Blog Archives

In the past we obsessed about the rotational speed of a hard disk, how much cache it had, or even the controller chip it used. While these are important, they pale in significance when compared to the impact of how you connect your drive to your computer.

Have you ever wondered why a 1 TB drive never has 1 TB of free space? Or why a 500 GB drive stores much less than 500 GB? Well, it isn’t your imagination, it’s that engineers and marketers use two different numbers – but the same words – to measure the storage capacity of a hard drive.

Data Robotics is aggressively going after the audio and video market with a series of devices marketed using the Drobo brand. We’ve already reviewed the Drobo. Here we review its big brother – the DroboPro. The speed and flexibility of this device make it very attractive. This article gives you much more detail.

Are dropped frames driving you nuts. Here’s a checklist of tips you can use to resolve your dropped frames problem — before you drop your computer out a second-story window.

Nothing lasts forever, and that includes DVD media. This article discusses what you need to know to make sure your backups and precious data survive for the long-haul.

Have you been mystified by all the different files FCP creates? This article explains what you need to know – and where they are hidden.

Here is a ten-step, tested technique to convert DVCProHD sequences into HDV. This would a good way to archive HD sequences if you don’t have a DVCProHD sequence to tape.

The best way to archive your project is to organize it before you even start. This article provides a host of tips on getting organized, what to save and how to go about it.

As we move away from tape and into tapeless video, questions about how to best archive our projects take on a new importance. For many, the issue revolves around the hardware we use to archive. But there is a second question: what video format do we want to use to store our files for the long-term. In this dialog with Philip Hodgetts, we examine this very complex issue and provide some guidance.

I am not a testing organization, but, recently, Jon Schilling over at CalDigit (www.caldigit.com) sent me a 500 GB SATA RAID to examine (Model #S2VR Duo).

What do you do when you have hundreds of hours of material to capture? Well, first, you have a number of decisions to make. This short article outlines what you need to know before you start.

With the camera industry’s head-long rush into tapeless image acquisition, having a soild backup and archiving strategy is critical because video tape masters no longer exist. In this commentary, I discuss the sad state of today’s options and provide suggestions to keep you out of trouble.

I want to share with you something I discovered while working with an AccuSys RAID that totally surprised me. This has NOTHING to do with the RAID itself, but having the RAID made it possible for me to discover this.