Old 11-28-2008, 05:04 AM   #1
Ahmed_vst
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Default Where do you save your back ups?

Hi,
I'm not sure this is the best place to post this; I'm no longer having confidence in these portable storage units, I almost lost everything yesterday when my 500 gig unit was about to stop working for good. I was lucky enough to take some of the stuff out of it before it dies.

Any other idea of how I can back up my music making tools and projects. They are currently 400 gigs in size.

I'm thinking I should have another computer and have all my stuff duplicated there. And leave the second computer only for back up purposes and use a network between the two computers to update the back ups on the second computer.

Any other ideas are appreciated.
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Old 11-28-2008, 05:37 AM   #2
Sheppola
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One of the problems with storage devices getting larger and cheaper is that it's making people forget,"Good houskeeping".
I Make a Master folder for all my songs/projects with sub-folders each with the name of the song/project.When I have done with the song for now I use Reaper's,"Consolidate" option and save using the .ogg format.This means each project is now around 10 times smaller.On average say around 30 meg.This means I can burn over 100 full projects to a DVD R/W.

To use a Usenet auto mobile analogy.You build more roads and more cars will fill them.Same with hard drive space.You buy a bigger hard drive,you will fill it and mainly with unneeded files that you have forgotten about or will never use.
I have a small 40 gig hard drive with over 15 gig left but if I need more space I just burn to CDR/DVDr and put them somewhere safe.
You can also use the consolidated files and upload them to free or pay for web space as another backup copy.

http://www.mediafire.com/
http://stashbox.org/



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Old 11-28-2008, 07:52 AM   #3
hux
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www.sugarsync.com

400gigs is too much for that, but you can back up program files, settings, etc.

I burn projects to cd/dvd once they aren't 'disposable'.
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Old 11-28-2008, 08:31 AM   #4
karhide
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Be carefull of using CDR/DVD ars a back up medium because after time they degrade. I have a number of disks that are now unreadable and it's meant that I have lost data. With the price of harddisk space so cheap now I'd say it's better to have two drives with a copy on each and just make sure the drives are run up and not just left.

I've built a linux server out of old parts and added lots of drive space as well as using an external drive for my projects. Plus I also keep another copy of my projects at my parents house just in case. I've been a softeare engineer for too long to know that you can't have too many backups. You just have to decide what's best for your working methods and then stick to it even though it's really dull.
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Old 11-28-2008, 11:00 AM   #5
stratman
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I back up to two external hard drives. So everything is double backed up.

Pete
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Old 11-28-2008, 11:07 AM   #6
Jae.Thomas
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I have an old computer dedicated as a network backup...

and then an external hdd.

some things are backed up 3 or 4 times, some only once.

i might even start backing up sample drives.

All my samples are on DVD/CD as well, i keep them in the closet, in the dark.

Ive been ok so far.
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Old 11-28-2008, 11:16 AM   #7
RichardM
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I record to a standalone 500 GB drive. At the end of each session, I copy the entire project file over to a separate 500 GB drive. Takes a few minutes, but I let it run while I clean up the music room, hang cable, etc. Two complete copies at all times.
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Old 11-29-2008, 12:30 AM   #8
357mag
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Any hard drive can fail. I personally have never had a hard drive crap out on me but many people have. I also record to an external drive and then back it up to another external drive.

I guess when you think about it, there simply is no such thing as a perfect backup solution because of the very nature of how computers store data, things can fail. That is the nature of the beast.
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Old 11-29-2008, 01:04 AM   #9
Evan
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That's it, a 2nd HD is great for backups for active projects.

DVDs are good for finished projects, just make sure you get quality discs (I use Taiyo Yunden exclusively), and burn at slow speeds (6x or 8x). And having 2nd copies won't hurt either (being a cheap medium as they are).

In terms of software...

The WinRAR archiver offers good compression and can add a recovery record to increase the likelihood of restoring partially damaged archives (in case discs go bad).

Cobian backup (freeware http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm) is a nice tool to do backups in an automated fashion.

Encopy (freeware http://www.geocities.com/micwarecentral/micp.htm) is a tool that will help with damaged discs and attempt to read as much data as possible.
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