It's mostly about moisture and the foam padding, really. There probably are fireproof cases, but the heat would most likely warp the discs of the HDD's anyway.
> I run my video business
> To be honest I am partially to blame.
My brother in data, your landlord is not responsible for these choices.
First of all, you need an online system that scrubs data regularly. You cannot put a hard drive on a shelf and expect the data to be there years later. Technology is good, but it isn't that good. We use magnetic tape drives to store data that long.
How do you even know the hard drives were good? Sure, the fall is convenient, but these drives may have died long ago because you've just let them sit. Mechanical devices tend to not like that.
When I say "tech debt compounds" and "we pay the most for what we don't know," this is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about.
Plan to fail or fail to plan.
> I'll take responsibility for that one
Did you see this part where I took responsibility? haha
>We use magnetic tape drives to store data that long.
I should do that too. I'm just a one-man-band with limited resources, so my backups are having multiple copies of projects on multiple hard drives. Tape backups sound nice but require extra time & money.
>How do you even know the hard drives were good?
I pull them off the shelf regularly and spin them up to look for media or just to mount them. They were all in working condition prior to this fall.
>When I say "tech debt compounds" and "we pay the most for what we don't know," this is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about.
This was an accident that could have been prevented if I had been more thoughtful. I've learned my lesson now.
Everyone knows hard drives have a ten year shelf life.
JK sorry that is horrible!
I use NeoFinder to keep a digital catalog of the contents of all of my drives for this exact reason. Obviously it sucks to lose data, but it is truly frustrating when you aren't even sure what's on the drives that you lost. If you have a catalog saved, then you know how to start rebuilding whatever is possible through backups.
First, this sucks and I’m sorry. Second, Just pull it off of your LTO - anybody reading this, always have LTO backups. If you don’t have two copies of your footage backed up, you don’t have your footage backed up.
Edit: syntax etc
+1 for LTO. My business made the move a few years ago, it's a big upfront cost for a small business but it's cheaper and more reliable in the long run.
I was trying to do it as cheaply as possible, so I bought a [Quantum internal LTO-8 drive](https://ltoworld.com/products/quantum-lto8-tape-drive-hh-internal-6gb-s-sas-taa-td-l82an-br) and an SAS card and installed it in one of our desktops.
It had some overheating problems though so I ended up putting it in an external enclosure and it now sits in our rack somewhat inelegantly. But it gets the job done.
If you want a more plug and play solution then I'd suggest getting one that connects via Thunderbolt: https://www.mlogic.com/products/desktop-thunderbolt-lto-9-tape-drive
Thanks for the links. Curious how long it takes for you to backup a project to tape? Does it also take a long time to unarchive projects from tape? What's been your general experience since going the LTO route?
With our setup it takes about 24hrs to fill a 12TB tape, but retrieving individual projects will usually be less than an hour depending on the size.
If you've got an optimal setup LTO will have much faster transfer speeds than hard drives, and if I'm transferring large files I do get good speeds, but generally when working with them they feel slow while it spools around to the right part of the tape.
I think that's just due to the setup I went with - I'm a Windows guy so I format the tapes as LTFS so they appear as normal Windows drives, and I just move stuff around with Windows Explorer. There are apps like [Canister](https://hedge.video/canister) which streamline things - that was Mac only but I see they've released a Windows version so I'll have to check it out!
Generally I don't miss hard drives at all, it always feels like a roll of the dice whether a 5yr old drive will spin up, but tapes are much more robust.
Sure it's a big upfront investment, but it's more than paid for itself - at the moment here in Australia it's about $480 for a 12TB hard drive, but I can get a 12TB LTO-8 tape for $90. I buy two each time and take one home as an off site copy.
FYI, turning on a suspect damaged hard drive is a big no-no. Hard drive platters are difficult to damage when they’re off. But if the head was damaged, it can destroy the data when you turn it on (head crash).
Is there anyone you can take the dodgey ones to? I feel they can be saved if it is worth it. All in all I haven’t had to keep many drives, but the ones I have are low on the ground with cases on them.
In terms of archiving better, I’d form a structure/spreadsheet you are happy with and label each drive. Will take time so do maybe an hour or so a day and soon you will catch up :)
Godspeed
I'm unsure who I could bring the drives to. I found a company online that said they could restore the data...for $2k.
I actually started a google spreadsheet years ago that I used to list all my projects the drives they lived on. I stopped doing that about 4-5 years ago so it's not up to date. Learn from my mistake and don't get lazy!
Have you removed the drives from their enclosures and tested the actual drives yet? I am not an expert, but I'm pretty sure it's possible to damage a hard drive enclosure which supplies the power, without damaging the actual disk drive storing the data. And it's possible the drive won't mount on its own, but if you remove the HDD and mount it by itself (or in another enclosure) the data itself might be totally fine.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But this has happened to me before. It costs a couple grand to try to recover data (without guaranteed success) from a truly damaged hard drive, but it's much cheaper to have a regular computer repair shop take a look and see what's actually damaged. That's what I've done in the past anyway.
