money going slower I can live with that.

 

Many thanks,

[emosun]

Yeah in that case just use external usb hard drives. 1tb of footage a year need not be anything more complicated