sadicus Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I always clone mye HDD, but I'm researching the advantage (if any) to a backup system. Please post a product link, Anyone that has a helpful opinion about the best product/way to backup Project files and Sample Libraries. I don't ever want to install Toontrack SD3 from the internet. again. lol I have years stored into "Audio Data" and "Cakewalk Projects" Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msmcleod Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I clone my HDDs at least once a month. I keep the most recent 2 backups. For projects, I also use a cloud backup. I've got a batch file that copies my projects & audio files to and from a backup folder. The backup folder is set to sync to Mega (You can also use dropbox, OneDrive etc.. in fact, I use OneDrive for syncing other stuff). The reason for having a backup folder & batch files, is because Cakewalk will crash if you have your cloud sync trying to backup audio files when Cakewalk is writing to them. The other reason is that I have control over when I want it backed up. The initial cloud upload took a few hours (which only needs to be done once). Now when I've finished a session, I just click on the short-cut to my batch file and it's sync'd with the cloud in about a minute or so. I can then go to my laptop, and click on the "copy from cloud" shortcut, and all my projects etc are available on my laptop. A complete restore is usually pretty quick... both the cloud sync & batch files only deal with recent changes, so it doesn't need to download everything... just what I've changed since I imaged my HDD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scook Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Saving installers whenever possible is a good idea. Toontrack provides the option to keep their installers. When the installers placed in the ToonTrack Product Manager download folder, the program will use them instead of downloading them again. Just like the old Cakewalk Command Center. Using per-project audio folders makes it easy to copy complete projects to any location available to the PC. No special software required. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msmcleod Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Just now, scook said: Saving installers whenever possible is a good idea too. Toontrack provides the option to keep their installers. When the installers placed in the ToonTrack Product Manager download folder, the program will use them instead of downloading them again. Just like the old Cakewalk Command Center. That's actually what I use dropbox for..., but yes it's definitely worth storing the installers. I've got them on a portable HDD as well for convenience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sadicus Posted January 10, 2019 Author Share Posted January 10, 2019 (edited) Want I want (I think) is a personal Server (rather than google, dropbox or Onedrive) Something I can see and maintain the hardware. I don't like the idea of a Server in a different country storing the data. A problem I ran into with external HDD was with a 2.5" 465 GB USB3 StarTech. It stores data just fine, but would power down after a few minuets so I could not use it for realtime A/V applications. (yes, windows USB Powersettings were checked.) I only use it for long term storage. Some drives (like Silicon Power Armor ) look good and have the correct amount of storage, but I'm concerned that the drive will power down. Anyone know what features to look for audio/video Edited January 10, 2019 by sadicus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Walker Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I back up nightly (technically at 3AM) to a Drobo (https://www.drobo.com/) using Acronis (https://www.acronis.com). I include all working directories (documents, samples, audio, video, pictures, etc.). Once a week or so, on a different computer, I manually run a sync of my backup directories on the drobo to AWS S3 (https://aws.amazon.com/s3/)--I used to have a script that did it, but it's only as reliable as my remembering to check that it ran anyway; it's just as easy to launch the script manually. Regarding your issue with cloud storage; If you only have a copy of your data at your house, even if it's in multiple places, you're screwed if your house burns down. I use S3 because I know the storage is in the U.S. (virginia to be precise)--and it's CHEAP! It takes some getting used to, it's not nearly as pretty as Dropbox. I used to try to keep a pristine image of my DAW using Acronis True Image so that I could just restore it without having to do any installs. I always had issues with the image getting so out of date that I'd have to reinstall almost everything from scratch anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backup Everything Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 Hi, Why not try Backup Everything, you can backup PC's, Servers and much more plus they come highly recommended. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aether.roots Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 I keep two physical local backups - in different locations - and in the cloud using Backblaze https://backblaze.com. It's low cost, easy to use and reliable. I work for a cloud/SaaS service so perhaps I'm more comfortable with the idea of my bits being somewhere out there in the cloud I backup after every studio session and nightly. Backblaze has a realtime option but I opt for manual syncs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noynekker Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 I've used Macrium Reflect for a few years now. https://www.macrium.com Highly intuitive and customizable backups and clones. I've also used it to clone my OS to a larger SSD, and I was able to recover some lost data, even individual files, without having to restore a whole drive volume. Good solid British software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misha Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 I was also researching a way to effectively backup things recently. I decided not to use third party software...because who knows... I settled for native Windows HD "image" backup as far as whole hard drive goes. For now, I have my Hard drive image created by Windows, including recovery partitions and once in couple of weeks I manually copy folders that get new material. Somebody mentioned Microsoft SyncToy. An app that can sync 2 folders (internal/external). I tried it some time ago, for non-music related things and if I remember correctly, it worked fine. I think this is the route I will take. Make HD image once in a few months + use Microsoft SyncToy to update loose folders on external drive that get new stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 I make daily images with an automatic schedule, to an attached USB3 drive. Then weekly I take another image to an external drive that gets stored elsewhere. No problems with out of date software that way. If I do major software updates, then I run a new image directly afterwards. And if I update important documents I zip up a copy of them into a folder and sync just that folder, not my entire system, to Dropbox. If I ever run into serious problems, I just drop back to the last known good image. I never have to worry about backups that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenLight Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 I have been using the free software Veeam Agent for Windows, it's from Swiss company Veeam, they are big in corporate backup solutions. Veeam Agent for Windows is their free "endpoint" backup solution and you can use it backup entire computers, volumes or on file level. I use it to backup selected folders, including Cakewalk/Sonar projects, on a weekly basis to an external USB-drive. It allows you to keep a selected number of file versions and it allows you to easily use two different USB-drives, if you have another drive you keep off-site and update only occasionally. It's been rock stable, easy to use and a lot better than some backup software I bought... (I'm looking at you, Genie Backup Manager Home... