For longer than I care to admit, my entire collection of music and photos have lived on a single external hard disk attached to my MacBook Pro. In an effort to make a backup I used Mozy but recently it stopped working and Mozy’s tech support gave up on me.

I looked long and hard at Network Attached Storage from Synology (and Apple’s Time Capsule) but there were limitations with iPod syncing and streaming to my Xbox 360. The solution was another external drive but in what configuration?

Having good experience with Newer Technology’s miniStack V2, I opted for their Guardian Maximus. A hardware-based RAID-1 solution using the Oxford chipset, it’s a sleek aluminum housing with a single fan and myriad connections of USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800.

I chose the “add your own drives” version and saved myself about $100. Unscrew the case, screw down your drives, reassemble, plug-in to your Mac. I used two Western Digital SATA drives of 750 GB formatted to two volumes: 400 GB to hold my media and another 300 GB for Time Machine (or any other backup method).

What’s to say so far? The Maximus works.

The Enclosure

The case is well-built, aluminum, and jet black. I wasn’t sure how this would look contrasted with my aluminum MacBook Pro but it’s perfectly discreet.

Small and not over-bright LEDs provide a status display for Power, HDD activity (each drive), and a Rebuild indicator. Colors for HDD and Rebuild cycle green/orange/red based on status.

The Maximus isn’t silent like the IcyDock due to the fan at the back of the case. It produces a modest whir but nothing distracting and would be fine in your office or living room. Using FireWire, each drive goes to sleep if your settings are configured as such. I didn’t test this under USB 2.0.

There is no heat coming off the case or fan.

RAID-1 in a Box

According to Newer Tech’s documentation, any failed drives will automatically rebuild once replaced in the case. I didn’t have (or take) the opportunity to test this but you can use the device while the array rebuilds. Newer Tech does state the drives should match in make and model which could present an issue down the road with replacements but I’ll take the chance.

Unfortunately you can’t expand your mirrored pair by replacing one drive at a time (the Synology NAS can do this). Using an external drive as an intermediary should work then populate both (new) drives into the Maximus case. Just a theory.

Missing RAID-0

If you want to operate the Maximus in RAID-0 or independently you’ll need to look at OWC’s Mercury Elite instead. Considering each enclosure looks identical (except color), there must be an agreement in place to offer products with opposing features. A shame, really, because I’d love a matching set of Maximus’ in whichever configuration I choose.

Both cases have jumpers which are used to change operating modes but Newer Tech tells you to leave them alone or void your warranty. I’m guessing RAID-0 is but a jumper away for the Maximus if you wish to dabble.

Real World Usage

I’ve been using the Maximus for about 24 hours with excellent results. Hammered it with file copies. Chained it to a G-RAID2 via FireWire 800 and captured DV footage into Final Cut Pro. No issues.

The Maximus would make an excellent device for editors wishing to have disk redundancy at a smaller cost than RAID-5. However, a second external drive synced with ChronoSync would work similarly.

What’s Enough Backup?

What else of my backup strategy? The Maximus gives me disk redundancy for my media and a Time Machine backup for my MacBook Pro’s hard disk. I will make periodic dupes to my wife’s external drive. Lastly, I’ll balance this off with another shot at Mozy or uploading my photos to Flickr.

Coming from the IT world I’m accustomed to writing documentation. Perhaps none of my employers or clients read the documentation but it gives me the peace of mind to know the facts have been recorded for others.

I discovered that my leanings toward documentation is a rarity. Most people blame time or budget constraints and skip the technical writing. My gut feeling is those people have no idea how to communicate what’s in their head.

The concept of documentation isn’t a favorite task for filmmakers either. Not that it’s my favorite task but it’s important to know your assets.

The project I’m working on has had a few drive failures over the years and clips need recapturing. Final Cut Pro makes it somewhat easy if you’ve logged your clips properly, labeled media with reel numbers, and used consistent timecode on the media. Easy, no?

No.

I’ve got offline clips without reel numbers. The physical media name doesn’t match the clip description and the reel numbers are missing or wrong. Just to make it more fun, the DV timecode has breaks.

The other assistant and I need to sort this out and fortunately there aren’t a lot of missing clips, however I offer up these bits of advice:

1. Label your physical media with a descriptive name and reel number
2. Log your clips using descriptive names and reel numbers (if you’re Type A, go crazy and use scene and take numbers)
3. Stripe your DV tapes before you use them to establish consistent timecode

This is super easy and saves a lot of wasted resources down the road.

I recently started as an assistant editor on an independent feature. It’s one of those projects five years in the making but in the finishing stage of production: picture lock then onto visual effects and music and sound editing.

There’s a teensy problem before we get there… Over time hard drives have crashed without any backup (except the source media) and we’re going back to re-capture the lost files.

What’s interesting is the wasteland of media folders accumulated as the project was edited on other computers or bits of data recovered from odd places. There’s a folder named for each hard disk that’s crashed and rather than consolidate files into a master project folder, the clips were stored in random folders and hurriedly reconnected wherever they were.

The other assistant and I aim to clean this up but it’s interesting at how fundamental file management is, and regardless of your chosen field, how it’s poorly implemented. Whether it’s a giant inbox of e-mail or hard disk of snapshots, keeping things organized and tidy seems the last thing on anyone’s mind.

I’ve never considered myself a compulsive organizer. Instead, I’ve learned the hard way when drives crash, data goes missing or is impossible to work with. Data management is about running a well-oiled machine so you can win the race, not break down before the finish.

NPR had a story this morning about America’s declining amount of sleep. Apparently our society has developed the idea the less amount of sleep we get the more successful we are in our career.

I’ve met people who take pride in their four hours of sleep and leave you with the feeling you should to the same if you want great things from life. Everyone should have a success plan and work smart regardless of your sleep habits. You can look at sleep in two ways:

1. Your body needs rest; perhaps these sleep-deprived people are the small percentage of the population who never gets sick, doesn’t need to diet, and has low cholesterol while eating fried chicken all day - they’re the exception not the rule
2. Getting insufficient sleep could kill you sooner than your well-rested friends
3. Sleep time is like an overdraft account for your time

Although I’m a night owl I force myself to bed around 11:00 PM. I’m most creative and productive when well rested but if it was crunch time on a project I could go until 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM. I’d get about four hours of sleep before my son wakes up.

The idea behind not sleeping is maximizing your time to get things done. If you use all the hours in the day and still have the urge to get more done…you’re out of time. The mental anguish of wanting to do more and no time to do it would drive me mad. I’d rather get as much done before 11:00 PM and know that I could do more if needed.

Those extra hours for sleep are like “rollover minutes” for squeezing more time out of the day when you need it the most.

Although sites like YouTube have democratized filmmaking, it doesn’t mean anyone can make good content. All the fancy tools in the world don’t matter if you’re missing creativity and the aptitude of using those tools.

This video demonstrates how you can re-create the infamous D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach with a few people, compositing software, and talent.

[Via HDforIndies]