Backup Strategy

[westla]

Just wondering what the best backup strategy is in 2019? Not talking about OS, but rather archiving old DP files, Finale files, etc. Is it worth burning to DVD anymore? Or do you just park old files on hard drives?

[HCMarkus]

I tried the BluRay Burner, but I ended up just, as you say, "parking on hard drives" with lots of redundancy. I just have too much data and can't get up the motivation to burn a ton of optical discs. At least not to date.

[dix]

Right, archiving strategy is very different than back ups.

I’d be surprised if anyone uses optical media, which was never reliable, anymore for archiving. Although it’s risky in the long term, “parking” old projects on spinners is what I do too, using offline-media catalog software so I search for things without the media being mounted. Now that hard drives are so cheap I probably should back up my archives and start archiving to more than one drive in the future as HC does.

[mikehalloran]

Time Machine for backup. I use WD Reds in WD My Cloud boxes. Ethernet or wireless only.

Archiving is done directly to large spinners sitting in an inexpensive USB 3 dock. I transfer the projects over then zip the files. If I ever have to bring one back, I pull it back onto my Mac, then unzip the project.

Unzipping grants file ownership on the Mac you're working on. Failure to zip/unzip can cause problems if the Mac you have isn't the one that created the project. Learned that one the hard way.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

As a side note, remember that digital archives are likely not going to fare well long term (I’m talking 100s of years). If possible, get your good stuff on paper. At worst, it can always be used to wrap fish. Ask Brahms.

[labman]

https://tidbits.com/2015/06/21/11-stupi ... trategies/

I originally saw this on Techtool Pro forum. Wise stuff.

___
My apologies, this isn't about archiving. If i could figure out how to remove my post i would.

[dix]

https://tidbits.com/2015/06/21/11-stupi ... trategies/

I originally saw this on Techtool Pro forum. Wise stuff.

An article on backup strategies. Despite the the subject-line the OP is actually asking about archive strategies.

[labman]

https://tidbits.com/2015/06/21/11-stupi ... trategies/

I originally saw this on Techtool Pro forum. Wise stuff.

An article on backup strategies. Despite the the subject-line the OP is actually asking about archive strategies.

Oops!!! So sorry. Will remove . thanks DIX!!! I need more vitamins for my eyes.

[dix]

It's a good article actually, just OT to the OP's OT subject-line....or something

[FMiguelez]

I tried the BluRay Burner, but I ended up just, as you say, "parking on hard drives" with lots of redundancy. I just have too much data and can't get up the motivation to burn a ton of optical discs. At least not to date.

I feel the same way.

I've looked into it, but just to see how many BlueRay thingies I'd need and how long it would take makes me not want to do it at all.
I know it doesn't hurt to have backups in different media, but is it really necessary now-a-days? Those things hold what, 20-30 GB each? I wonder how long it takes for the burn...
IME, that kind of media doesn't last more than 10 years, judging by most of my old DVD and CD backups, which too many are unreadable by now, despite being stored properly.

I feel pretty safe with triple redundant backups on HDs onsite and offsite. I wonder what could destroy those backups... a Solar Flare? A nuke bomb? If so, our problems would be much nastier than losing our data then... can you imagine? If that happened, we'd most likely go back to living like in Medieval times anyway... No more DP...

[aryeh]

I used to back up to portable LaCie and Seagate drives. I now back up my drives to an Samsung T5 1TB SSD which I carry on my person—a fraction of the size/weight and light years faster. Saying this, I also back everything up to a couple of LaCie 5400 rugged drives, now inexpensive, which I store off site. IMPORTANT: according to my research, HHD drives need to be plugged in run (i.e. read and write to them) approximately every six months to keep them in good operational condition. I do backups at that time before returning them to my off site location.

I’m considered the following (read only archival disc) which I came across in my research. I believe these disks comes in up to 100GB:
1000 Years Archival Verbatim M-Disc BD-R DL Inkjet Printable | 50GB 6x Speed | 5 Pack Jewel Case
https://www.amazon.com/Archival-Verbati ... B01B99WUR6
Of course, one will have to spring for an M-Disk burner but they're not very expensive. At any rate, I've never worked with these disks so I can't vouch for how well they work.

The bottom line, if you value your data, backing up is a very important.

[dix]

My lazy archiving (non) strategy the last few years is, that apart from TM and Backblaze backing up my current projects automatically, I also manually make a backup at the the end of the day to a spinner. Once that's full, rather than archiving as a normal person might, I copy everything on the hard drive to an even bigger spinner, store the previous smaller one and just keep going. I retired and stored my last 4tb spinner a couple months ago after copying to my current 8tb backup/archive spinner, which is now about 60% full.

I'm not recommending this kludgey, uneconomical approach, but it does effectively keep an ongoing archive with minimal effort. As suggested above, I intend to make redundant backups of the archive drives when I have a chance....and ideally start doing my daily backups to multiple drives in the future.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

As I read this thread I am continually reminded that there are at least two kinds of backups. Short term for stuff we may want to access in the coming years, and long term for those works we wish to archive for posterity. If the project is going to a commercial project, such as a film or tv show that has its own set of archival processes, then survival of your score has a better chance of survival even when you’re computers, drives, and mortal body finally give up the ghost. OTOH, if you’re really serious about preserving your work beyond your lifespan, paper is definitely something to consider. I know, I’m repeating myself from an earlier post. It’s pretty important, at least as far as I am concerned regarding my own music.

[dix]

Well, I don't read music and much of what I do is sound design so a paper version would just mean a vivid description

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, I don't read music and much of what I do is sound design so a paper version would just mean a vivid description

In the case of sound deign the product would hopefully be part of a production. I do fear that much of the work that is done in the digital only world will be lost in a hundred years or so. Maybe sooner. Parts of the original Star trek movie have been lost forever due to digital corruption. Even in the silent film world, much of the existing material is preserved because the films were printed on paper (known as paper prints). Since there was no © mechanism for film yet, but there was for pictures, filmmakers made positive prints of the films (most were pretty short at that time). The paper prints survived where the nitrate prints did not!

I've been to the LOC paper print collecting in Culpepper, VA. A reel eye opener (open intended)...

https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014 ... ollection/