Do you use backup software ?

[gainreduction]

I backup my work daily by "drag and drop" to two other drives.

Although this has been trouble free so far, I'm afraid someday I'm gonna erase the wrong folder.

How do you backup ? What's your procedure ? Do you use software ?

Is Retrospect the way to go ?

Thanx.

[espasonico]

I have never used back-up software for daily work. I just make the files appear by modification and add the new ones. I never replace anything ( folders, files, etc ). I have a folder with the old reels and if I ever have modified a file ( with the pencil, etc ) I put the old file in another folder called ( old files ) just in case.

I have never had any problems but I never replace the old with the new ( that´s when you can get into trouble ).

But I have to recognise that after a 16 hour session work is very scary, not because overwritting something ( the software warns you ) but if you have worked in 10 sessions ( overdubs ), even if you have colored the folder ( wich is something I always do after working on a song ) you can forget to back-up. Most of the time I check the back-up the next day.

I have used Retrospect when we were using Ultrium tapes for Back-up a full album but I don´t need that for daily work.

[henryrobinett]

I use SuperDuper nightly. I have a fw drive partitioned 3 ways. I then have SD do incremental backups of the system to one, Sound (active samples, MP3s and iTunes) to another and current projects Audio to a 3rd. This happens while I sleep. It's the first thing I double check in the morning. Never an issue. I just have to remember to turn on my FW drives. If I do I just back up first thing in the morning. It only takes about 10 minutes total.

[Albert]

I use ChronoSync for work in progress type backups of specific projects & folders. I also use Deja Vu for automated daily backups, and for cloning my boot drive.

The cloned drive just saved my butt today. For some reason my mail program crashed and took the mail prefs with it. I simply copied the prefs off the clone drive to the proper folder in the boot drive and picked up where I left off.

It seems like a drive failure will never happen to you until it does, and then you suddenly realize the importance of having a systematic backup routine in place. And you realize the need for extra drives to handle the data.

[henryrobinett]

Whew! Ain't that the troof. I've had way too many serious crashes, drive failures and dumps lately not to be deliberately very cautious. For now at least I'm sold on the cloners. It's saved my butt more than once. And once is goood enough! Never is good enough for peace of minid.

[G-Dawg]

i do it by dragging and dropping. i dont trust software enough to handle my backups plus this way i force myself into doing it and making sure it gets done right.

[mac black]

I use silver keeper.
Make sure 'never remove files' is ticked ... i lost 5 songs when i didn't check ...
works great otherwise, 5 minutes everynight and its done.

[Albert]

You better double check when using silver keeper that your files are actually being backed up. I used silver keeper briefly until I checked the backup folder and discovered that the files were not actually being backed up! Or that they were backed up partially, or sometimes and not other times. Sometimes I had to run the backup a few times for silver keeper to get it right. Beware.

The thing about copying folders is that it doesn't work for creating bootable clone drives. Invisible files on the boot drive will not be copied.

I also just prefer to hit a macro and have all the various backups execute themselves, rather than doing all that dragging and dropping. If you get into backing up more than just a few current projects, you'll find dragging and dropping gets very cumbersome.

Think about all the files, apps, folders, etc. that you would have to back up in order to make a seemless transition if something goes wrong. It's actually quite a few files that become "critical" files in that scenario.

[s.d.finley]

no software for me....I just burn it all to DVD-R...

sdf

[henryrobinett]

I'm with Albert. It's been important for me to have a bootable clone. Then a couple of times when my system went floogey, I was able to just launch the bootable clone and fix and/or undo whatever stupidity I have just done.

And yeah, I save to DVD after the projects done or after their initial session or at a major break point, like pre mixing, or guitars finished now it's vocals.

[bleen]

I've been using Tri-Backup on OSX between two drives - killer stuff; it looks at any changes made to the original and only updates those changes on the copy. Great at the end of the day and you don't want to have to wait for the 75GB partition to copy completely.

[henryrobinett]

Have I posted this here. Interesting read re backup apps and cloners/cloning.

http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/...tware-harmful/

[ntimkovich]

In the PC world, Windows comes with a built-in backup program called NTBackup. You can specify what, when and where to, and schedule it nightly. Particularly useful if you are in a networked environment, although it works locally as well.

The best part of NTBackup is that you can grab "System State", which will also backup your registry and driver files. If you system fails, you can do a complete restore and you'll be back up and running in no time.

On an XP system, go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.

It'll save your keister....

all the best,
nick

[mac black]

Ok, Im worried !!!

