Photo courtesy of Taran Rampersad
Photo courtesy of Taran Rampersad

October 5th, 2009 – When I came here for vacation, I decided to bring my iTunes library which is housed in a semi-bulky external Firewire drive. Instead of bringing that drive however, I bought a small cheap USB-powered one. That got me thinking about how secure my song projects are. Although I have songs for clients that will probably never be used again, I’m still worried about losing them.

I currently house them all on my local drive and an external drive. But lately, I’ve been worried about what might happen if the external drive goes down. Am I being paranoid? How many backups does one need? I know many have backups of backups, but is that excessive?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 7:49 am.
Categories: Gear, Questions.

6 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. Sebastien Orban

    External hard drive for me too. I’m thinking about something like this : http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php – easier, and cheaper in the long term.
    Bonus : external esata easy connexion, switching library HD and backup, with the fastest speed achievable.

    Oct 5th, 2009

  2. Julian

    Hi Sean, I’m new to recording…but as an IT geek I have always been crazy about backups. I employ a “two = 1, and 1 = none” formula to my backups — what I mean is I usually have at least 2 external drive backups every week or two and if I have less than 2 I behave as if I have only 1 drive (meaning no back-up at all). I rotate each drive in, with the other external drive in a safe. It sounds a bit over-the-top, but it’s saved me a time or two. Of course drives are more reliable these days, but moving parts is moving parts.
    I recently started using Mozy and backed up my entire music collection and home photos, and I plan to start backup up my nascent PT8 sessions this way too (in addition to the drive). I looked at Mozy and Carbonite and a couple of others and they’re all about the same: unlimited storage. The only problem with these online backup services is bandwidth: this service is untenable with anything less than a cable-modem. I have over 200gb backed up with them and it took about 3 months to do it. Still, it’s a nice piece of mind for $5 a month (and most of these services can send you a USB drive or DVDs if you endure a total crash).

    Anyway, that’s how I currently back things up: rotating external drives (with one always in a safe) and off-site backups via Mozy.

    BTW I love the site, found it thru Joe & HSC. Enjoy Japan & keep up the great work!

    Oct 5th, 2009

  3. Jeff Shattuck

    Sean, get a Drobo. Yes, the box is a little pricey, but once you own one, you can add storage to it just by purchasing internal drives (up to four). If any one drive fails, you will not lose data (must have at least two drives). It’s not fast enough to record to, but that’s not the point. Drobos do backup brilliantly! Love mine.

    Jeff

    Oct 5th, 2009

  4. Steve

    I tend to do three or four things, dependent on my perceived value of the data.

    1/ I use a MAC so have the Apple Time Machine app running 24×7 and that backs up to an external firewire drive.. That app backs up everything.
    2/ I have a complete backup boot disk (on a USB drive) in case anything goes wrong and I keep it fully patched and fully operational working. This is only my boot system but it will allow me to restore from the Time Machine if required.
    3/ Any data I consider critical I manually back up to a second USB based external drive.
    4/ I put really critical stuff onto a DVD(s) just in case.
    5/ I also run MobileMe and have a set if super critical stuff on there but as it is not a very large storage space I tend to be careful what I put on that.

    I also have a file server available which has some stuff on it and that is also backed up automatically. So I have a lotta backups really.. But really only 4 primary ones..
    Time Machine, Manual Backup, DVD and MobileMe. And two of these are pretty well automated.. set and forget systems.

    Steve

    Oct 5th, 2009

  5. Sean

    @Sebastien : I’ve seen something like that before from a company called Brando. Is dust a worry?

    @Julian : If I transferred 200 gigs, my internet provider might lock me down. Online backups seem like a good idea though. Just in case my house burns down I’ll always have my files.

    @Jeff : Drobos look pretty slick! They would look good next to a hackintosh :)

    @Steve : Wow…that’s a lot of backups. I should really consider using Time Machine as well. I have a fresh disk image on another drive to install if my system goes down. Although I’m going to have to create a new one when I do a Snow Leopard fresh install.

    Oct 7th, 2009

  6. Sebastien Orban

    @Sean : it seem not. There’s a protection trap after all, and well, I suppose you’re going to let some HD in there often.

    Oct 15th, 2009

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