Best way to archive & delete projects to free space on drive

[shiver_rayfresh]

Hello Everybody,

I wonder what is the best way to archive & delete Flame projects to free space on the system boot drive.

Archive project / sequences is ok for me. (Include render and cache) 

Is it better to Cache Media on Archive ? Because it's heavy !

Cache Media on Archive [ON] + Include Renders  => (1.77 TB)

Cache Media on Archive [OFF] + Include Renders  => (179 GB)

Cache Media on Archive [OFF] + Exclude Renders  => (16 MB)

 

And when the archive is done in external storage solution (NAS for me), What is the right way to delete project ?

Thank you

Regards,

Shiver

[Peter_Tresize]

There is some good advice here:

http://infernoflameflintflaresmoke.blogspot.com/2013/03/autodesk-systems-good-practice-guide.html?q=...

http://infernoflameflintflaresmoke.blogspot.com/2015/11/tips-for-using-archives.html?q=tips+archivin...

In Flame 2016x2 I'm regularly seeing jobs that are archived as cached. But when I open the archive, it restores as uncached. So unless the original material is on the server, I'd be stuffed. I've seen this many times, between many different machines. And was able to verify on the original machine that it was still cached on the original machine. It happened to me agaIn yesterday. Weird things happens like hard committed clips come in with a "mixed" status.

I'd recommend working with an uncached workflow as probably the safest, and backup your job directories outside of the Autodesk archive.  and double check the integrity of the archive that you do make. I'd make a backup of the OTOC contents and keep it with the archive

re: deleting projects:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/FLAME/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-7F43A9A3-C997-4846-8381-69D8F6CF1B2E

To delete a project:

1. Do one of the following: 
   • At start-up, select a project. 
   • In the middle of a session, from the Flame (or Flare) menu, select Project and User Settings. From the Project and User Settings, select the project to delete. You cannot delete the current project. 
2. Click Edit. 
3. The Edit Project dialog click Project Edit and select Delete Project. 
4. Click Delete and then Confirm. When you delete a project, all its associated clips and setups are deleted with the project.

Peter

http://infernoflameflintflaresmoke.blogspot.com/2013/03/autodesk-systems-good-practice-guide.html?q=...  

Archive

1. Keep a copy of all the files in the /usr/discreet/archive directory. These will help you recover archives in the event of corrupted headers. They won’t give you all the information that was in the header, but will let you bring in all the material.

2. Don’t use huge tapes for small projects. This is because the header gets re-written every time the archive is appended to. If you have a large number of jobs and the headers get corrupted then the entire tape will not work. This is the case for video or data archives.

3. Archive regularly. Don’t wait for the stone to fill up before finding out there’s an archiving issue that needs resolving. If there’s a problem with a project and/or clips, resolve it ASAP – don’t let it fester on the system potentially getting worse.

4. By all means archive to an external disk or array but a hard copy of that ought to exist somewhere safe because that disk can get corrupted. E.g. by someone accidentally pulling the power on it – a big problem with external firewire/USB drives.

5. Archiving is not 100% completely reliable so having a plan B or several copies of data wouldn’t be a bad thing. Always back up the OTOC files as a last resort for recovering from corrupted headers.

6. If archiving as a data file – set the file size to be small e.g. use the default 1024MB (1GB) file size. The software will then archive across multiple files. You can then save these files individually onto the storage medium of your choice (e.g. DVD). You’ll have to format the second file as it’s needed but there’s an option box to enable to making all the file segments the same from then on.

7. Archiving and back-ups need to be checked that they have worked. I.e. it is worth checking that your archiving strategy is working BEFORE you need to use it in anger!

8. In our experience it is always better to split a huge project into manageable chunks and archive those separately than have a single enormous archive that requires equally enormous system resource overheads. With file archiving, the [default] segment size of 1024MB (1GB) will get around pretty much all filesystem limitations on all media.

9. Unfinished burn render jobs in the library may stop the project from archiving. Delete any clips ‘pending render’ and do an sw_purge before archiving. This appears to clear up the project.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Dear Shiver,

which is the best way, really according to your flame workflow and IT equipments.

1.77TB huge, but easy and clean to return customs,

who might backup it or revised next time.

as some of my clients, which are post production house based in shanghai,

they have not permission to keep production/agency source material.

179GB seems nice,

for cheaper imac and mac pro,

after TVC generic version present,

remain jobs are easy to an assistants,

one studio i served, they like to do this.

from linux workstation to an iMac, and hand off to assistant to do,

such as add subtitles/lyrics, id card, countdown, final delivery mastering, etc.,

16MB is good for a sound SAN material + DAS caching env

and good Linux workstation is enough faster to rendering Timeline FX  or BFX.

SAN material would be backup by IT department to Tape or Nearline

flame archive (might only setups) should to copy to another project folder (NAS, collabrative)

after job closed, producer will make it offline, such as a DVD burn copy, usually after chinese new year.

finally, i hope my baddest english would be understand 🙂

Yours Lovely,

Samuel G. L.

[shiver_rayfresh]

Hello Samuel,

Thank you, it was what i excepted. I chose the 178 Go solution for my workstation (Mac Pro + 10Gbe NAS).

Don't want to re-render every clips / BFX...

Thank you