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What are the best ways to save music files? I've been burning sessions on a CD and completed projects on an small external hard drive. What do you guys do? And, Matt, how do I get the autosave feature you mentioned in another thread?

Nomi-It sounds like you're mostly covered...but they say your data isn't backed up until you have it stored in 3 SEPARATE locations; like, 1 in the studio, 1 at your guitarist's house (that'll be the first one to get lost) and one at your parents'.You should always have at least one backup of each session on optical media (CD or DVD) since they have a much longer and more durable shelf life than hard drives. You can get several sessions on DVD, but if I can fit one per CD I usually do...then I can label that archive with more detail than if there were 5 or 6 sessions on the same disc.The autosave feature is available in most programs; in Pro Tools HD it's under Pro Tools [ver. #] ---> Preferences ---> Operation ---> Autosave.Even with auto save enabled, though, I'm in the constant habit of pressing apple-S after just about every edit...I'd rather replace my keyboard due to a bum "S" key (which has actually never happened) than lose that perfect take. HTH,Andre

Quote:Quote:...but they say your data isn't backed up until you have it stored in 3 SEPARATE locations; like, 1 in the studio, 1 at your guitarist's house (that'll be the first one to get lost) and one at your parents'.Hey Andre...May I ask you how this is meant? Quote:1 at your guitarist's house (that'll be the first one to get lost) GunterChairman of the guitarists union! I think you get my drift... I'm speaking from personal experience, since I can't seem to keep my guitar picks from disappearing...I mean hundreds of them over the years, just gone, without a trace...maybe those underpants gnomes from South Park have another passion? Andre

The main thing is getting a backup copy off your computer and getting another copy out away from the location where your original and backup reside (in case the place burns down).In my case, I backup daily to a portable external drive and also to a non-public folder on my website (which the host company backs up daily). Since all my stuff is midi based, the project files are very small.

I do about the same thing as Dave for midi files - I upload them to my webserver, and usually while the project is in progress, I'll e-mail myself incremental copies to my second g-mail account. I usually store 192kbps mp3s on my web server and g-mail as well. Finished work and audio files go off site...

I have been guilty of not always following my own advice, but here goes:External USB hard drives with tons of gigabytes (e.g. 80GB, 120GB, 160GB), are very inexpensive nowadays. I'll bet 80GBs are less than $100 (maybe even $80) now. Backing up music files is no different that backing up any important computer files. First, on your main computer, keep everything important under one root folder and a tree of subfolders... That makes dragging and dropping for backup easier. Every day you did work, back up that folder to an external hard drive with a simple drag and drop of (let's say) MyDocuments/NomiHits ... If you only changed one file or folder, obviously you only need to copy that one over. You could overwrite the prior backup or first rename the prior backup folder on the external drive to something like "NomiHits 10-02-06". Some like to rotate the last 5 or so backups, so they have a bit of history.For disaster protection against things like fire or flood, you could buy a 2nd external drive, do a backup less frequently to that, and keep it off-site. Many (me too!) have our backup drives sitting right next to our PC's. Many people and businesses have learned about that the hard way.And, as mentioned, there are web services that provide backup storage on their servers. Personally, I like my own external drives better, but that's a matter of choice.And for smaller files, there are also those little flash memory sticks. I don't consider them as reliable as hard drives, but for short term extra copies they are wonderful. As with hard drives, the storage per dollar goes up every day.Practice safe 'putering Casey

Great topic Nomi! We have a 2 Terabyte Raid "thinger" that we back up everything to nightly (theoretically), which is striped for redudency (so if one of the 4 hard drives fails the other 3 keep the data). We also try to burn a copy to DVD and to a separate hard drive as well after the project is finished. Currently the Terastation, DVD and Hard Drive are in different locations in our studio, but we really should take a copy to our house as well in case of a fire. Something else to keep in mind when using soft synths, pluggins, proprietary software, etc. is to possibly save the song in the most universal file types (e.g. wav, mid). That way 10 years from now when you want to rework a song, you don't have to hunt down "vintage" software. And/or you can also make sure you have a backup of any software you used with the song. The server backup is a good idea too. But I worry about space, our song files get pretty darn large sometimes. But I guess for smaller midi only it works great. And of course, like Andre said, repeat the mantra, ctrl+s, ctrl+s, ctrl+s and throw in a save as every once in a while too.

Yo, duh! Never thought about keeping copies away from me! My way only works if the house burns down with me in it.

Like the smilies say... great answers from everyone. Reading I realized there are several issues.One is the constant saving during a session. I just discovered that ProTools has autosave on automatically, it'll save up to 50 takes. Plus my left hand is permanently in ctrl-s position!!!!Two is saving a session when you're done for the day. This is the area I need help on. I can burn it to a CD-Rewritable or DVD. Or use an external hard drive. I like the idea of storing online but not these giant audio files. Some people have a second computer dedicated to storing audio files. I googled the Terrabyte "thingy" http://www.nanoterabytes.com/store/inde ... ex&cPath=3 and this is a sample of what I found (first on the google list). Which one do you use, Teresa?Three is an off site CD or hard drive backed up less often.Four is permanent archiving of finished projects. I like portable external hard drives because you can take them places. Always have a back up copy off site.Thanks for all the other thoughts, more are welcome. Since each solution costs something, I like to research options.Nomi

Quote: Two is saving a session when you're done for the day. This is the area I need help on. I can burn it to a CD-Rewritable or DVD. Or use an external hard drive. I like the idea of storing online but not these giant audio files.I recommend an external (USB or FW) harddrive for this. It's cost effective, even gigantic drives can be had for around $100 these days, and perhaps even more importantly backups are really fast and painless, which means you'll actually DO them every day . With CDRW's and DVD's, it's always a bit of a hassle and I found myself postponing back-ups because of that. CDR's/DVDR's are good for archiving of course once the song is done.