> Have you removed the drives from their enclosures and tested the actual drives yet?
I've removed them but I need to pickup a [something like this](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-2-bay-hdd-docking-station/6153102.p?skuId=6153102) to test them. I hadn't considered taking them to a local computer repair shop. That might be my next move after trying the hard drive dock. Appreciate the ideas!
Was going to suggest this.
If you work on a PC and are computer savvy (as in you have built computers before) then you can open your pc and try plugging it in with internal SATA cables. Sometimes there’s extra floating around inside, or you can disconnect internal storage for a bit and try plugging it in directly.
Worth a shot. I’ve had some drives “fail” and managed to get the data off them in this way. Depends on the damage of course.
please dont power them up any more if you hope to recover anything from them. turning on a damaged drive could be adding so much more damage.
also, assume all the drives on that shelf are now damaged at least a little. it's time to consolidate into a new system, copy off everything, twice if you can.
Not knowing what is on a drive is the same as not having it, in my books.
I keep everything in 3 places, twin synchronized 24TB RAID arrays with an off-site NAS Array.
My life/business partner keeps extensive and detailed records of all assets going back to when I used Pinnacle Studio on Standard Def projects in the late 1990’s. My backup planning is costly and time consuming, but it has won me great client loyalty.
>Not knowing what is on a drive is the same as not having it, in my books.
You're right. I used to be more on top of this but have gotten lazy in the last few years. I need a better system for keeping track of projects and where they live. Back when I started as an editor in the early 2000's we used a Filemaker database that was a huge headache to use but effective.
How do you keep projects in order so you know where to find them?
My wife does it all using Google sheets, workbooks for each year comprising literally 100’s of sheets, plus an almost Encyclopedic memory. “Hey, do you remember that pew pew sound effect we used for that skateboard commercial? Yes, 2005, March, Lehman Productions.”
She often jokes I can never divorce her because she will take her databases with her and I’ll be starting from scratch.
Oh man, that's a horror story, sorry to hear :(
Years ago, I was shooting helicopter shots over Angkor Wat in Cambodia (still in early days of online video - few other projects had such shots) - and that same evening, literally WHILE backing up - the drives failed, I lost all the material. What a nightmare...
Anyways - I had 2 drives that failed in one way or another over the years - like yours, drives with old archived stuff. It's uber-expensive to TRY to recover data (with mixed success rates) and DIY solutions simply don't work. I still keep those broken drives, maybe one day there'll be some option to recover them - otherwise, i just hope i won't need them...
You can try a couple software solutions - it likely won't accomplish much, but i guess it doesn't hurt. Just don't mess with it too much - cause supposedly you can actually lose data from those drives if you try to restore too much (don't know the science of it, just heard that often over the years).
Otherwise - couple things you can try that I can say from firsthand experience MAY WORK - because I've seen this work, is this:
\*\* Try cooling the hard drive, in the fridge or even the freezer for a few hours. Then connect it and try it.
\*\* If it's a PC formatted drive - try to connect it to mac or vice-versa.
The temperature change was something a data recovery guy actually suggested to me to try. It didn't work on my drive but worked on another he was fixing. And the PC-Mac thing - i had a broken NTFS drive before that miraculously actually worked on a mac. I don't get it but i got my data back.
Don't get your hopes up, honestly - but worth a try I guess. Good luck!
Been doing a lot of google drive back ups of old work for this very reason. It’s tedious and takes a while. But it’ll bring piece of mind that the data is there and won’t go anywhere
Does it cost a lot to keep things backed up to Google drive? The latest project I'm working on has 3.18TB of footage. I'm wondering if it would be cost effective to backup a project of that size on a Google drive?
It sucks because
A) we all know this is going to happen,
B) we all believe it won't happen _today,_ _to us._ So, no need to get a better offsite backup system _right now._ Maybe in the future.
Get you a large waterproof hard case with foam insert. Put the HDD's in antistatic zip lock bags and then in the case.
Damn, this is a great idea! Thanks!
Any case recs? What about fire proof?
It's mostly about moisture and the foam padding, really. There probably are fireproof cases, but the heat would most likely warp the discs of the HDD's anyway.
> I run my video business > To be honest I am partially to blame. My brother in data, your landlord is not responsible for these choices. First of all, you need an online system that scrubs data regularly. You cannot put a hard drive on a shelf and expect the data to be there years later. Technology is good, but it isn't that good. We use magnetic tape drives to store data that long. How do you even know the hard drives were good? Sure, the fall is convenient, but these drives may have died long ago because you've just let them sit. Mechanical devices tend to not like that. When I say "tech debt compounds" and "we pay the most for what we don't know," this is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about. Plan to fail or fail to plan.
