Backup solution for Prepress files??

[Duncan Hyde]

Hi everyone,

I've got a couple terabytes of clients artwork files spread across many external drives and i cant keep track of all this stuff and cant keep buying more drives as they become full or damaged. Should I keep clients files forever or not? I still get calls requesting artwork done years ago for reprints.

Does anybody have any ideas for a solution for reliable backup system? may it be hardware or software or even offsite solution

Thanks!

Duncan

 

[oxburger]

We use AIT tape for backup. You can get a lot of data on them and they take up very little physical space. Backing up on a offsite "cloud" storage could become really expensive. Plus, you have the drawback of the download/upload speed of the data transfer. On the plus side, with cloud or offsite storage, you could provide limited access to client files so that they could download their files as needed. This way is beneficial because you would let them do it themselves, freeing you up to do your day to day business and not spend all your time retrieving files for them.

 

[oxburger]

As far as how long you keep files. We keep files up to 5 years old. Anything other than that, we dump. Another idea is to burn the job to DVD's when the job is printed and shipped and returning it to the client so that they're responsible for keeping the files so you don't have to worry about it.

 

[Duncan Hyde]

Thanks oxburger for your quick response i'll look into tape backup systems

Duncan

 

[PilotPrinting]

Duncan, I've resorted to using high capacity external hard drive in an external shell, mine is NexStar. This external drive hooks up via a USB port and is lickitysplit. To be really safe, you should dual it up, use two (note to self!!!). Don't need to buy more than one external shell, the hard drives swap easily in and out.

 

[mattbeals]

You can get servers with upwards of 36TB of raw storage and chop them up into different drives. I have one customer with 12TB of RAID6 storage for jobs. He backs that up to an identical server. Another customer has a 32TB SAN connected to their servers. All the data is kept online and available. With RAID arrays and hot spares you should be able to keep quite a bit of data around. If you need tape, AIT and DLT are great but you may get more of a useful lifespan, speed and capacity from the LTO format. LTO and AIT auto tape loaders are the way to go depending on how much data and how frequently you need to backup. The real tricks with tape is the storage of the tape(s) and backup software. With D2D (disc to disc) that isn't quite such a problem.

 

[richsweeney]

I do a daily sycn to anouther pc every 24 hours, and every few months dvd them. I use " Advanced file organizer" to keep track of what is on the dvds. This works well for smaller workflows.
For terrabytes, what about going with blueray? Good luck with the tapes.

 

[Alith7]

we had a similar issue and found this company:

Drobo - Small Box, Big Storage

we went with their Drobo FS system with 5 x 2TB drives. works great so far, the only issue I've found is that the searchability of it doesn't work so well. though I gather that their Non-NAS, direct connected systems work flawlessly! we only went with the FS because we have 10 computers that need to access the files and it was getting to be a pain in the butt to make sure that the main computer was always on.

this huge 10TB system cost $500 less than my first 2TB LaCie! how depressing!

 

[Duncan Hyde]

Hey Thanks Alith7,

Im checking out online now looks great so far but question: does the FS come with drives or you buy them separately??

 

[Alith7]

they give you both options.
you can buy it "pre-stocked" so to speak, or put your own in.
One of the things I really liked about the system was that you could use ANY drive. Brand, Size, Speed, it didn't matter, you could mix and match with whatever you wanted.

I bought my FS loaded from them, it cost about $1,600 ish, look around on line, there was a coupon floating around that saved me a few bucks. Email me if you have any questions would be glad to help.

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