File archiving/storage options

#1

Hi folks,

I am increasingly running our of HDD space of my workstation, and in reality, I realise I could free up a LOT of space if I archived off some old projects. In years gone by, I would archive to CD, or DVD, but I don’t work on any projects that could fit on these, or Blu-Ray media these days.
I’ve considered just buying some standard internal SATA HDD, filing them and sticking them in a cupboard, or buying more externals and doing the same. It’s rare that I need to recall or borrow anything from these files, but if I did, it’s not too much hassle to pop an internal drive out, and throw of these in, especially if I buy some extra drive trays (Mac Pro cheese grater) to make life easier.

I’m just wondering what the majority of other creatives are doing to store their old projects now?

Adam

#2

A combination of the last two. I have 3 old sata drives sat in a cupboard gathering dust, theyre my old archives which I doubt Ill ever need, but being old 1TB drives, theyre worthless these days so Im not fussed.

For more recent archives where I know ill need to pull models from previous jobs, reuse an old texture, I use a synology NAS. These range from 1 drive to… lots of drives. Essentially just an external drive but theyre nice in that you can access the files from anywhere on the net, they have their own OS, can handle backups for you, plug in a webcam for a security camera, they can serve web pages, host ftp, act as media servers… all sorts. They’ll do raid themselves in case a drive fails, sync with offsite backups. One cool thing, find a friend and both buy one, then you can sync backups so you each backup the other persons stuff in another location.

Optical media… yeah, way too much hassle

#3

Hi Mash,

Thanks for your reply!

I think this might just be what I do in the short term - replace the internal drives with newer, larger capacity, and just organise the old HDD better, before sticking them in a shoe box!
I certainly like the appeal of the Synology NAS - that looks like the better long term accessible solution for sure.

Cheers
Adam :wink:

#4

FBD - Fuckin Big Drives is my answer. You can get 8TB drives for good money and the SATA connector will be useable for quite some time to come.
Just put them aside nice and dry and they will keep for a few decades.