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve_Karl Posted January 14, 2019 Share Posted January 14, 2019 (edited) An other vote for Macrium Reflect Free Version. Changed to Reflect when Acronis (both software and support) failed miserably. I have an old school DOS xcopy .bat file to backup any changes to projects folders and sample libs. to and from 4 PCs. Edited January 14, 2019 by Steve_Karl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Roseberry Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 I've been using Acronis True Image for going on two decades. Have always used it the same way (manually booting from one of their "Rescue Discs") I've never experienced a failure to backup/restore properly. The beauty is the operation is completely clean (nothing installed/nothing running in the background that needs to be shut down)... and the process is done completely outside of the OS. Macrium Reflect and Paragon Backup & Recovery are both good choices. If you install backup software, make sure to disable scheduling services/etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmp Posted February 13, 2019 Share Posted February 13, 2019 On 1/11/2019 at 8:59 PM, aether.roots said: I keep two physical local backups - in different locations - and in the cloud using Backblaze https://backblaze.com. It's low cost, easy to use and reliable. I work for a cloud/SaaS service so perhaps I'm more comfortable with the idea of my bits being somewhere out there in the cloud I backup after every studio session and nightly. Backblaze has a realtime option but I opt for manual syncs. Hey Aether, I saw your post about Backblaze and decided to go with it. I'm very pleased, but I'm getting dropouts, even when I pause it, or choose quit and also disconnect from the internet. I'm wondering if you had any issues with it with dropouts while recording, even stripped down projects. I rarely can get to the end of a song without getting 1 dropout. I even reverted back to my Dec image file and only added Backblaze and it started again. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on this - thanks Gerry Peters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 (edited) I have all of my CW master files (Sonar masters, Bandlab/CW), installers and misc music files on a second drive. CW and all plug-ins and accessories are installed on the main OS drive C:. Cakewalk runs from C-drive but all working files are on D. I do a Windows backup image to the second drive daily. Then I do a daily backup of the second drive to a third drive (usually a 128MB SD card or my external drive.) That third drive is my fail-safe. If things go bad, either the second drive or my third "backup" drive has everything. I can restore the image and working files from either and get going again. If the second drive dies or is trashed, I can restore from the third drive. All three aren't going to die at one time. As a last resort I can reinstall Windows 10, CW and all plugins. Once the first image backup is done, it takes less than 15 minutes to update the image on the second drive and then backup everything to the third drive. Edited February 15, 2019 by Awats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sadicus Posted February 15, 2019 Author Share Posted February 15, 2019 @Awats "Windows backup image" sounds interesting, is it the same a Acronis Disc Clone? The C: drive is 475GB of data that would need to be backed up. I'm guessing you can select specific folders on any drive to backup. (instead of backing up the entire C: drive) Could Clone the entire C: drive periodically, and daily backup only the Cakewalk Projects + Audio Data Folder. Internal Drives: C: OS + Apps + non audio Files D: Cakewalk Projects + Audio Data Folder = 200GBExternal Drives: G: Audio Sample Libraries (Kontakt, Trillion, Toontrack, etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) Go to Settings/Update and Security/Backup. Under "Looking for an older backup?" is Go to Backup and Restore (Windows 7). Click on that. On the left is "Create a system image." It will look for drives large enough for the backup. I use "On a hard disk" and point it to my second drive D. Click next and you will be taken to 'Confirm your back up settings." If you are fine with the destination, click Start Backup at the bottom. If a prior backup exists on that drive it will overwrite it. It "appears" to make an image of the used space on C, not necessary the whole drive including unused space. Finally, Windows doesn't appear to allow the image to be copied to another drive. I need to check. What I haven't tried is to make the image on a blank drive or SD card and then try copying my midi backup folders to that drive. That might work. Edited August 6, 2019 by Awats Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) Making an image of a drive is usually considered to be copying all active partitions on the source drive to a backup image file container on another drive. The image is a snapshot of all contents in all of those drive partitions. When the image is restored to a physical drive it will recreate the exact same image of that drive at the time the image was made, including any boot and recovery partitions. When using disk image backups, there is no need to select individual folders, as the entire drive contents are copied to the image. Since free space is usually not copied, the image file can be smaller than the actual total capacity of the physical source drive. Imaging works very well to backup your internal drives. It is a similar process to cloning, but the image is stored in a file container on the target drive, and doesn't take up an entire physical drive as the target. Cloning is more useful when you just need to swap out to a new drive. You can usually fit several images on a target drive, depending on the capacity. The images can be restored to the original source drive, or to a replacement drive that is at least as big as the source drive. Edited February 16, 2019 by abacab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sadicus Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 Quote Since free space is usually not copied, the image file can be smaller than the actual total capacity of the physical source drive. Thank you, that was what I was wondering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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