Try the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy to Protect All of Your Footage
Show me a filmmaker and I'll show you a person who has lost precious footage due to poor archiving.
Data storage: it's not the sexiest filmmaking topic in the world, but it is an important one, because most filmmakers have gone through the utter devastation of losing much needed shots, scenes, or even entire projects due to mishandling, data corruption, act of god, or a dirty, dirty thief. Losing your data can be a nightmare.
And since yesterday was World Backup Day, let's dig into some helpful techniques for safeguarding our data. In this video, David Bergman of Adorama goes over the "3-2-1" backup strategy.
Backing things up is kind of a way of life nowadays—I backup my phone more often than I do the dishes. However, ensuring that you have copies of your footage and other filmmaking data is going to take a little bit more effort than simply hitting "sync."
The backup strategy described by Bergman is called "3-2-1": 3 copies, 2 separate devices, and 1 off-site. In other words, you'll need to have three copies of your data all together on at least two separate devices (hard drives, memory cards, etc.), and keep one of those copies stored in a different location than the others. This will ensure that you have an extra copy in case 1.) a file gets corrupted, 2.) one of your devices gets lost/stolen/destroyed/corrupted, and 3.) the building in which you store the other two copies goes up in flames or gets hit by a very, very small asteroid.
Now, no data storage strategy is going to be effective every time, but the 3-2-1 method does safeguard you from a number of issues. In reality, though, you can use whichever strategy you want, just make sure that you pick one and stick to it. That consistency will help keep you and your data nice and organized.
Source: Adorama
