[ARSCLIST] Digital AUdio File Backups

["Wasserman, Robert A - WHS" <Robert.Wasserman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In our planning over the last few years, we have always produced at
least one backup of every digital file we produced. At first, this was a
second gold CDR when we were only using a pro CDR burner for archiving.
Now with Pro Tools, we currently have the BWAV files on an external
Lacie hard drive, a server, and the server is backed up to tape.

 

We were recently told by IT here that we may lose our space on the
server and our hard drives are also getting full soon. So here are my
questions:

 

1: What good or bad experiences have people had with extracting digital
audio files from server backup tapes? 

 

2: Assuming a digital audio file made it onto more than one backup tape
(stored in different locations) before being taken off a server, can we
trust these multiple backup tapes as our ONLY copies?

 

3: What is the guideline these days on digital audio file backups? Is
having 2 copies, one on a server, one that is backed up to tape enough?
Should we keep a gold CDR/DVDR even with the other 2 copies existing? 

 

4:Now that people have been using gold CDR's for awhile now, has anyone
lost a file on a gold CDR due to scratches or other damage, and having a
backup CDR would have or did solve this file problem?

 

Thanks for your responses.

 

 

 

 

Robert Wasserman
Robert.Wasserman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blocked::mailto:Robert.Wasserman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sound Archives Proj. Asst./Lead Tech.
Wisconsin Historical Society
608-264-6473