You should be able to get a 2TB plug-in USB drive in a portable enclosure for less than $100. If your PC chassis is fitted with front-panel USB sockets, it's painless to plug an external drive in, make a backup, then eject and store the drive away in another room.

PS Bad luck!

Cool, thanks!

Hey, I'm an old fart now. Is tape backup still a thing?

Yes, tape is still going using 400GB and larger drives, but is more suited for incremental backup rather than dumping sessions.

ahhh

Bos is right, an external harddrive is cheap and easy to use. Althought you need to transfer files manually or use a backup software, the other thing is, it's better not to leave it plugged in all the time.. If an electric surge acures you may loose both internal and external drives (rare but I saw it happen)
also you are not safe from natural disaster (flood or fire etc.. )

The only way to be sure is to have the files at more that one place. How far are you gonna go to protect them depends on how much they are Worth to you ;)

I think I'll go with the external drive. Sounds like it's good for backups and cheap.

Thanks!

I use Dropbox and Google drive as well as iCloud, as well as the external drives. People losing data is going to be a big problem, especially with 3rd party plug-insand licensing.

I'm thinking is probably a good idea to print printed versions a of each track effects and all, so when played three any mixer/daw at unity, it's the final mix.

Sorry to hear about that john!

kmetal, post: 430098, member: 37533 wrote: I use Dropbox and Google drive as well as iCloud, as well as the external drives.

You do know that Dropbox and iCloud reserve the rights to use the data you put on their servers... I'd rather bring a HDD to another location every weeks or buy safe online storage.. But that's just me ;)

I didn't know that, but all my data is 'declassified' lol. I like the mobile access and find its nice to have a 'free' automated offsite backup. That's why I asked about those NAS drives, to simulate that experience in a closed network.

For bands, I make them their own soundcloud and Gmail for the project, and that allows limited acces at least from the public. Cheap thumb drives are fine for that too.

But long term, I'd rather have it in as many places i know about, as I can. I'm curious if the material is copywritten, if iCloud still can use it.

Another option is to ask the band to bring an external harddrive and be responsible of their backup.. Can't say that everyone will like that, but it's an idea..

pcrecord, post: 430104, member: 46460 wrote: Another option is to ask the band to bring an external harddrive and be responsible of their backup.. Can't say that everyone will like that, but it's an idea..

This is a great idea, what I always do.
You can either add that into the costs or suggest the talent provide you with backup for their own benefit to do with whatever they choose. This is a confidence builder and insurance that its their work and their responsibility as well. Plus, it will often help clients see why things cost what they do.
Sorry to hear that John. Knowing how great your work usually is, I'm sure its a big loss but I'm also sure you will get something from this that will be even better!
I use portable drives all the time. They're cheep enough and simple to connect like Bos and others put so well. .

pcrecord, post: 430104, member: 46460 wrote: Another option is to ask the band to bring an external harddrive and be responsible of their backup.. Can't say that everyone will like that, but it's an idea..

I love it! I tell each of my clients to do that, none of them have yet lol. They don't even remember to give me a copy of the printed cd usually. Musicians are different breeds

kmetal , just let me dream of my perfect world :ROFLMAO:

Best option is an external hard drive and $40 software (I use Acronis).

I also bet if you get the Acronis you can clone your old HD and be up and running in no time. I've had to do this before. As long as drives spins, the chances of getting your data to include boot sector are pretty high.

I wouldn't bother with tape, not with HD's being so cheap. Depending on you use the system, the schema can be anything between incremental to just copy the whole system with a replace. I do a total system weekly, but if I have been doing work I want to back up, I just initiate the backup overnight before I knock off.

I've been looking at this system recently: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/brh/

I haven't had any issues, nor have I had any symptoms of an impending failure, but then again, do we ever get that? LOL

I've been concerned with this lately... sparked by a nightmare I had a few nights ago, where I lost everything, including this album I've been working on for the last 18 months... :eek:

I like this system because
1.) at $39 it seems to be a very affordable insurance policy, and a really inexpensive peace of mind solution LOL, and...
2.) it's not hardware proprietary... you can restore to any PC/Mac... you have to read the fine print on some of these backup software systems, because some will only restore the system/data back to the same system that was used to back the data up with originally.

FWIW :)

d.

Backup software are great tools.. but they change. In 10 or 15 years, when you are gonna use another backup solution and want to restore files, it's gonna be a challange to:

1. Find the software again if lost
2. Have a computer with a compatible OS
   I'm not saying it's bad, just that people often forget to transfer backup data to the new format of their current solution when they change. When a backup is done in a compressed file(s) you can't read them without the software.

   I prefer an image of the Working OS + Raw data on a drive that you acces instantly.
   For the imaging I use Acronis home.
   To copy files the best I found is Unstoppable copier and it's free!!! It has the option to copy only new or modified files,
   And I works if you have an HDD with damage file system or open files. It will copy everything and show the results instead of stopping and force you to start over.
   http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P29/Unstoppable%20Copier
   Did I say it's free ??? ;)