What is the 3-2-1 Backup Rule for Modern M&E Workflows?

What the 3-2-1 backup rule means in practice, how it applies to M&E, and how MASV + ShotPut Studio can help remove storage bottlenecks

Video and post-production runs on reliability: When editorial pulls files, colorists stage passes, and VFX waits on plates, every team assumes the media is instantly recoverable. But that only holds true if your storage strategy is bulletproof – and the proven safeguard is the 3-2-1 backup rule to defend against potentially catastrophic data loss.

In this guide we’ll cover what the 3-2-1 video backup workflow really means in practice, how it applies to M&E, and how to use MASV – alongside the ShotPut Studio automated media workflow platform – to conquer bottlenecks, automate data delivery, and protect creative assets from capture to delivery.

• What Is the 3-2-1 Backup Rule?
• Applying 3-2-1 in Post-Production Workflows
• Mastering the 3-2-1 Workflow with MASV
• ShotPut Studio + MASV: Cascading 3-2-1 and Beyond
• Simplifying 3-2-1 for Modern Productions

What Is the 3-2-1 Backup Rule?

The 3-2-1 rule is a time-tested secure media backup strategy for safeguarding data: It requires teams to keep three copies of their files, stored on two different media types, with one copy offsite. More than simply cloud backup for filmmakers, this layered backup strategy addresses both hardware failure and geographic risk.

In short: redundancy keeps you moving when hardware or human factors get in the way.

• 3 copies of your data: A working copy and two backups.
• 2 different media types: Spread your copies across different technologies such as SSD, RAID, LTO, or cloud storage to avoid shared failure modes.
• 1 offsite copy: One geographically separate version that protects against disasters like fire, theft, flooding, or power failures.

However, many pipelines still fail at the hardest step of the 3-2-1 backup rule – creating a reliable, high-performance offsite copy.

Applying the 3-2-1 strategy in Post-Production Workflows

For post supervisors, DITs, and editors, the 3-2-1 backup strategy for video editors and other post teams translates into a repeatable pattern designed for the realities of fast, distributed production.

It’s an M&E backup solution that delivers a consistent method of disaster recovery to guard against the potential of hard drive failure, corruption, human error, or other incidents that can destroy weeks or even months of work in minutes.

Most 3-2-1 backup strategies consist of a mix of online, nearline, and offline storage.

The 3 copies

• Copy 1 – Online working volume: High-performance storage such as NVMe/SSD or SAN. Optimized for throughput and latency. Supports live creative work in editorial, color, and VFX.
• Copy 2 – Nearline local backup: A RAID NAS, SAN, or LTO. This provides local durability and ensures continuity if your primary device fails.
• Copy 3 – Offsite restore anchor: A geographically separate copy, often in cloud object storage, that serves as the last line of defense if your entire facility goes down.

The 2 media types

Mixing media types protects against correlated failures. Industry standards (like Netflix’s production data management guidelines) require original camera files (OCF) and original production audio files (OPA) to be stored on at least two distinct media.

Media types suggested by Netflix include a camera or sound card; NVMe transfer/shuttle drives; RAID 5, 6, 10 or above; LTO 6,7,8, or 9 written in LTFS v.2.0.0 or later; cloud-based file storage.

A balanced storage approach – SSD for speed, RAID for redundancy, and cloud for distance – keeps production schedules safe from single-point surprises.

The 1 offsite version

The “1” in 3-2-1 data backup – offsite backup for video – is where most workflows stumble. Traditional offsite methods create bottlenecks that can threaten delivery timelines. That’s because:

• Physical drives are slow and risky: Shipping media wastes time, doesn’t scale, and exposes sensitive footage to loss or damage.
• Massive file sizes choke standard uploads: Terabytes of full-res deliverables can take days when backing up RAW footage.
• Longer gaps equal higher risk: Each day without an offsite backup increases your exposure to data loss.

It’s best to treat offsite delivery as a same-day outcome: Engineer your data pipeline to complete quickly, verify checksums using tools such as xxHash64be or ASC-MHL, and produce an auditable record of every transfer.

Mastering the 3-2-1 Workflow with MASV

MASV is built for the exact challenge posed by the offsite step in a 3-2-1 storage workflow. It’s the accelerated, automated, and intelligently managed file transfer tool that makes moving massive media files to offsite locations efficient, reliable, and worry-free.

Lightning-fast transfer acceleration

MASV can automate video backup to cloud and moves multi-terabyte packages at the pace of production. Transfers of offsite copies complete on the same day – even while editorial and color continue working – while high throughput, Multiconnect channel bonding, 10Gbps-plus transfer speeds, and automatic retries make large-scale data transfers practical and predictable without transfer babysitting.

Direct-to-cloud integrations

MASV’s Send to Cloud feature lets you skip re-uploads by integrating directly with your preferred cloud storage with no coding required, including:

• Amazon S3
• Microsoft Azure
• Frame.io
• Iconik
• Wasabi
• Backblaze B2

Connect once with a couple of clicks, send once, and MASV delivers your verified copy directly to the right storage – or multiple storage destinations – securely and automatically. This is the way.

File transfer automation and guaranteed delivery

MASV Watch Folders remove manual steps from the file transfer process. Simply point the MASV Desktop App at your verified offload directory and the instant any new files appear, MASV automatically uploads them to your destination.

If a connection drops, the transfer resumes until completion thanks to MASV’s relentless retries and store-and-forward transfer method that ensures successful transfers every time – even if there’s a temporary outage on the recipient side.

The result: guaranteed delivery, zero manual transfer.

Building a complete 3-2-1 workflow with MASV

Here’s how post teams can achieve full 3-2-1 backup compliance using MASV:

• Copy 1 – Online (working copy): Ingest camera media, verify checksums, and store it on your NVMe or SAN working volume.
• Copy 2 – Nearline (local backup): Mirror verified footage to a RAID array or LTO tape for local redundancy.
• Copy 3 – Offsite (via MASV): Using the Desktop App, MASV Watch Folders monitor the verified offload path and automatically send media to your cloud bucket on storage platforms such as S3, Wasabi, or B2.

Result: Your third copy is safely and reliably stored offsite on the same production day, without slowing down the team. Post teams can pull from working copy storage with the peace of mind that they’ve got backup copies ready and available, along with a third copy stored offsite if things really go sideways.

ShotPut Studio + MASV: Cascading 3-2-1 and Beyond

But it gets even better: The new MASV integration inside ShotPut Studio turns your offload process into a 3-2-1 storage workflow within a single app and a single click.

1. Copy and report to your fastest drive (copy 1): Offload to NVMe/SSD and generate a checksum report. This becomes the working copy and verification source.
2. Cascade to a slower drive (copy 2): In the same ShotPut job, create a second copy to your RAID NAS or LTO for local durability.
3. Start uploading to MASV (copy 3+): While the nearline copy writes, MASV begins uploading directly from the fast drive to your Portal.
4. MASV-to-many: From a single upload, you can route files to multiple destinations such as cloud storage, another facility, or on-prem object storage at the same time without re-uploading.

This MASV-Shotput 3-2-1 workflow allows you to copy media from a card to fast storage, add copies of those files to slower storage, start a transcode and move the proxies to slower storage, and upload both the proxies and original camera media to the MASV cloud – all with just one click.

If you haven’t already, check out the video up top for a demonstration.

This cascading copy method clears camera cards faster, stacks transfers in parallel, and keeps your offsite copy in progress while you’re still working locally.