If I use silver keeper to backup songs (logic&PT) and audio files of all sorts, am I in danger of loosing info ?
Should I use super duper?

mac

[henryrobinett]

Well, based on that article, I wouldn't use it. But you have to believe the test results.

[Jam]

Carbon copy cloner on the Mac here for overall backups, but manually for songs and stuff. What's bizzare is that I have no idea why !!

But it works for me.

James

[karl]

I don't really understand what we are losing with programs like Carbon Clone Copier. I used it to resurect my system after a drive went down. All I can tell that I lost is some challenge response codes. Everything else seems fine. Maybe it would only be critical for audio, but I just drag and drop or save session copy.

[Albert]

CCC is a good program, I used it for a while. I just find Deja Vu a little easier as far as the user interface.

If you are using silver keeper, just check your backup folder to see that everything is there as it should be. Perhaps it wasn't working properly on my system. I was first alerted to the problem on Versiontracker, where a user complained his fodlers weren't being completely backed up. I checked my own folders and lo and behold they indded were not being backed up properly. I had to run the backup 3-4 times sometimes for it to "take" properly. So just check your backup folder to see if it is working right for you. It may be.

[xist]

SuperDuper for me

[Switchcraft]

DATA backup X. Works great and lets you save back up projects seperately and seave them.

[espasonico]

It just doesn´t make any sense to use a back-up software that you have to check.

It´s faster to do it manually

[Albert]

Originally Posted by espasonico

It just doesn´t make any sense to use a back-up software that you have to check.

Agreed, that's why I don't use backup software that I don't trust. However, if you do get into cloning drives and backing up more than just current project files, it saves a lot of time to have software to automate that process.

I also find that the easier it is to back up, the more often I do it.

The question you have to ask yourself is: If I lose my boot drive or the drive with all my files on it, can I recover without losing data and how long will that recovery take?

[espasonico]

When I´m working on a project I use one drive for working and another for back-up. These are always firewire drives that I give to the record company when we finish the project ( in many cases they ask us to keep the BU ) so it´s not that hard to do manual back-up after each session if you have colored the folders of the sessions you have worked during the day.

One thing is to back-up the daily job or sessions stuff and another is to have a copy of your boot drive wich is a completly different thing but also very important.

One thing I like about MACs is that you can boot using a Firewire drive but I have never boot from a firewire drive ( we´ve got one with OS, PT, etc ) if my inside boot drive has died. I don´t know if that woud work. Does anybody ?

[henryrobinett]

Yes it works. It's saved my butt a few times when either I've done something stupid. like installed a corrupt file and get nothing but Kernal Panics, or when something in the OS goes strange. I've then booted from the firewire and fixed whatever I couldn't before. In the case I'm thinking of, the G5 wouldn't boot at all. I needed to remove a file from the preferences folder, but I couldn't do it from the install disk.

[espasonico]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Yes it works. It's saved my butt a few times when either I've done something stupid. like installed a corrupt file and get nothing but Kernal Panics, or when something in the OS goes strange. I've then booted from the firewire and fixed whatever I couldn't before. In the case I'm thinking of, the G5 wouldn't boot at all. I needed to remove a file from the preferences folder, but I couldn't do it from the install disk.

Ok, I know that but if you take out of the computer the inside boot drive, can you still boot with a firewire drive ?

[henryrobinett]

Yes, I'm 99% sure I've done that too.

[espasonico]

Thanks

[Mike Jasper]

Originally Posted by ntimkovich

In the PC world, Windows comes with a built-in backup program called NTBackup. You can specify what, when and where to, and schedule it nightly. Particularly useful if you are in a networked environment, although it works locally as well.

The best part of NTBackup is that you can grab "System State", which will also backup your registry and driver files. If you system fails, you can do a complete restore and you'll be back up and running in no time.

On an XP system, go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.

It'll save your keister....

all the best,
nick

I couldn't find it in my system. (Actually, my girlfriend's system, I'm trying to help her out.)

This thread's about two years old, so if anybody has any suggestions for backup programs for Windows, I'd really appreciate it. She's been using Retrospect, but it seems to be screwing up her computer and causing sudden reboots -- especially when she's watching YouTube of all things. She keeps getting Retrospect errors, so that's the main suspect now.

Jasper

[Bryan Talbot]

Retrospect, to DVD's.

[Mike Jasper]

She's using Retrospect to an external hard drive. Are you saying she'll have better luck with Retrospect to DVDs?

I'd really rather find a recommendation other than Retrospect. She's on XP, btw.

Jasper