Developing Connections to the Past

Scaling and Protecting An Irreplaceable Archive

Does a photograph that no one’s ever seen have any value? For Levi Bettwiesser, the answer is yes. A film technician by trade, Bettwiesser was fascinated by the untold stories behind undeveloped rolls of film he found in thrift stores. He began to amass a collection of images he had developed in his home studio and put them online, and The Rescued Film Project was born.

When a video detailing his painstaking restoration of 30 rolls of undeveloped film shot by an American soldier during World War II went viral, the project was deluged with hundreds of rolls of found film from all over the world. These images, each capturing a moment in time that was intended to be remembered, were never developed, and in many cases degraded by heat, moisture and age.

Through The Rescued Film Project, these personal experiences are brought to life and shared, reconnecting family members and allowing people across borders and cultures to discover a forgotten past. Working with Seagate, Bettwiesser and his team have doubled the speed that they can process the film, enabling them to tackle an enormous backlog and scale the scope of the project to process, preserve and share the memories of thousands more people.

Managing a growing tidal wave of data isn’t easy.

Dealing with an ever-expanding volume of large files of up to a gigabyte each demands a fast and high-capacity storage solution. The Rescued Film Project turned to Seagate for a solution that could provide an automatic backup process for preserving and protecting the growing library of photos.

Increased back-up speed. Seamless remote access. Complete, reliable security. The ultimate storage solution.

Seagate worked with The Rescued Film Project to build a robust server that could share data with multiple computers, transfer large files, centralize photo storage, and give remote access to the project’s numerous offsite volunteers.

The 20TB 4-bay NAS Pro server that Seagate deployed also has built-in safeguards that protect data should an individual drive ever fail, and automatically back up everything on the cloud. With Seagate, The Rescued Film Project has the best of both worlds: fast local backups with ample room for all of their work, and offsite backups for complete data security.

With a scalable storage solution in place, the story is just beginning.

The Rescued Film Project has already brought over 15,000 forgotten images to life online. Seagate’s new storage and data solutions have helped Bettwieser and his team tackle months of backlog without delay. And with the extra time they’re saving, they now have time to expand the project in other ways, including looking into grant writing, building an online store, and communicating with fans via social media.

See how other organizations are using Seagate to harness the power of their data.