Members Primal Yell Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 What Backup strategies are you using for the DAW(s), Plug(s), and audio apps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 I have a two bay external firewire enclosure which runs Raid 1, which is mirroring. It cost $100, plus about $75 each for a pair of 500GB hard drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chugheshc2 Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 Backups are not just "another copy".Backups allow you to go back to multiple points in time, not just the last time you made a copy.If you louse up your DAW, and you only figure this out after you have "made another copy", then all you have is two messed up copies.If you have the budget, consider a tape drive; full backups weekly of your DAW, and incremental backups daily will save your bacon one day.I don't have a tape drive - I am small-time as far as sound goes.At my day job I am the backups administrator (ie; actual knowledge of something!)When I get to a point in a project that is worth saving, I bundle it (sonar) and burn it onto a DVD. after that I can always go back to that point in that project. If I make significant progress, I will do this again (2 save points now).RAID is useful for keeping you running in the event you lose a hard drive; it is not a substitute for backing up data.If you have large enough, robust enough RAID, you can keep multiple copies, but a tape drive is likely more economical.Cheers!C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 I have an additional internal drive, plus an external firewire drive, and back all my files up to both of them. In addition, I make sure that all of my computer systems, including external drives, are protected by a UPS system. Further, any current important sessions (read as: not the demo stuff I do of my own tunes, but stuff I do with friends that I don't want to lose, or anything that has any possible commercial value) get backed up over the network to drives on other computers, although not as often as they should, I admit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IsildursBane Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 Consumer-level raid isn't worth the effort or extra expense. If you want mirroring, you're better off just buying a spare drive and making a copy of everything yourself. When dealing with RAID, you've got to worry about the specifics of how the controller handles the data and hope that the controller itself doesn't go bad and make your life miserable. With DIY mirroring, the controllers and interface to the computer are standardized, making it much easier to "rebuild your mirror" (to borrow the terminology) or move the disk to a new machine if the computer itself dies. For long-term storage, DVD's are kind of a PITA if you've got a lot of data, but right now, they're the best we've got. Hopefully Blu-ray storage will come down in price and make some inroads in the next few years. -Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 Consumer-level raid isn't worth the effort or extra expense. If you want mirroring, you're better off just buying a spare drive and making a copy of everything yourself. When dealing with RAID, you've got to worry about the specifics of how the controller handles the data and hope that the controller itself doesn't go bad and make your life miserable. With DIY mirroring, the controllers and interface to the computer are standardized, making it much easier to "rebuild your mirror" (to borrow the terminology) or move the disk to a new machine if the computer itself dies. What exactly isn't my device doing that it should be? All I care about is that if a hard drive fails, I didn't lose my data because there's a copy on the other hard drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 This is an excellent topic, by the way. Thanks Primal Yell for bringing it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IsildursBane Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 What exactly isn't my device doing that it should be? All I care about is that if a hard drive fails, I didn't lose my data because there's a copy on the other hard drive. The issue isn't so much if one of the drives fails. It's if the controller fails or becomes misconfigured. All of your data could be sitting on the drive just fine, but you'll be pulling your hair out trying to get at it. It's very possible that you wouldn't be able to swap the controller out for just any other controller; you could very well have to replace it with the exact same one. Whereas an ATA hard drive (parallel or serial) will work just fine on any corresponding controller. -Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 I don't understand. The hard drives in my device are standard SATA hard drives (Western Digital Caviar, 500GB, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache). Why wouldn't I be able to use them somewhere else? I'm not challenging what you're saying here, I'm just honestly trying to understand. If my arrangement isn't doing what I need, then I need to upgrade it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IsildursBane Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 I don't understand. The hard drives in my device are standard SATA hard drives (Western Digital Caviar, 500GB, 7200 rpm, 16MB cache). Why wouldn't I be able to use them somewhere else? I'm not challenging what you're saying here, I'm just honestly trying to understand. If my arrangement isn't doing what I need, then I need to upgrade it. The RAID controller & software maintains its own records of how the information is stored. You wouldn't be able to just take one of those drives, plug it into another computer and have it fire up like a drive