After producing videos for The Frugal Filmmaker for the past five years, I've accumulated a lot of video. I've been wanting some kind of archiving system so I could gather all my video in one place, have easy access to it, and have it constantly backed up in at least two places. My first attempts at this was to back up select videos to Blu-ray discs, but what if I wanted to archive everything?
Some YouTubers commented on that video and asked if I had ever tried Network Attached Storage (NAS). I had never heard of such a thing, but quickly discovered what they were and how they were a step closer to my archival dreams. Essentially a big box that connects to your computer, an NAS will not only act as a big fat drive to store video, but will also automatically mirror that stored video into a second drive contained within. If one drive goes bad, you replace it and the contents are restored.
I liked this idea but didn't like the expense, or the fact that both drives could be taken out in one swift stroke from a disaster like fire, flood, or theft. My solution was to get separate external drives and spread them over a local area network (LAN). Hopefully, anything bad that would happen to one wouldn't happen to the other due to this physical separation.
The above video details my setup as well as the software (Karen's Replicator, Bvckup 2) that I'm using to automate the backup process. Now, when I create a new project folder on my laptop, the contents are backed up to the first external drive and later the archive copies the new contents to the second external drive separated across the network. Both these actions can take place immediately (if I activate them manually) or in the middle of the night (via timers) while I sleep.
I really like this new setup and it gives me some nice peace of mind. No longer to I need to scatter all my projects across a bunch of "small" external drives and when I need older project footage, it's there. If one drive fails, I replace it and copy all the contents from the drive that didn't. Simple.
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