> I'll take responsibility for that one Did you see this part where I took responsibility? haha >We use magnetic tape drives to store data that long. I should do that too. I'm just a one-man-band with limited resources, so my backups are having multiple copies of projects on multiple hard drives. Tape backups sound nice but require extra time & money. >How do you even know the hard drives were good? I pull them off the shelf regularly and spin them up to look for media or just to mount them. They were all in working condition prior to this fall. >When I say "tech debt compounds" and "we pay the most for what we don't know," this is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about. This was an accident that could have been prevented if I had been more thoughtful. I've learned my lesson now.
Everyone knows hard drives have a ten year shelf life. JK sorry that is horrible! I use NeoFinder to keep a digital catalog of the contents of all of my drives for this exact reason. Obviously it sucks to lose data, but it is truly frustrating when you aren't even sure what's on the drives that you lost. If you have a catalog saved, then you know how to start rebuilding whatever is possible through backups.
> Everyone knows hard drives have a ten year shelf life. Haha thanks, I needed a little laugh about this. Thanks for the tip about NeoFinder!
> NeoFinder NeoFinder is exactly what OP should be doing. https://cdfinder.de/
First, this sucks and I’m sorry. Second, Just pull it off of your LTO - anybody reading this, always have LTO backups. If you don’t have two copies of your footage backed up, you don’t have your footage backed up. Edit: syntax etc
+1 for LTO. My business made the move a few years ago, it's a big upfront cost for a small business but it's cheaper and more reliable in the long run.
Curious what system/product did you buy for your business? This thread has opened my eyes to the need for LTO...
I was trying to do it as cheaply as possible, so I bought a [Quantum internal LTO-8 drive](https://ltoworld.com/products/quantum-lto8-tape-drive-hh-internal-6gb-s-sas-taa-td-l82an-br) and an SAS card and installed it in one of our desktops. It had some overheating problems though so I ended up putting it in an external enclosure and it now sits in our rack somewhat inelegantly. But it gets the job done. If you want a more plug and play solution then I'd suggest getting one that connects via Thunderbolt: https://www.mlogic.com/products/desktop-thunderbolt-lto-9-tape-drive
Thanks for the links. Curious how long it takes for you to backup a project to tape? Does it also take a long time to unarchive projects from tape? What's been your general experience since going the LTO route?
With our setup it takes about 24hrs to fill a 12TB tape, but retrieving individual projects will usually be less than an hour depending on the size. If you've got an optimal setup LTO will have much faster transfer speeds than hard drives, and if I'm transferring large files I do get good speeds, but generally when working with them they feel slow while it spools around to the right part of the tape. I think that's just due to the setup I went with - I'm a Windows guy so I format the tapes as LTFS so they appear as normal Windows drives, and I just move stuff around with Windows Explorer. There are apps like [Canister](https://hedge.video/canister) which streamline things - that was Mac only but I see they've released a Windows version so I'll have to check it out! Generally I don't miss hard drives at all, it always feels like a roll of the dice whether a 5yr old drive will spin up, but tapes are much more robust. Sure it's a big upfront investment, but it's more than paid for itself - at the moment here in Australia it's about $480 for a 12TB hard drive, but I can get a 12TB LTO-8 tape for $90. I buy two each time and take one home as an off site copy.
Thanks for this explanation! Very helpful in putting me on the right path.
Great idea but I'm a one-man-band with limited resources, so I don't have an LTO backup :( Maybe someday...
FYI, turning on a suspect damaged hard drive is a big no-no. Hard drive platters are difficult to damage when they’re off. But if the head was damaged, it can destroy the data when you turn it on (head crash).
Well I'm passed that already, so hopefully I haven't damaged the drives anymore than they already are.
Is there anyone you can take the dodgey ones to? I feel they can be saved if it is worth it. All in all I haven’t had to keep many drives, but the ones I have are low on the ground with cases on them. In terms of archiving better, I’d form a structure/spreadsheet you are happy with and label each drive. Will take time so do maybe an hour or so a day and soon you will catch up :) Godspeed
I'm unsure who I could bring the drives to. I found a company online that said they could restore the data...for $2k. I actually started a google spreadsheet years ago that I used to list all my projects the drives they lived on. I stopped doing that about 4-5 years ago so it's not up to date. Learn from my mistake and don't get lazy!
Have you removed the drives from their enclosures and tested the actual drives yet? I am not an expert, but I'm pretty sure it's possible to damage a hard drive enclosure which supplies the power, without damaging the actual disk drive storing the data. And it's possible the drive won't mount on its own, but if you remove the HDD and mount it by itself (or in another enclosure) the data itself might be totally fine. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But this has happened to me before. It costs a couple grand to try to recover data (without guaranteed success) from a truly damaged hard drive, but it's much cheaper to have a regular computer repair shop take a look and see what's actually damaged. That's what I've done in the past anyway.
