I use 2 methods.

The easiest is a backup to another (external) drive. For me it's a portable usb.
Memory is fairly cheap these days. Keep in mind you should not edit FROM the external drive unless it's SATA, usb is too slow.

You can also burn raw files to DVD, that's just fine. Remember to not edit FROM the DVD, you should copy to the computer hard drive when you are ready to get editing. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
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Cindy,

I'd buy an external USB drive or a external USB hard disk docking station and simply keep your files there for safe keeping.

The docking stations are a good concept for this, buy internal hard disks which are cheaper, drop it in, update files, throw the drive in a fire safe and you have your files for safe keeping.

Jeff

Hi Cindy,
I agree with Barry and Jeff but, at the risk of causing Barry to stick a pencil in his ear , it's worth reading this article on DVD shelf life :-

http://www.pctrainingspain.com/MH_Datasheets/MH_CD_DVD_Life.html

It's also worth noting the 'difference' between backup and archiving, which basically influences the length of time and ease of access that you may require.

I too use external usb HDD and take 2 copies of data onto 2 separate drives. I think the issue with video, as opposed to photo, is the large volumes of data. I would, and have, used DVD for data storage but generally for specific content rather than general backup. It is important never to forget that hard drives can fail, often with very little or no warning, so relying on only one carries a risk. The last forensic data recovery I was involved in cost over £850 5 years ago

The other thing to consider is how you organise your assets. I seem to be building up a 'library' of video resources, not necessarily specifically related to a particular event like a birthday etc. I am just in the process of cataloguing all my assets with Elements 7 which allows full or incremental backups etc. as well as descriptions, keywords and ratings etc.

Also Jeff makes an important point. For really irreplaceable stuff consider off site storage to prevent theft/disaster loss.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Thanks for all the tips!

Adrian,
That link was an excellent article on burners and media types. After reading that article and all of yall's suggestions, I've really got some work to do backing up my data! And I guess I meant backing up as opposed to archiving. I just want to put it all together in a safe medium and have easy access to it when I want to retrieve it and begin projects. Right now, I do have an external backup USB drive that I use to back up my photos, but these video files are so big! I guess I will just have to go out and buy a bigger external backup drive (and a bigger fire safe) since all of yall (southern slang!) suggested it. When I create projects, I always make a couple of extra DVD copies, but I do write directly on the DVDs which, according to that article, is a no-no.

I, too, have Elements and after I finish this project of tranferring videos, I plan on scanning all my old photos (pre-digital) and cataloging those, too.

Which brings up another question . . . I have over 18 years worth of video that I am transfering. Right now I'm transferring it in chunks of 10-15 minutes at a time because to me that is manageable. I'm naming the files the year_month_date (and a 2-3 word description). Then on my spreadsheet I'm writing a couple of phrases describing the video and who is in them. Is this what I should be doing? Or does someone suggest something better? My goal is, after I've completed this phase, to make 3 individual PD movies of each of my 3 kids as they were growing up.

Any suggestions would be helpful . . .

Thanks,
Cindy

Hi Cindy,

Slightly tongue in cheek - but really very important - take real good care of the spreadsheet file !!

If you are going to invest time and money in additional storage and organisation maybe consider the following :-

As you say, your aim is to produce separate videos for the kids.

As you import/digitise your raw assets, you could start 'organising' them into say separate folders for each kids video, some will be specific to one project, many will be common to all maybe. Given that its easy to copy clips and storage is relatively cheap, you could start 'building' the assets for each project straight away at this stage and your spreadsheet 'index' could also indicate the usage of each clip.

It sometimes seems a bit excessive but it is a way of avoiding having hundreds (or thousands) of clips/images in one big 'list'.

It's also worth looking at batch re-namers to rename or change lots of clips say by putting kid 1, kid2 or kid3 on the front of the name - kid1_[clip name]. That way you can more easily identify clips by name.

http://www.den4b.com/downloads.php?project=ReNamer


Elements has some capability but some others might be more sophisticated.

I am doing similar things (not for our 5 kids, I hasten to add) and I've found it really daunting trying to organise and rationalise thousands of images from differing sources even if they were all sorted into differing folders etc. I ended up with 14,000 + images that I had to de-duplicate down to 8,000 + eventually and then catalogue those. Still haven't finished.

I settled on something like Elements because I use it anyway for image editing and it also plays most video files quickly so it's easy to check (2 or 10 years later!) what the clip actually was about, rather than just the name, date etc.

Cheers
Adrian



Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.