You might ask why this question, well let me explain. I love to film for about 30 years, mostly holidays or special occasions, since they are the best memories of the past. When I started filming I shot in VHS, progressed through Hi-8, then digital 1080p and now in 4K. Editing that time was difficult. I used 2 camcorders did analog editing and used audio dub to add music, copying from 1 recorder to the other resulting in a bit blurry final product, but it was the best I could get.I always kept the original tapes for future use, since in my opinion editing tools would improve. And I was correct on that one. Since digital editing became affordable I copied all the original tapes to digital media and re-edited most footage with amazing results. At the moment I still have all my original footage stored on a NAS and some of it in the cloud. With respect to the filesize up to 1080p footage it is still manageable. But with 4K format, storage will become immense.
Well this is why I come up with the question, what do you do with your recordings? Just keep the edited version and get rid of the original recordings or keep everything for future improvements? Opinions and suggestions highly appreciated.

A sensible question when you think about the ramifications. I keep all the footage on an external hard drive. I have been filming for about 3 years and i propose to work through the original stuff and add where necessary to edit better vids. There are a lot of interesting forts and bunkers here where i live and tourists seem to enjoy them.

Bin what I don't like and store what I do on Sandisk 128gb memory sticks. I still have footage and stills from my first flights with the P3P back in 2016. Note that I am only a hobbyist so all of my material is purely for personal use.

I keep all of my raw and completed edited footage in external hard drives.

External hard drives all the way.

I use a second 2tb harddrive just for storing raw footage in my desktop.  Im sure one day once its full ill delete older footage.

I have Synology NAS with 2x 8TB WD RED (JBOD) and I'm keeping all raw footage. I have few 4TB hdd's which I'm using as backup.

Good day. Thank you for that information. It's great to know that you still have those footages with you. The best way on how we can save or store those footages is to save it using an external drive. External drives are portable and handy to use. Thank you.

I maintain 2 NAS devices to keep backups of my media.  One buffalo terrastation (6TB) and a Synology (10TB)  Luckily, I had this setup before i purchased my drone, so it was easy to just carve out some space to save the original files.  I carved out that space to make sure that the original video files aren't subject to my data retention rules.  (yes.  i have data retention rules on my home network.)

External 4tb Hard drive and that backed up to another external 4tb hd.  Keep all the RAW footage in case I want to go back and edit some of it differently.  

store them on my pc on 2 hard drives

I have about 5 external hard drives backing most up.  

I need to go through and make a document that explains what is in each folder better still.  

man this is the biggest problem I have right now. Not only do I use my drone a lot but I also use a gopro and Canon camera all the time. WAY too many videos/pictures.

I tend to keep EVERYTHING. The RAW photos, the raw videos, the edited pics, the edited videos...Its a nightmare and I am paranoid to lose everything so I keep everything backed up on a 1TB NAS drive and then copy it all to a external 1TB drive THEN copy everything to a old SATA 1TB drive I have. Obviously I am paranoid about losing all my media.

its a struggle.

The only thing I got into the habit of doing is when I take panos with my Mavic, say I take a 9 shot RAW picture, once I merge them all into a pano i will usually delete the original separate RAW files just to save some space. When you take a ton of panos it adds up super quick.

I probably could delete a TON of raw video files i have saved, especially ones i put together into edits already but I cant seem to make myself do it. its hard to let go.

ny300z Posted at 2018-6-5 11:12
man this is the biggest problem I have right now. Not only do I use my drone a lot but I also use a gopro and Canon camera all the time. WAY too many videos/pictures.

I tend to keep EVERYTHING. The RAW photos, the raw videos, the edited pics, the edited videos...Its a nightmare and I am paranoid to lose everything so I keep everything backed up on a 1TB NAS drive and then copy it all to a external 1TB drive THEN copy everything to a old SATA 1TB drive I have. Obviously I am paranoid about losing all my media.

That is why I put this question on the forum. I was wondering if I am the only one obsessed with keeping everything for future use. As told I was able to reedit old footage in way better quality after about a decade. Most valueable footage I store in the cloud, I have 1 Tb cloud storage.
But now with 4K it becomes a pain in the ...

Yup a perennial problem for me too. Current solution (similar to previous posts) I use a Synology NAS RAID array currently 4TB mirrored. The drives are rated 1 million hours MTBF. But I still have a 3 generation backup regimen to newer external drives for various irreplaceable folder archive hierarchies. I've not shot enough 4K yet to worry about getting another NAS unit setup - but maybe in a year or so. I don't use cloud storage as effectively I have my own with the NAS unit running on glass - plus I'd rather invest in more of my own kit than pay a sub for 3rd party cloud storage. I also do have some stuff backed up on a remote internet connected system (another country) - just-in-case some act of the almighty etc.