Reasoner PSA: backup your hard drive/SSD/whatever - NOW!

[EnochLight]

Having lost irreplaceable samples and song files for a Reason project once upon a time, I'm now a huge advocate of backing up your data. Whether you go cloud based, external drive, or whatever - just do it now!

Here's a great article from iZotope on the difference between backup and archive, as well as an in-depth look at various options and methods of approach out there:

https://www.izotope.com/en/community/bl ... -data.html

[ravisoni]

Thanks for the article. I cannot stress this enough myself, backup (I mean archive) at least 2-3 times a year, or more depending on how much music you produce.

My next dilemma, though, is if I should upgrade my 10 year old external HDD. If the archive goes kaput...

[Soft Enerji]

I make the effort to back up everything every month to a external HDD. This is stored at my mother in law's house and I just swap between the few I have.

I also back up my music stuff every few days to another external HDD..........does that make me obsessive?

[EnochLight]

I make the effort to back up everything every month to a external HDD. This is stored at my mother in law's house and I just swap between the few I have.

I also back up my music stuff every few days to another external HDD..........does that make me obsessive?

No way - that makes you SMART!

[Psuper]

I make the effort to back up everything every month to a external HDD. This is stored at my mother in law's house and I just swap between the few I have.

I also back up my music stuff every few days to another external HDD..........does that make me obsessive?

No way - that makes you SMART!

Offsite storage is the most important. I do it physically, however most use online backup solutions these days.

[deepndark]

I will buy an external H/D in the near future - 2 Terabytes one will do awesomely fine. I once lost some data many years back and don't want to go this through anymore! This reminds me of EditEd4TV, who was always there to remind us, about backing up our data.

[plaamook]

I make the effort to back up everything every month to a external HDD. This is stored at my mother in law's house and I just swap between the few I have.

I also back up my music stuff every few days to another external HDD..........does that make me obsessive?

No, I roll like that except I back up locally to a Lacie Rugged (can't recommend them highly enough) after I do any kind of substantial work and an archival drive ever month or so.

[plaamook]

I will buy an external H/D in the near future - 2 Terabytes one will do awesomely fine. I once lost some data many years back and don't want to go this through anymore! This reminds me of EditEd4TV, who was always there to remind us, about backing up our data.

Again, Lacie Rugged. I'm on the 2TB. It lives in my rucksack with me at all times (I'm that paranoid). I've owned 3-4 of em, upgrading for larger size only. They've all lived in the rucksack and I've never crashed one. Not one. Ever. Unreal tech. Can't understand why anyone buys anything else.

[nickb523]

I backup mercilessly.

Here i have a 128gb NVMe SSD as the system drive (of which i work on the desktop). I back up all the desktop files once or twice a day to another 256gb SSD and then to a further 2 mechanical drives. After that everything goes onto cloud storage once a month.

Now i'm afraid that my house will burn down before i put it on in the cloud... I might need to increase that timing.

ODC kicking in HARD.

[splangie]

I have my data drives mirrored and do scheduled incrementals each day and a full once a week to local data server, which also has mirrored drives. In addition I backup to the "cloud" but for paranoid reasons I have a couple scheduled scripts that create a few dozen pw protected zips and that is what gets saved off site. The scripts can get a bit complicated if you want them to, but that it just for efficiency and to help save space and with versioning.

[Oquasec]

2 factor authenticated email is the best way to go for data storage

[EnochLight]

2 factor authenticated email is the best way to go for data storage

How so? I'm not sure what that has to do with backing up your data. Would love to hear more, though!

[Oquasec]

Google drive is the fastest, safest solution for cloud backup so far outside of those dedicated backup services.

[EnochLight]

Google drive is the fastest, safest solution for cloud backup so far outside of those dedicated backup services.

BlackBlaze rates the fastest for upload speed as far as I know, and data safety via Google services are questionable at best. It's an advertising company that sells your data for profit - that's Google's whole business. Storing sensitive data on their servers? Eh... I'll stick with BlackBlaze.

