Charging for HD space or external drives?

junomat · Post by **junomat** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:18 pm

Hey,

Not sure this is the right place to talk about this but I am having a hard time digesting how to (if at all) charge for HD space. Or perhaps I am over analyzing this... I should be sleeping...

What do people do with regards to what the clients pays for with media?

Does one charge for HD space (internal) or do you require clients to buy an external HD to use for the session or do you rent them an external drive? Would it be advisable to rent a drive over and over again?

Do the clients take the drive home with them? Who makes backups, if any...

How do people configure their internal and external drives?

Examples would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, in advance!

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:08 pm

Here's what I do.

I tell people that I am in no way responsible for their files. I burn them a dvd-r with the session files and an audio cd, and tell them if they want to bring an external drive to I'm more than happy to transfer to that in addition to the dvd-r. If I know work will continue on a project, I keep it on the drive. I usually burn a copy to bring home so I can work on it in a better acoustic environment.

If I run out of space I delete stuff that's not a work in progress, or that is a work in progress but so old I could care less. If someone said the song is not finished, but has not worked on it in a year, and I have 110 MB left on the recording drive before a session starts, that'll go. I should have it somewhere on dvd-r at home and if not, the artist should.. I did tell them I wasn't responsible for the files.

I used to have servers at my house with RAID 1 for the OS/boot drive and RAID 5 and RAID 1 arrays for a logical volume made up of several RAID arrays that I added to over time. It's not fun. I don't want to get into the data storage business. I couldn't morally charge for space unless it was space I could guarantee would not disappear or fuck up over time, and that's a whole 'nother can of worms I want no part of.

thecheat · Post by **thecheat** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:24 pm

Hey Dudes

I have a couple big drives i use for projects i feel is part of my service so i let them use all the space they can use for free.

When the session is over, i tell them i cant keep their files around and if they'd like a DVD of a session backup, they can get one, for 10 Bucks a song cause doing this is such a pain in the ass but i bounce all the files down so they are the same length and can be imported into any daw as a courtesy. But when the leave with the DVD, or not i tell them in no uncertain terms that i cant keep all the files around for a rainy day so if they choose not to get the backup, im not responsible for the files.

so after the session is over, regardless if the band purchased the dvd backups or not, i wait till i need more space and start deleting stuff.

I RECOMMEND (hah!) that every project bring their own hard drive to back up to, and some actually do, but i certainly dont require it, the guys who come to me to record dont have money lying around to buy a new hard drive with generally anyway.

just what i do. i know some guys who charge by the gigabyte.

Chris

djimbe · Post by **djimbe** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:59 am

Drive space while working is rolled into the studio fee. A drive is just another piece of gear to me. Clients get a DVD of data or fill their own drive. We even have AIT backups for the truly out of date. The studio holds a copy of the data until the client or their engineer varifies their version is valid, then it goes away. I don't have to hound too many people about "got yer session?...I need space". I seem to get about a 3 day turn around on the client's affirmation that they can see the data on their version. I have enough spare space to accomodate that time span, easy.

Many of our sessions are run by freelancers who keep copies of all the working stuff too. So we can have a bunch of sessions in various stages through the course of a month, but not really see that much in the way of working files on the house drives.

Nick Sevilla · Post by **Nick Sevilla** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:34 am

mobtownstudios wrote:Hey,

Not sure this is the right place to talk about this but I am having a hard time digesting how to (if at all) charge for HD space. Or perhaps I am over analyzing this... I should be sleeping...

What do people do with regards to what the clients pays for with media?

Does one charge for HD space (internal) or do you require clients to buy an external HD to use for the session or do you rent them an external drive? Would it be advisable to rent a drive over and over again?

Do the clients take the drive home with them? Who makes backups, if any...

How do people configure their internal and external drives?

Examples would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, in advance!

Hard drive space is an "expendable" in other words it gets charged to the client.

My clients do this - DVD-r backups, and their own hard drive. I usually back up their projects to DVD-r, and hold them for one year.

After that, and if they are all paid up, I send the DVD-r backup to them via mail.

Cheers

junomat · Post by **junomat** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:36 pm

cool thanks!!!

@?,*???&? · Post by **@?,*???&?** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:21 am

Charging for hard drive space? Hilarious concept. I should start bilking clients for that. Not.

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:52 am

@?,*???&? wrote:Charging for hard drive space? Hilarious concept. I should start bilking clients for that. Not.

Why not? You already bill them for an ebow.

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:51 am

rwc wrote:
@?,*???&? wrote:Charging for hard drive space? Hilarious concept. I should start bilking clients for that. Not.
Why not? You already bill them for an ebow.

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:59 am

below the belt

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:14 pm

rwc wrote:below the belt

huh?

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:31 pm

i tell all my clients that hardrives are cheap and can fail. i provide a drive to record to - they provide a drive to back up to at the end of each session. at the end of the project it's their archive.

a hardrive is cheaper than another session!!

@?,*???&? · Post by **@?,*???&?** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:13 pm

RefD wrote:
rwc wrote:
@?,*???&? wrote:Charging for hard drive space? Hilarious concept. I should start bilking clients for that. Not.
Why not? You already bill them for an ebow.

Oh it's true it's on the list, but nary a client has been billed for it. Come to think of it, nary a client has even bothered playing it...

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:33 am

nary?

Toddf · Post by **Toddf** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 12:13 am

Most all our clients are required to buy a Firewire drive from us. Before hard disc recording clients had to buy tape.

We back up to one of our drives at the end of every session. I do not want to store 2 copys on our drives.

The client needs to take all their material when the project is done. Burning DVD's would cost the client about the same as a drive depending on size. The client having thier own drive just makes the most sense.

We will made data discs of smaller projects as we understand they don't need that much space.

Peace Todd

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