Introduction
A production company lost an entire feature film when their single external drive failed during transport to the color grading facility. No backup existed. The film had to be re-scanned from the original negative at a cost of $40,000 and a 6-week delay. A second copy on a $200 hard drive would have prevented the entire disaster.
The backup strategy planner implements the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two different media types, with one copy offsite. It calculates the cost of each copy across local drives, NAS, LTO tape, and cloud providers, projects data growth over your retention period, and shows you the total cost of protecting your media assets.
Data loss is not a question of if but when. This tool shows you exactly what proper protection costs, and it is always less than the cost of losing the data.
What This Tool Calculates
The planner takes your total data volume in TB, two local storage media selections, a cloud provider for the offsite copy, a retention period in months, and a monthly data growth rate.
It returns a 3-2-1 compliance check (verifying three copies, two media types, and one offsite location), individual costs for each copy, monthly cloud costs, total lifetime cost including growth projections, and a comparison table of storage media options with cost, speed, and lifespan data.
The Formula and How It Works
The 3-2-1 rule is the industry standard for data protection:
3 copies: your working data plus two backups. If any single storage device fails, two copies remain.
2 different media types: storing all copies on the same type of drive means a manufacturing defect or environmental event could destroy all copies simultaneously. Mixing HDD, SSD, NAS, LTO tape, or cloud eliminates single-point-of-failure risks.
1 offsite copy: fire, flood, theft, or power surge at your facility could destroy all local copies. One copy must be physically separate, either in the cloud or at a remote location.
Cost calculation: Local copies are one-time purchases (Data TB * Cost Per TB). Cloud storage is a recurring monthly expense (Data TB * Monthly Rate). Growth projection compounds monthly: each month adds the growth increment to the stored volume, increasing the cloud bill progressively.
Worked example: 10 TB of project data, 0.5 TB monthly growth, 36-month retention. Local Copy 1 (SSD): 10 * $80 = $800. Local Copy 2 (NAS): 10 * $35 = $350. Cloud (Backblaze B2 at $6/TB/month): starts at $60/month, grows to $168/month by month 36. Total cloud over 36 months with growth: approximately $4,104. Additional local storage for growth: 18 TB * $80 + 18 TB * $35 = $2,070. Total lifetime cost: approximately $7,324.
Real-World Examples
Independent Film Post-Production
An independent film generated 8 TB of camera originals plus 4 TB of project files (12 TB total) with no ongoing growth. The planner showed: Copy 1 on a portable SSD ($960), Copy 2 on the editor's NAS ($420), and offsite on Backblaze B2 ($72/month). Over a 12-month post-production period, total cost was $2,244. The producer initially balked at the cloud expense until the planner showed that the cost of re-scanning 35mm film originals after a loss would exceed $50,000.
Production Company Annual Archive
A production company completing 6 projects per year generated approximately 30 TB annually. Starting with 60 TB of existing archive and growing 2.5 TB/month, the planner showed: Copy 1 on LTO-9 tape ($480 for 60 TB), Copy 2 on a RAID 6 NAS ($2,100), cloud on AWS Glacier Deep Archive ($60/month starting). Over 5 years with growth, total cost was $12,840. LTO tape's 30+ year archival lifespan made it the most cost-effective long-term local option at $8/TB versus $80/TB for SSD.
Solo Filmmaker with Limited Budget
A solo documentary filmmaker with 3 TB of footage needed the cheapest viable backup strategy. The planner showed: Copy 1 on a portable HDD ($75), Copy 2 on a second HDD stored at a friend's house ($75), and cloud on Backblaze B2 ($18/month). Total first-year cost: $366. The filmmaker skipped cloud initially and kept the second HDD offsite, achieving a basic 3-2-1 for $150. When funding improved, adding cloud for $18/month completed the strategy.
