Are you backing up your music?

[Mark Kaufman]

I just lost all the family pictures. Foolish, foolish, foolish.Now I'm backing up every night to a 500gb Seagate Free Agent drive. A lot cheaper than heartache.

[dabresk]

I am with Andre on this one. I use a similar backup schema. ALWAYS have something off site somewhere. I back up to several external hard drives, and DVD-R and I have one external 500GB drive that has a full weekly backup off site (safe deposit box) as well.There are many online backup services that are reasonable, but they are designed for smaller backups (you wouldn't want to try to backup gigs of stuff). The more redundancy, the better.If you are really cramped for space, then you could go to tape (know as LTO). Or external DAT drives (I just bought one at work that backs up 160gig:http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/defau ... 1263438You can put the tapes in your pocket.....but tape is not 100% reliable.Again...redundancy,redundancy.I have had several serious crashes over the years and never lost a thing.If you really want to get crazy, use a RAID array with external tape/drives. RAID is explained here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAIDBresky

[edteja]

Thanks for making this reminder. I read the post and ordered a USB drive (320G) and it is happily backing up all my session files and catalog as I type. My sigh of relief should be audible even to those of you wearing high-quality studio headphones.

[elser]

Is anyone using Apple's 'Backup' software to backup audio data either manually or automatically? I've been meaning to setup an automatic backing system with it for audio data.I use it for simple document backup where it backs up automatically to my .mac sight once a week, but haven't taken the time to see if it would work with bigger files backing up to an external hard drive.Elser

[hazineju]

i read all these and 1: totally understand i need to start backing up my music. but,2: am totally confused to which method i should use (online vs. cd/dvd vs. hard drive). i'm pretty broke so a cheap option would be good. i use garage band and am just starting to use logic. if i were to use a cd-r does that mean i'd have to export each individual track to i-tunes and save them all separately (which would suck) how do i save the whole file? and once saved on a back up should i delete it from my computer to create more space and make chances of crashing less likely? a friend recommended getting a "la cie" hard drive using firewire. but right now i live on a tiny caribbean island, it would be difficult to get here (and pricey). ANY insight, recommendations, and tips are appreciated.

[ibanez468]

hazineju,I think what everyone is trying ta' say is, use as many different methods as possible. Use all of the above mentioned ways to back your stuff up, even if you're backing up the same stuff 2 or 3 times, using different media devices. You'll have a back-up of the back-up of the back-up! Now..BACK-UP! I-468

[che]

We are definitely backing up our music!!!!! We have lost stuff before so we know from experience. We have a Terrabite external HD that we use over a network. We also back up the wav's and mp3's to another computer on the network. The actual working files are on the system we use now and the external. Will prob dump some onto DVD's also. Sonar saves "bundle" files which is what we save to DVD.

[davekershaw]

Mar 17, 2008, 2:37pm, gitarrero wrote:oooh yes - I backup with 2 diffrent external hd's, one is on a safe place (outside of my house).Yes, I back up onto an external hard drive, and take that drive home each night. If the studio was in my home, I would be sure to store the external drive somewhere separate and secure.These drives are so cheap now, and I find it much more convenient than using dvd's or online storage.Note: It may be an obvious point, but it's not a good idea to back up onto an external hard drive and leave it in the studio. A thief will have the lot.

[guscave]

Apr 19, 2008, 9:51am, hazineju wrote:i read all these and i use garage band and am just starting to use logic. if i were to use a cd-r does that mean i'd have to export each individual track to i-tunes and save them all separately (which would suck) how do i save the whole file? and once saved on a back up should i delete it from my computer to create more space and make chances of crashing less likely? Make a folder for your song and drag the Garageband project to that folder, then simply drag the folder onto a blank CD or DVD.If you're using a lot of software instruments in Garageband I know it can be a pain to convert them all to audio 1 at a time and then save to external backup, but believe me you will be so thankful when 3 or 5 years down the road you need to bring up that song to do some extra work on it and find that the software or vst's no longer works with your system.I learned that lesson a few years back when a media company requested one of my old songs with some extra edits and I couldn't load the vst instruments anymore (something to do with virus and updated version of software). All I was able to use were the audio files which only contained a few guitar parts. The rest of the song was gone forever, and the media company decided to use something else.Good opportunity lost, new lesson learned. Back up "EVERYTHING".

[hazineju]

thanks guscave, looks like i've got a nice fat project this weekend, one that will be worth it though!