I do use Google Drive for non-sensitive stuff, though.

[Oquasec]

Woah what's the little gem of a service here?hello

[BRIGGS]

I was using just google drive...but the song fIles are getting bigger. Muliple cloud accounts is the way to go.

I usually backup my whole song folder if I strike a gold. No sense in backing up everyday noodlings.

Also, I've had many good experiences with samsung memory. I have a samsung 850 evo 256 ssd. That goes for ss evo micro sd cards aswell. Sandisk works ok for awhile, but develops errors and I have to reformat.

[Re8et]

Also, I've had many good experiences with samsung memory. I have a samsung 850 evo 256 ssd. That goes for ss evo micro sd cards aswell. Sandisk works ok for awhile, but develops errors and I have to reformat.

Do you mean sd cards develops errors or also normal SSDs> 256/500/1tb?
I had just back upped my 4 years old 2 tb 7500rpm disk, which just happened to go crap, and I made a full recovery in two days...
My whole wave Master discography in it was recovered. but I had errors. Lots of skipping in the wave files.
The disk was used with a mixed windows and linux environment, because it was periodically updated in content, and a bad sata/usb connection could have been the culprit. Wd usb3 portable owners beware. After recover and reformat the disk was then transferred to an offline rig/ old win7 pc

The point is act before its too late is always valid, especially if you see warning signs and ignore them (I did) because it's costly, etc.
Got a new 4tb Barracuda drive for under 160e. Thinking of getting back up my Raid drive with two of these tiny jewels.

Great article, I like the TAPE part, I did not know it was possible to store data other than audio/video on big tapes, like studio tapes, or beta.
I guess smoking is prohibited at US congress a long way!

[EnochLight]

I'm at a point now where all of my audio production content (Reason data, samples, refills, song projects, rex files, etc) are on a 256 GB SSD in my production machine (an "old" OCZ Vertex 4), and my main programs/OS drive is on a 1 TB Mushkin Reactor SSD... but everything else - my terabytes of video and audio content - are all on actual old fashioned mechanical hard drives.

That OCZ Vertex 4 is approaching 6 years old, though, and it's in constant use. We're really in uncharted territory as far as how long SSD's will last, but taking into consideration there's no moving parts, I'm guessing they'll last longer than old mechanical drives. Most of my mechanical drives fail before hitting 6 years old, though I've had some last longer.

These are all in a machine that is running 24/7, all 365 days out of the year (my main DAW machine also serves as the household media server).

[BRIGGS]

Also, I've had many good experiences with samsung memory. I have a samsung 850 evo 256 ssd. That goes for ss evo micro sd cards aswell. Sandisk works ok for awhile, but develops errors and I have to reformat.

Do you mean sd cards develops errors or also normal SSDs> 256/500/1tb?

micro sd cards...I've never had a Sandisk ssd.

I play it safe, and just buy samsung.

[Oquasec]

I use HDD's since those last well over a decade.
And they store more data for less.
And defragging benefits instead of killing them like defragging would to an ssd

So 2TB hdd> 256gb ssd and 4TB HDD is my next storage purchase instead.

[EnochLight]

You don't need to defrag SSD's anyway; there's no point. I've been using mechanical HDD's for well over 20 years, and I can attest that most do NOT last a decade of constant use. But yeah, they're cheap in the grand scheme of things. If I wanted to replace my 8 TB video drive with one single SSD, I think I'd have to take out a home equity loan! Lol

[Oquasec]

SSD's is still uncharted territory to me so Ima be sticking to the trusty 2TB I have till either it dies or SSD become 70$ for 1TB.

[BRIGGS]

SSD's is still uncharted territory to me so Ima be sticking to the trusty 2TB I have till either it dies or SSD become 70$ for 1TB.

I live in my car (broke musician), so solid state memory is my only option, unless I want to risk shock damage. I had a 2TB hdd die from being in the trunk.