that hadn't been party of a raid array. Mechanically and electrically it would work, and if you reformatted it, you could use it, but you wouldn't be able to get your data. For that, you need the RAID controller & software. Consumer-level RAID has been oversold, IMO. It's not a replacement for good backups and it's not as reliable as enterprise-level raid (which will easily cost you a few thousand dollars). -Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members starsnuffer Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 My DAW disk is a FW800 drive attached to my computer. I also have a NAS (network attached storage) drive that has two disks in a Raid 1 configuration. Timecapsule backs up my computer to the NAS box, and I also have it configured to back up the ProTools session directory of my DAW disk using differential backups. Time capsule is a great program, free (if you have a mac, who doesn't?) and makes it really easy to "go back in time". Hard drives are so cheap these days it makes the old-school "tape" backup rather useless and slow. -W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 18, 2008 Members Share Posted September 18, 2008 External HD drives, one kept in a fireproof media safe. I backup after every session, including the "back up sessions" that Pro Tools does. I also have the whole system backed up to a time in which it was running optimally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Music Calgary Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 Forget tapes and DVDs hard drives are reliable and cheap -- Seagates have a 5 year warranty and cost almost nothing nowadays. You can maintain as many redunant copies as you want with prices these days. By the time you need a new strategy the market will be completely different and there will be all sorts of new options available. Much smarter to update your backup strategy every few years vis-a-vis the best market options available than to commit to some 20 year plan (usually the argument for tape) now IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Primal Yell Posted September 19, 2008 Author Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 I also have the whole system backed up to a time in which it was running optimally. This sounds a little bit scary, cause its a bit of a moving target (when you want to update and try out new plugs and things,) and the shear size of it all may be large depending on the libraries involved . Well not actually scary, but it does make you think twice about things when you have to decide that its time to do a total system back-up and overwrite the previous stable backup...I mean making sure that the changes you do are *in fact* stable.......> your must be keeping a couple of backups (and if necessary another drive) around until the changes are proven safe. Thanks--all the way around for these great ideas!! I want to encourage vigilance with your backups...reinstalling this stuff is about as bad as it gets...well ,..thats just me....but if you don't have to go through the grief, more power to ya.--Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimOBrien Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 How do I archive my recordings - Sound on Sound article How to Choose Archival Media Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chugheshc2 Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 Isuldurbane - I'd put put failure of a RAID controller in the "fairly unlikely" category of things that will happen. Hard drive failure is in the "will happen, matter of time" category. Whether that time is while you are still using the hard drive is the dice roll. That being said, I do not have raid on my DAW (I am cheap, cheap, cheap), but I do have it on my internet/home PC. If the controller fails, I will need to replace it, but if I did not have raid I would still have to replace the controller; Meanwhile, I can suffer the loss of a hard drive and keep on trucking. (Mirrored) Music Calgary - yes, hard drives have gotten much much cheaper, but for gross amounts of data storage tapes are still a good deal (4 Terabytes cartridge is less than $80!, of course the drive is $3K+/- ). I am seeing hard drive cartridge storage products starting to edge into the enterprise storage market. Starsnuffer - many, many (most?) people do not have a mac, and therefore do not have "Time Capsule" available. Regarding backup media writing speeds, I can put 300 - 400GB an hour onto a single tape drive at work. Not really what I would define as "slow". Other recommendations - Keep your DAW off the internet, and use it for DAW, not every-other-flipping thing in the world (if you can afford the hassle/expense of having two computers). Don't install anything you don't have to. It's a funny thing to have to say to people, but I hear it over and over and over - "I installed and now I am having all kinds of problems!!". Once you have a good configuration that is working smoothly, use it. It's a DAW, not a platform for tinkering. (unless you just like tinkering ) cheers! C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Majoria Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 I use a Glyph GT050Q external hard drive and I write directly to it. My DAW also only sees the internet when it absolutely needs to, about once a year. I also keep a copy of all installation files that I download on the Glyph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IsildursBane Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 Isuldurbane - I'd put put failure of a RAID controller in the "fairly unlikely" category of things that will happen. I'm including in that the corruption of configuration data and accidental misconfiguration of the system after it's been in operation. It's