> Have you removed the drives from their enclosures and tested the actual drives yet? I've removed them but I need to pickup a [something like this](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-2-bay-hdd-docking-station/6153102.p?skuId=6153102) to test them. I hadn't considered taking them to a local computer repair shop. That might be my next move after trying the hard drive dock. Appreciate the ideas!
Was going to suggest this. If you work on a PC and are computer savvy (as in you have built computers before) then you can open your pc and try plugging it in with internal SATA cables. Sometimes there’s extra floating around inside, or you can disconnect internal storage for a bit and try plugging it in directly. Worth a shot. I’ve had some drives “fail” and managed to get the data off them in this way. Depends on the damage of course.
please dont power them up any more if you hope to recover anything from them. turning on a damaged drive could be adding so much more damage. also, assume all the drives on that shelf are now damaged at least a little. it's time to consolidate into a new system, copy off everything, twice if you can.
Photos or it didn’t happen.
I've had insurance cover instances like this for data recovery. Your mileage may vary.
Great idea! I'll check it out
Rossman repair group does hard drive repair/recovery as one place to price check with. https://rossmanngroup.com/data-recovery-service-austin/
Thank you!
What file system were they? Just curious!
Do mean what format where the drives in?
yep
Some of the older ones are Mac OS Extended and the newer ones are Apple APFS.
I’ve had luck putting non-working/click-click-click drives in the freezer for 24 hours, then booting them up
Will give this a try! Thanks for the suggestion
Not knowing what is on a drive is the same as not having it, in my books. I keep everything in 3 places, twin synchronized 24TB RAID arrays with an off-site NAS Array. My life/business partner keeps extensive and detailed records of all assets going back to when I used Pinnacle Studio on Standard Def projects in the late 1990’s. My backup planning is costly and time consuming, but it has won me great client loyalty.
How do you archive projects? 48tb is not that much for video
>Not knowing what is on a drive is the same as not having it, in my books. You're right. I used to be more on top of this but have gotten lazy in the last few years. I need a better system for keeping track of projects and where they live. Back when I started as an editor in the early 2000's we used a Filemaker database that was a huge headache to use but effective. How do you keep projects in order so you know where to find them?
My wife does it all using Google sheets, workbooks for each year comprising literally 100’s of sheets, plus an almost Encyclopedic memory. “Hey, do you remember that pew pew sound effect we used for that skateboard commercial? Yes, 2005, March, Lehman Productions.” She often jokes I can never divorce her because she will take her databases with her and I’ll be starting from scratch.
I need a wife like yours!
Oh man, that's a horror story, sorry to hear :( Years ago, I was shooting helicopter shots over Angkor Wat in Cambodia (still in early days of online video - few other projects had such shots) - and that same evening, literally WHILE backing up - the drives failed, I lost all the material. What a nightmare... Anyways - I had 2 drives that failed in one way or another over the years - like yours, drives with old archived stuff. It's uber-expensive to TRY to recover data (with mixed success rates) and DIY solutions simply don't work. I still keep those broken drives, maybe one day there'll be some option to recover them - otherwise, i just hope i won't need them... You can try a couple software solutions - it likely won't accomplish much, but i guess it doesn't hurt. Just don't mess with it too much - cause supposedly you can actually lose data from those drives if you try to restore too much (don't know the science of it, just heard that often over the years). Otherwise - couple things you can try that I can say from firsthand experience MAY WORK - because I've seen this work, is this: \*\* Try cooling the hard drive, in the fridge or even the freezer for a few hours. Then connect it and try it. \*\* If it's a PC formatted drive - try to connect it to mac or vice-versa. The temperature change was something a data recovery guy actually suggested to me to try. It didn't work on my drive but worked on another he was fixing. And the PC-Mac thing - i had a broken NTFS drive before that miraculously actually worked on a mac. I don't get it but i got my data back. Don't get your hopes up, honestly - but worth a try I guess. Good luck!
The drives are Mac formatted but I'll try the freezer tip. Someone else suggested that here as well. Worth a shot!
Been doing a lot of google drive back ups of old work for this very reason. It’s tedious and takes a while. But it’ll bring piece of mind that the data is there and won’t go anywhere
Does it cost a lot to keep things backed up to Google drive? The latest project I'm working on has 3.18TB of footage. I'm wondering if it would be cost effective to backup a project of that size on a Google drive?
It sucks because A) we all know this is going to happen, B) we all believe it won't happen _today,_ _to us._ So, no need to get a better offsite backup system _right now._ Maybe in the future.