Questions from "The DAM Book" 2nd Edition

[danaltick]

Peter,

Question about the working files swappers:  If you're just keeping offline swappers instead of offsite swappers, is there any real benefit to using swappers as opposed to just keeping one online backup and one offline backup, with the offline backup getting refreshed and removed when files are added or changed?  Thanks.

Dan

[danaltick]

Peter,

Gave this some thought today and may know the answer.  You don't specifically state this in the book, but maybe it's to be assumed.  Unfortunately I'm not to good at assuming.... just ask my wife ;-).  Using the swapper method means there will never be a time when all three disks are connected; thereby, further minimizing the risk of viruses, human error, etc., and eliminating the risk of voltage surges.  If I'm correct here, then I think this is something to weigh out depending on the scale, value, and criticality of your particular business.  In my case the cost of inconvenience may not outweigh the risk of data loss.  Something I may need to think about.

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
The real reason for the swappers (as opposed to just offline backups) is to get works-in-progress offsite (and still have a local off-line backup drive).
Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

I can understand the convenience of swappers if you're attempting to store offsite, but if you're only attempting to store offline (say a closet next to the workstation), is there any real benefit other than what I stated above?

Dan

[danaltick]

Peter,

On second thought, given the new workflow and increased bucket size (i.e. Blu-ray) where jobs may now reside in the Working File folders for quite some time before being archived; I think that definitely warrants offfsite Working Files backups, which in turn would warrant the convenience of swappers.  Problem solved ;-).

Dan

[peterkrogh]

That's the thinking.
Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

Just curious though; when you bring an offsite swapper back on-site do you immediately backup to it to get 3 fresh copies, or do you wait until you've made more changes?

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
The swapper comes back onsite so that it can be updated and then carried offsite again. It generally happens right away.
Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

Ok,  I think I get the idea.  I'm assuming you are swapping the drives offsite though just to save an extra trip.  That's the impression I get from the book.

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
They don't really need to be "swappers" exactly.  The idea is that one is onsite as my off-line backup, and one provides protection for my very large groups of works in progress. The only real "swapping" part is that they use the same enclosure, to save a few bucks. The idea being that the onsite one (let's call this drive 1) can get updated, and then traded offsite without having to wait for it to update. Then, as drive 1 goes away, drive 2 gets put into the enclosure, and is updated with current work.

It could easily be done with two externals, each in it's own enclosure. One would be the on-site, off-line backup, and the other would be the off-site backup.  I'm just saving an enclosure.

Peter

[markpirozzi]

I'll have to read that section again.  I came away with the idea of two swap drives but no urgency in getting the onsite drive back to the offsite location immediately. You update the one onsite drive (Swap A), go to the offsite location, drop off A and take Swap B from offsite back with you to onsite for whatever interval you are comfortable with. The only advantage (that I see) of taking a drive from offsite to onsite and then back to offsite immediately is to use one drive instead of two.  This would be true whether you did this once day, once a week or for any interval of time.

As a side note, implementing swap drives (for offsite) is the best thing I have done in long time to protect my files from loss.  Right now I have enough room on a 1TB swap drive to have my working and archived photo files.  Also, I have  a small partition on the swap drives for my OS and docs.

Mark

[peterkrogh]

Mark,
I agree that it's one of the easiest, and best levels of protection you can get.  Of course, it all depends on wrangling those works-in-progress in one place, so you can know with certainty that everything's protected.

I'd say the only urgency occurs when you have valuable new files in your working folder and know you'll be out of the studio, and therefore the files are at greater risk. For me it's one of those innate things that lives just under the surface, like having an awareness if you left the stove on or the front door unlocked.

Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

If I understand you correctly, you update drive1 with just your Raw working files (to save time) and keep it offline.  Then when the need arises, you update drive1 with your entire Working Files folder and trade it offsite with drive2, which then becomes your current offline drive and only updated with your current Raw working files.

Probably not really important how you do it as long as you keep 3 copies with one offline and one offsite preferably.

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
Here's how I do it.

1. The entire Working folder is mirrored to a Drobo on the network nightly.
2. At the end of each workday, the offline drive (Drive A, in the swapper container) is powered up and the entire Working file folder is synced to it.
3. Periodically, the Swapper Drive B is brought back onsite and trades places with Drive A.
4. Drive A is carried offsite
5. Drive B is updated with the entire Working folder

Does that clear it up?
Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

Yes.  That clears it up completely.  Thanks for numbering the steps for me; otherwise, I'm sure I would have gotten them all scrambled up ;-).  Actually that's how I thought you were doing it from the beginning, I think it just got lost in translation.

Dan