Storage Media Cost and Characteristics
| Media Type | Cost/TB | Transfer Speed | Lifespan | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| External HDD | ~$25 | ~150 MB/s | 3-5 years | Budget backups, shuttle drives |
| External SSD | ~$80 | ~500-1000 MB/s | 5-10 years | Fast backup, portable offload |
| NVMe (Thunderbolt) | ~$110 | ~2000-3000 MB/s | 5-10 years | DIT carts, active projects |
| NAS (per TB) | ~$35 | ~100-300 MB/s | 5-8 years | Shared storage, RAID arrays |
| LTO-9 Tape | ~$8 | ~400 MB/s | 30+ years | Long-term archive |
| Cloud (Backblaze) | ~$6/mo | Varies | Indefinite | Offsite backup, disaster recovery |
| Cloud (Glacier Deep) | ~$1/mo | 12-48 hr retrieval | Indefinite | Cold archive, rarely accessed |
Pro Tips and Common Mistakes
Pro Tips
- LTO tape is the most cost-effective long-term archive medium at approximately $8/TB with a 30+ year archival lifespan. The upfront cost of an LTO drive ($2,500-$5,000) is significant, but amortized over 100+ TB of archive, it is dramatically cheaper than spinning disk or cloud storage.
- For the offsite copy, choose a cloud provider with free or low-cost egress if you anticipate needing to retrieve data frequently. Backblaze B2 charges $0.01/GB for egress while Wasabi includes free egress. AWS S3 charges $0.09/GB, which means retrieving 10 TB costs $900.
- Verify your backups regularly. An unverified backup is not a backup. Run checksum verification (MD5 or SHA-256) on backup copies monthly. Most backup software includes verification options. A backup that fails verification is worse than no backup because it creates false confidence.
- Consider the time cost of backup, not just the storage cost. Backing up 20 TB over a USB 3.0 connection takes approximately 37 hours. Over Thunderbolt 3, it takes approximately 1 hour. Factor transfer speed into your backup schedule.
Common Mistakes
- Keeping all backup copies in the same physical location. A fire, flood, or theft that destroys your editing suite also destroys every local backup. The '1 offsite' component of 3-2-1 exists specifically for this scenario. Cloud storage or a drive at a separate location is essential.
- Treating RAID as a backup. RAID protects against drive failure but not against accidental deletion, file corruption, ransomware, or physical destruction of the array. RAID is high availability, not backup. You need separate copies on separate devices.
- Forgetting to budget for data growth. A 10 TB archive that grows 0.5 TB per month becomes 28 TB after 3 years. Cloud costs scale linearly with volume, and local storage eventually needs expansion. Budget for growth from the start.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 3-2-1 backup rule?
The 3-2-1 rule states that you should maintain three copies of your data (primary plus two backups), stored on at least two different types of storage media, with one copy kept offsite. This strategy protects against hardware failure (multiple copies), media-type-specific failures (two media types), and site-level disasters like fire or theft (one offsite copy).
How often should I back up production data?
Camera originals should be backed up immediately during the shoot (the DIT's primary responsibility). Project files should be backed up daily during active editing. Archive backups should be verified monthly. The rule of thumb: if losing today's work would cost more time and money than the backup takes, back up more frequently.
Is cloud backup fast enough for large media files?
Initial upload of large volumes (10+ TB) is slow over typical internet connections. At 100 Mbps upload, 10 TB takes approximately 9 days. Many cloud providers offer physical data import services (shipping a drive to their data center) for initial seeding. Once seeded, incremental daily backups of new and changed files are manageable over broadband connections.
Should I use LTO tape or cloud for long-term archive?
LTO tape costs less per TB ($8 vs $6-23/month for cloud) and has a 30+ year archival lifespan with no ongoing fees. Cloud storage has no upfront hardware cost but accumulates monthly fees indefinitely. For 50+ TB archives held for 5+ years, LTO is typically cheaper. For smaller archives or those needing frequent remote access, cloud is more convenient.
Start Calculating
Data loss is the single most expensive preventable failure in post-production. The 3-2-1 rule provides a proven framework for protection, and the cost of implementing it is always a fraction of the cost of losing irreplaceable media.
Configure your backup strategy above and see what proper data protection costs for your workflow. How many copies of your current project exist right now, and where are they stored?
