Have A Backup Plan

[Starise]

This might apply to a few who jumped ship when they thought SPLAT was forever gone. Luckily things took a turn for the best and the rest is history.

In this case the backup plan was  updating Acronis to the most recent 2020 version. 

My backup drive is 1TB which wasn't large enough to back up my system using Acronis.

Remember when hard drives were 500mb?

[slartabartfast]

I do.

And I remember paying $400 ( a bit more than a grand in inflation adjusted dollars) for a 10 MEGAbyte drive on my first computer.  It is not clear whether masses of data were the driver or the consequence of cheap storage technology, but now for about the index price of Acronis you can buy a 1 TB drive and for ten bucks more a 2TB external drive. 

[craigb]

I still remember paying $610 for a 20 Mb hard drive when they first came out...

[craigb]

Ha!  Slartabartfast was typing about the same thing as I was at the same time.  *Sigh...*  Ok, we're old... 🙄

[Starise]

You are dating yourselves here. Don't worry I'm old too if that helps...ok it doesn't.

 

[Starise]

And 10 dollars then is like 30 dollars now.......or more. At today's prices those would be some salty HDDs indeed. No room for GAS....heck the systems wouldn't handle a plug in then.

[Notes_Norton]

I do a full Acronis image once a week (more if I've done something really important), and backup my data every day.

There are only two kinds of computer users:

1. Those who have had a hard drive crash
2. Those who haven't had a hard drive crash - YET

My first HD was 40M for an Atari/ST and not only was it huge, you could hear it winding up to full spin speed.

Yes I'm also dating myself. I've gotten past lying about my age to the point where I brag about it :D

Notes

[Starise]

I remember playing Atari video games. The ones you fed quarters into.  Were you writing midi on an Atari computer??

I once drooled over one . Managed to get that cleaned up.

[Michael Vogel]

Notes:

“Yes I'm also dating myself. I've gotten past lying about my age to the point where I brag about it :D”

 

When you’re “dating yourself”, who picks up the tab? You or the other person?

Edited January 8, 2020 by Michael Vogel ( MUDGEL)

[Starise]

Great jumpin' Jehosefat....I see Micheal has a 12TB as a storage drive in his sig!

You go big down under!

[Notes_Norton]

19 hours ago, Starise said:

<...snip...>  Were you writing midi on an Atari computer?? <...>

I started my MIDI adventure on the Atari. I asked a friend who recommended it. He had one and loved it. It was easier than DOS and not as expensive as a Mac.

I got the first release of Master Tracks Pro and went for it. I still use MTPro/Windows when I want to do nothing but MIDI because without audio functions, the menu system is efficient (everything one click, no sub-menus and sub-sub-menus to get to the proper dialog box).

I've used MTPro to make backing tracks for my duo http://www.s-cats.com since the late 1980s. I took music theory and arranging in school, plus I play drums, bass, sax, flute, guitar, keys, and wind synthesizer so it was a way to try things out without hiring a band.

I also wrote my first Band-in-a-Box user styles on Atari. After giving them to some friends who told me they liked them better than the styles that came with BiaB, so I put an ad in Electronics Musician Magazine. In a few months I was selling. Then Peter Gannon (of PG Music/Band-in-a-Box creator) called them and offered to convert them to IBM format (what we called Windows back then). I eventually but a PC (DOS-5/Win3.1), a Mac (classic II) and I'm still writing styles for Band-in-a-Box today.

The Atari was a nice computer in it's day. I wanted an Amiga but at the time I had too much on my plate. In retrospect it's a good thing I didn't buy one as the soon became as obsolete as the Atari.

Notes

[Starise]

Interesting Notes. You got in on the ground floor! Great you can do those kinds of things. I agree that simple is usually better. Too much complexity usually extinguishes the small creative potential I have.  Thankfully MIDI was and is still a small format in terms of size and cpu cycles needed to do the job. 

Cakewalk began as a MIDI sequencer which you already knew. I would rate it only second to Cubase in terms of potential for MIDI editing....and there really isn't much one can't do inside of Cakewalk if you know how to do it. I'm probably behind you by at least 10 years, so I remember those computers but I wasn't old enough to own one yet. Not sure if you play in the midi or if you are inputting it one note at a time. Cakewalk is one of the best for MIDI in my opinion. To some extent the MIDI work area can be kept separate for purposes of working in it exclusively since Cakewalk allows for templates that can be saved as scenes.

I  remember DOS and I did some basic work in it but using another totally different system that controlled totally different things. Not music related. It was an old system where I worked that was antiquated a long time ago. We still used it because it controlled large systems and we had no replacement for it at the time.

My first real experience with a sequencer was the ittly bitty one inside of the original Korg M-1 . It was severely limited but I managed to put the entire Handle's Messiah in it and it sounded pretty good!  

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I like Cakewalk too, but my familiarity with MTPro keeps me going back there. I get work done with more time on my musical instruments and less time with my hands on the computer. Since my musical ideas come much faster than I can type, I tend to go to the familiar.

I had Cakewalk 8 at one time and an early Cubase. I thought Cakwalk was OK but the Cubase interface needed a lot of work. I'm sure it's been improved because that was probably in Win 95.

I was in a 5 piece band with the woman who is now my wife, and we had personnel problems, first a bass player quit then a drummer, and the new drummer didn't want to play in bars.

Leilani and I decided to go out as a duo. At first I was recording the backing tracks on a Teac 4 track reel-to-reel, then a Yamaha Keyboard with a primitive sequencer, and then the Atari. It's been a long trip up to now, and I'm sure there are new discoveries further on up the road.

Notes

[Michael Vogel]

14 hours ago, Starise said:

Great jumpin' Jehosefat....I see Micheal has a 12TB as a storage drive in his sig!

You go big down under!

Don’t tell Kenny I go big down under. 🤫

Seriously though:

2 x 1 TB + 2 x 2 TB + 2 x 3 TB = 12 TB
512 GB M.2 NVME boot drive.   

I repurposed drives as bigger sizes got more affordable. Used to run a server for non-essential and infrequently used data.  Now just 1 PC for the lot. I only backup created data and OS images, then transfer to cloud storage. Everything else can be reinstalled from original media not onsite. 

[Starise]

I see now...makes perfect sense!

I have re purposed myself a few times. I'm in the process of re purposing as I speak type this.

I managed to find a 2TB I had as a photo drive so I moved those files onto another drive. My system is imaging my C drive and 4 additional drives. 1TB was not enough I hope 2TB is. 

The thing I'm unsure about is if I would ever need to actually use an image would Acronis be smart enough to determine which one went bad and only image it? I think it is that smart. The other issue is, if I use 1.99 TB to image this computer I only have room for one image meaning that in order to use that drive I have to wipe the good image to make another one..............and IF my computer would somehow fail while I'm writing the new image I'm SOOL ...or better said up the proverbial creek with no paddle 😮 To offset this possibility I will still need another drive so that I can swap them every other time.........unless I want to live on the wild side and possibly pay the price for it.