Keep enough copies of your recordings

Set your rule

1. Open Tools > Settings… and choose Copies of your footage.
2. Choose how many copies of your footage you want: 1, 2, 3, or More for up to 9. Camera cards follow the same number. Each copy is on a different drive, and the file itself counts as one: 2 means the file and one more copy. The default is 2. The page also says how many files have fewer copies now, with Show them and Plan the missing copies….
3. On the Drives page, tick Available for ingestion for the drives that keep your footage. New copies go only to those drives, and only copies on them count, each drive once. A drive you add is ticked unless you untick it; leave it unticked for a drive that is not yours to keep, such as a friend's. A drive you edit from always stores footage.
4. Click Save.

See what falls short

Choose Library > Library report…. Under Copies it says how many files have fewer copies than your rule asks, for example "1,284 files have fewer copies than your copy rule asks · 310 GB", and on which drives they are. Click the number to see those files. A copy that lacks the recording's proxy or other companions does not count until that drive has them all. The report also says when a recording is on more drives than your rule asks, and what your Removed copies folders hold.

Existing copies count wherever you put them on your Media Organizer storage drives: a file with the same name, size and modified time on another drive is a copy. With Recognise renamed copies by their contents switched on in Settings › Advanced, a copy you renamed counts too. Camera cards never count as a copy, because formatting erases them. A card copied whole onto a drive, camera folders and all, counts like any other folder there.

Fill the gaps

1. Choose Library > Plan remaining copies…, or click Plan remaining copies… beside that line of the library report.
2. The plan covers all your drives, connected or not, so you do not have to plug them all in at once. Copies go only to your Media Organizer storage drives, filled the way Settings › Copying from cards fills drives: the most free space first, or in your order. A drive that is not connected is listed as such and ticked like the others. Under Copy the files from, untick a drive to leave its files out for now; under Copy to, untick a drive that should not receive copies.
3. The answer at the top says what Run will do. When something cannot be placed it says why, for example that each copy of a file goes on a different drive and the drives ticked already hold it, and which of your storage drives to tick, with a button that ticks it. Only when none of your storage drives has room does it ask for more drive space. Show the files lists the files concerned.
4. Open a line such as "WD1 → WD3 · connect WD3" to see the folders and files it will copy; the end of the line names the drives that pair still needs plugged in. When a file is in several places, it is copied from a drive that is connected, then from a drive rather than a camera card, then from the drive that holds the most of the files to copy, so you have fewer drives to connect.
5. While a copy waits for a drive, its line in the bar at the bottom of the window names the drive to connect in red and the drives you can unplug, so you can work through the plan a few drives at a time. Refresh makes the plan again after something changed, such as a scan that finished.
6. Click Run. The window closes and the copies appear in the Activity panel. Those between connected drives start at once; the others wait for their drive.

New copies go into your library's folders on each drive, under the folder levels you chose for camera cards, for example MediaOrganizer\Media\2023\05\20\GoPro HERO9\GX010001.MP4. A recording without a value for a level goes into its No camera-style folder. When a different file already has that name there, the copy is numbered, GX010001 (2).MP4, and its companion files get the same number so they stay together. Nothing is ever overwritten, deleted or suggested for deletion, and copies made earlier into Copies 00000042 folders stay where they are and still count.

Stop using a drive

To take a drive out of use, because you need it for something else, because it is failing, or because it is lost, choose Library > Retire a drive….

1. Say why. I want to use it for something else copies everything from it. It is failing reads it only for files no other drive has, and each of those only once: their second copy is made from the first. Everything else is copied from your other drives, so a weak drive is read as little as possible. It is lost or dead reads nothing from it and lists what only it held.
2. Retiring turns off Media Organizer storage for the drive: its copies stop counting and nothing new goes to it. You can turn it back on with Available for ingestion on the Drives page of Settings.
3. The plan opens with the copies that bring everything on the drive up to your copies rule on your other drives. Click Run; copies that need a drive you have not connected wait for it. In Activity the whole job is one row, named after the drive; its arrow shows each copy under it.
4. When every copy is made, the plan says the drive can be removed.

A camera card copies into storage, from its own window, only the recordings that are on no other drive; the further copies they need are made here, and Plan remaining copies beside the card in the Library opens this plan for the card's files. See Copy a camera card and know when it is safe to format.