I run a design studio with similar problems to yourself. I back-up current work to tape and archive completed work to optical media. 2 copies: one for internal use and the other for offsite storage.
To help ease your storage burden I suggest lossless compression where possible, eg PSD for your image files and something like Pixlet for your video.
As a rule of thumb I buy only 'name brand' optical media with some archival reputation, either stated on the pack or reviewed in the media. I have archive CDs going back to 1995 which still read fine.
Tape can shed it's magenetic layer over time, hard drives can fail and need expensive recovery. There are no guarantees, but there will be other solutions in the future, so put together a system you can afford to run at the data rate you need, with a view to it lasting 8-10 years and that you'll rearchive to a better solution then, or at least a fresh set of media.
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I run a design studio with similar problems to yourself. I back-up current work to tape and archive completed work to optical media. 2 copies: one for internal use and the other for offsite storage. To help ease your storage burden I suggest lossless compression where possible, eg PSD for your image files and something like Pixlet for your video. As a rule of thumb I buy only 'name brand' optical media with some archival reputation, either stated on the pack or reviewed in the media. I have archive CDs going back to 1995 which still read fine. Tape can shed it's magenetic layer over time, hard drives can fail and need expensive recovery. There are no guarantees, but there will be other solutions in the future, so put together a system you can afford to run at the data rate you need, with a view to it lasting 8-10 years and that you'll rearchive to a better solution then, or at least a fresh set of media.