Are you backing up your music?

fullcirclerecords · Post by **fullcirclerecords** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:58 am

Hi All,My name is Dan Bertrand from Full Circle Records in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I am a musician, songwriter, and have been a computer geek for about 26 years.I am reminding all of you to take the time to back up your precious tunes.A recent horror story in a recording studio caused one of my partners to lose all of the tracks done on the engineer's Mac desktop machine... all of those great tracks lost forever. He is being reimbursed money and studio time to go in again, but I really liked those tracks and they're gone.I have been investigating software for remote backups, and I found a great app called Mozy Backup. I suggest that you check it out. It cost me around $50 per year on my credit card, and there is no limit to the amount of space you can use.I am willing to assist people with questions about this if needed. We are a registered affiliate with Mozy, so any purchases you make through this link will help us to move our record company forward!Here is the link to Mozy: http://www.mozy.com/?ref=3f9a896b&kbid= ... egards,Dan BertrandP.S. : Here is the link to our myspace page: myspace.com/fullcirclerecordcompanyDrop by and have a listen to our flagship artist, and one of my partners, Gene Strandquist.Only one of the songs (Rangeland Rider) has been mastered so far, the rest are preproduction tracks.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:31 am

SECONDED!!! This is REALLY important. I just lost a ton of music in an HD crash and will be paying over $500 to try and recover it. Spend the $100-200 on getting backup hard drives, you won't regret it.

gitarrero · Post by **gitarrero** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:37 am

oooh yes - I backup with 2 diffrent external hd's, one is on a safe place (outside of my house).fortunately I've never received a hd crash, but you can't be sure at all.as for mozy.com we recently had a discussion here on the boards with online-services. the main disatvantage in my opinion is that it's a pian in the butt (uploading time!) if you have LOTS of audio data - 200-300 gb for example.if you don't have to handle such amounts of data, it's a comfortable method I think.cheers,martin

ibanez468 · Post by **ibanez468** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:39 am

Just did! Caught a nasty virus a coupla' weeks ago. Wrestled with it for about a week, trying to get it off, but no such luck. Finally went out and purchased a 500 GB external HD to try and save my precious tunes and other important information. Managed to escape, this time. Re-formatted computer hard drive, loaded the virus protection I shoulda' had on there all along, and so far, all has been well. Got lucky this time around. Might not be so lucky if there should be a next time. Hopefully, there won't be.ibanez468BTW -- Also plan on backing up the external backup to DVD, just as an extra measure of precaution. I'm thinkin', what if the external backup HD craps out on me? Can never be too sure these days. If I have to use a crapload of DVD's, then so be it. I'm almost to the point where I trust the DVD's over a piece of equipment that could fizzle out on me at any given moment. So far, I've been able to recover many a song, bits of information, or programs as result of backing up to DVD, and then storing them away.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:33 pm

If you're using an external HD and only turning it on for backup, the chances that it will die AND your main drive will die are very slim. Backing up to DVD isn't a bad idea, but remember that archival media also has a limited lifespan. You are better off simply replacing your HDs on a regular basis. They are getting so cheap that this should be no problem. $1 gets you about 5gb of storage.

ibanez468 · Post by **ibanez468** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:55 pm

zirc,Yeah, I've heard that about DVD's & CD's as well. I can't recall, but what's the normal lifespan of a dvd or cd? Thing is, I end up using either one long before they end up expiring. But I hear what you're sayin though. There's gotta' be another way of doin this without having to upload & download from some website, and without worrying about a piece of equipment failing, and without some type of media expiring. I'd much rather have my stuff available to me on location. I've heard a few horror stories of hard drives used for storage that end up failing as a result of being placed on the shelf and not being used on a regular basis. I understand that HD's are getting cheaper as time goes on, but I/you/we shouldn't have to continuously purchase hard drive after hard drive after hard drive just keep our stuff protected. I mean, geez, we're not talking about a car here, or a furnace, or an air conditioner. We're talkin' about a stinkin' hard drive or some type of screwy media. But I understand the game though, everything these days is made to break down one way or another so you have to continue to purchase over & over again. Sucks! I remember when I was growin' up, things were built to last! Not the case anymore today.I'm just sayin' somebody's gotta' come up with somethin' that's gonna' last, and that's gonna' work whenever it's needed, no matter how long it sits. Hell, I'm sure somebody'll come up with somethin'. They come up with everything else, right?ibanez468

andreh · Post by **andreh** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:24 pm

Quote:A recent horror story in a recording studio caused one of my partners to lose all of the tracks done on the engineer's Mac desktop machine... all of those great tracks lost forever. He is being reimbursed money and studio time to go in again...The studio lost all his tracks and he's going to record there again? Time to find a new studio...André

andreh · Post by **andreh** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:29 pm

Quote:Yeah, I've heard that about DVD's & CD's as well. I can't recall, but what's the normal lifespan of a dvd or cd? Thing is, I end up using either one long before they end up expiring. BManufacturers of optical media will say their products have a shelf life of 50-100 years, but more conservative 3rd party estimates say anything from 5-50 years.In any case, optical media (CD-R's and DVD-R) are generally considered to be the most robust archival media. I keep an entire backup of my audio drive offsite on another drive, and also have individual sessions backed up on CD-R (or DVD-R if it's bigger than a CD-R will hold).They say you're not truly safe until you have your important files in at least 3 different locations, but people who have even 1 backup are ahead of the curve. Better safe than sorry!André

ibanez468 · Post by **ibanez468** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:40 pm

Dre,I agree with ya'. Not to say that it can't happen, but I have yet to encounter a bad DVD backup. Where's some wood to knock on? Got a pretty good DVD writer (LG) that's been working great. Threw my first crappy DVD writer in a box with a bunch of other computer gear that's not being used anymore. Boy was that one a waste of money. Oh well, I guess we live & learn.ibanez468

mazz · Post by **mazz** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:14 am

I back up to two hard drives as well and also to DVD. I use Toast on Mac and it automatically verifies the DVD/CD after it writes it (data disk only). I like this feature and I imagine it's available on other software/platforms as well.I have a PC slave computer that never sees the internet except for downloading upgrades, etc. Of course, with the Mac, viruses are not an issue! Practice safe data!Mazz

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