When it comes to any sort of profession that deals with a computer, you need to be able to manage your files properly. Never put all you eggs in one basket…in this case in one partition on your hard drive.My current computer system looks like this:

• System – 500 GB (2×250 HDD on raid 0) – — – System files, current projects, past projects.
• External Hard Drive – 500 GB – — – Complete system backup including project files
• External Hard Drive – 200 GB – — – Misc files

This setup is great, except that backing up 465 GB of data ever week became a lengthy process, to such a point I started doing it every month. Only thing is…my operating system crashed without having done a backup for the past month. (thank you Microsoft). — Restoring a previous back up would mean losing any and all new projects for the whole month…can’t let that happen.
New system that I will implement:

• System – 300 GB (2×150 HDD on raid 0) – — – System files
• External Hard Drive – 250 GB – — – Current projects
• External Hard Drive - 250 GB – — – Past projects
• External Hard Drive - 500 GB – — – Projects backup
• External Hard Drive - 200 GB – — – Misc files, System backup

With the above setup, if my system or operating system crashes, I can always take my work to another computer temporarily, and I don’t run the risk of losing my project files as much. Plus backing up less than 300 GB of data isn’t as time consuming as backing up 456 GB

Also…having a spare bootable hard disk with your system drivers installed on it comes in real handy!

Remember to keep the tapes from your projects. Don’t over write the tapes, so that you can use the footage in the future if needed. Use new tapes instead.