not hard for power issues to corrupt one of these systems. If the controller fails, I will need to replace it, but if I did not have raid I would still have to replace the controller The problem is that replacing a controller on a RAID system is not necessarily as easy as it is with replacing a regular ATA controller. It you get the same make & model, you may be ok, but if not, there's no guarantee that the new controller will accept an existing array of drives. With regular ATA controllers, it doesn't matter - just plug the drive in and your golden. The only concern then is whether or not it's a boot disk - the boot configuring could pose some issues, but all of your data is intact. Music Calgary - yes, hard drives have gotten much much cheaper, but for gross amounts of data storage tapes are still a good deal (4 Terabytes cartridge is less than $80!, of course the drive is $3K+/- ). I am seeing hard drive cartridge storage products starting to edge into the enterprise storage market. That's not a bad idea, particularly for someone who generates a lot of data. I shoot a moderate amount of video at work, and DV is about 2GB for every 9 minutes. It's not hard at all for an evening of shooting to hit 50GB (2 cameras + multichannel audio). I don't do enough video right now to justify one of these systems, but if it picks up, I'll definitely give it another look. -Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 19, 2008 Members Share Posted September 19, 2008 This sounds a little bit scary, cause its a bit of a moving target (when you want to update and try out new plugs and things,) and the shear size of it all may be large depending on the libraries involved . Well not actually scary, but it does make you think twice about things when you have to decide that its time to do a total system back-up and overwrite the previous stable backup...I mean making sure that the changes you do are *in fact* stable.......> I'm not overwriting the previous stable backup. My backup IS the previous stable backup. And as far as knowing, what my backup consists of is a stripped-down, optimized OS with a freshly-installed Pro Tools LE 5.1 and its associated plug-ins, and nothing more, which has been running for about a week. That's the most stable that I know how to get my system. I keep the system off the internet, and download all updates from my other computer and then sneakernet it over. your must be keeping a couple of backups (and if necessary another drive) around until the changes are proven safe. I keep several back-ups, of course, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted September 19, 2008 Share Posted September 19, 2008 I back up to external firewire HDD's. I don't have any of my music computers on the internet, and I use a different machine for downloads - I scan them on that machine, then again on the studio's office machine before moving them into one of the control room computers. And no one sticks a drive or disk on to my machine but me. Whenever I do a new OS and program install, I create a Norton Ghost image of the drive and file that away too. It beats the heck out of spending a few hours to reinstall everything from scratch... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Primal Yell Posted September 20, 2008 Author Members Share Posted September 20, 2008 Why do so many favor external HDD'S ?? Are the external HDD's bootable? I thought that the object was to use drive imaging tools like norton ghost for example, which can be bootable in a disaster-- If you're using an imaging tool --why bother to use the external hard drives ? > Thanks for your point of view ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 20, 2008 Members Share Posted September 20, 2008 Why do so many favor external HDD'S ?? I can't speak for anyone else, but I do it for portability, for the ability to have several of HDs (but not whirring all at once), portability, and for the ability to separate them easily from the computer and put them in a fireproof media safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members IsildursBane Posted September 20, 2008 Members Share Posted September 20, 2008 Why do so many favor external HDD'S ?? Are the external HDD's bootable? They don't have to be. If you keep the data separate from the OS/applications, you can backup and move around the data independently from the programs. -Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Majoria Posted September 20, 2008 Members Share Posted September 20, 2008 Your base harddrive can only do so much. If it's running the DAW and recording then there is less ability to dedicate to either. If one drive is running the DAW and another is writing the recording data then you'll have more freedom. It's very possible to have your DAW on the C: and still record to the C: as I've done many times but when I start to stack things up and do multitrack recording, I prefer to use another drive. I like firewire since it's more efficient than USB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted September 20, 2008 Members Share Posted September 20, 2008 Your base harddrive can only do so much. If it's running the DAW and recording then there is less ability to dedicate to either. If one drive is running the DAW and another is writing the recording data then you'll have more freedom. It's very possible to have your DAW on the C: and still record to the C: as I've done many times but when I start to stack things up and do multitrack recording, I prefer to use another drive. I like firewire since it's more efficient than USB. I think he was asking why so many favor an external HD as opposed to a secondary INTERNAL one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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