Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Recommendations
Although I can't offer a one-size-fits all approach to video backups, I
would like to make some recommendations that you can tailor to your
specific situation. All these suggestions presume that you're already
making duplicates and versioned backups of your non-video data:
Exclude video data from regular versioned backups and duplicates.
That'll make those backups more manageable, saving time and
media.
If your camcorder stores its data on tape or DVD, always keep the
original media—don't overwrite it, even though you've copied the
data to your Mac. Instead, treat that tape or DVD as though it were
a film negative and store it in a safe place. You'll use up more media
this way, but you'll have an automatic backup of all your footage.
(This won't work if your camcorder has an internal hard drive, and
it would be too expensive if your camcorder uses flash RAM.)
Consider making a duplicate of each piece of original media (if
your video equipment provides a way to do so). Remember, every
piece of backup media is subject to deterioration over time (and
camcorder tapes can be especially vulnerable), so an extra copy is
never a bad idea.
You probably do not need to back up video data that you've copied
from a camera to your disk but aren't actively using, as long as you
already have one or two backups of this data in the form of original
tapes and, perhaps, duplicates of them. However, for footage copied
from a camcorder's hard drive or flash RAM, consider storing
archives of the raw data on a stack of DVDs—even though I
recommend against optical media for general-purpose backup.
(Blu-ray discs, because of their high capacity, may be especially
good for this purpose—but you'll need to buy a Blu-ray compatible
drive for your Mac, and the blank media is still rather expensive.)
Choose backup software that offers compression and/or delta
encoding, both of which can help you make the most of limited
storage space. Forget about online storage, too; at current typical
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