If you've worked with computers before, odds are you've experienced the unfortunate truth that hard drives will eventually fail, files will be easily lost and disks will be mysteriously misplaced. Having a solid data backup system with multiple redundancies is the only way to guarantee your projects will never go astray.
Grammy winners Fab Dupont and Andrew Scheps discuss their strategies and technologies to automate their backups and ensure that they never lose a file and can easily access their sessions from anywhere in the world.
Learn about techniques and the healthy paranoia producers and engineers need to have in order to never lose a client project again.
Use the advanced workflows Andrew and Fab have developed as inspiration to take a look at your own data management strategies and come up with a system that works for you.
00:00:09 Good morning, children! Today,
we're gonna talk about backup strategies
and since no one has the same
backup strategy,
because there are many backup
strategies and no exact guidelines on
how to backup, I thought we'd
do it
with somebody who probably has
a very good backup strategy:
Andrew Scheps!
What's your strategy?
- Well, it changes all the time.
00:00:30 'cause the tools keep changing.
But..
00:00:32 my philosophy
is that if it's not in 3 places
and one of those places
isn't somewhere else
then it's not backed up, and..
00:00:42 that's only because I've actually
been bitten
several times in different ways
by not
adhering to both sides of
that rule.
00:00:50 - Ok..
00:00:51 - The 'having one somewhere else'
is so that somebody else can
get to it, or,
if the place where your other two
are burns down,
that place is still there..
00:01:00 and the being in 3 places
is because it's very difficult
to have
one on-site backup as your
only backup.
00:01:06 So you need one local backup
and one elsewhere.
00:01:09 So that's the general theory.
00:01:11 How I do it changes constantly.
00:01:13 - How is that reliable if it changes
constantly?
You have to keep track of where
your stuff is.
00:01:17 - Yeah, my local backup is always
a second hard drive.
00:01:20 That's it. And so..
00:01:22 Which software I use to back it up
changes..
00:01:25 for a long time I used
Synchronize Pro from Qdea..
like 'idea' but with a 'Q'.
00:01:32 And I would run that backup at
the end of every day.
00:01:35 And this is back before all the
discussion
'Pro Tools got good' and like
you definitely didn't want
anything else going on in the
background ever..
00:01:41 all the way back to the days when
you needed to defragment
every morning before you hit Record.
00:01:45 Now it seems like you could record
an infinite number of tracks
at any sample rate to any
hard drive
while backing it up and looking at
a YouTube video.. so..
00:01:54 that part of it has gone away, so
I started looking for
some more real-time backup options..
00:01:58 'cause I got sick of waiting at
the end of the day..
00:02:00 you finally finish and then:
'oh no, I have to backup..'
So, I started using Synk Pro
..can't remember the name of
the company that makes it..
00:02:10 very clever, integrates itself
into the finder
in a lot of ways and gives you
a way to setup scripts that will auto
run as soon as
anything changes. So, if the folder
gets touched
it just starts backing up.. but it's
also very clever about not
backing up files that were in use..
because Pro Tools will
pre-allocate files..
00:02:30 A lot of the backup programs will
very happily back up
the pre-allocated version,
which is the wrong size
and then it will go back and have
to back up, again..
00:02:37 and at least temporary files and
thing likes that, where Synk Pro
was really good about having
those be identical
but every once in a while I would
get a file that wouldn't
be properly
encapsulated or something, where
a folder would look like a
file, with the creation date of 1969
and there was no way to repair it..
00:02:57 and when you went to run a backup
it would say 'no..
00:02:59 it's all fine, all the files are there.'
But you couldn't
actually open the backed-up file.
00:03:04 And the last thing I want in any backup
is to have to check it.
00:03:07 - Yes.
So now I've gone back to Syncronize Pro
which has all sorts of scheduling
features, which
are accessible only by clicking on the
little backup window
down where it says the last time it was
run and opens up this
myriad of options..
00:03:23 So I've got that set to auto-backup
every 10 minutes.
00:03:25 So that's my local backup thing.
00:03:28 It's every 10 minutes, my active drive
backs up to an exact copy of
the active drive.
00:03:34 - Well, that's very commendable!
- Thank you!
- That's very commendable!
Somebody said: 'if you have one copy,
you are stealing it.'
'If you have 2 copies,
you are borrowing it.'
'If you have 3 copies,
you can think of owning it later.'
- That sounds good!
- Yes, it sounds good.
00:03:55 I used to work the way you did.
00:03:58 But not as thoroughly.
00:04:00 Because I am too lazy for that.
00:04:02 And I don't want to script anything..
00:04:04 so what we did is.. we had an
internal drive
that was
filling up rapidly, but it was
an internal drive. And then we had
incremental drives
like we had Audio A,
we're probably at Audio K right now..
00:04:18 and then we have Audio A Backup.
00:04:20 So we have the internal working copy
then we had the A
backup copy, and then the backup
of the backup.
00:04:27 And we made sure that at the
- in theory - at the end of every day,
we would copy the internal drive
to the backup drive. At the
end of the day.
00:04:39 We still haven't lost a file, so far.
00:04:42 But what we found, is that..
00:04:45 at the end of the 12-hour day
nobody stays to do the backup
and make sure that it doesn't crash.
- Exactly, because if you are
tracking a band, that's 45 minutes
of
backup time, even with fast drives.
- Yes.
00:04:55 Nobody stayed. Not even the
assistant
who was supposed to stay,
I found several times
that the stuff was not backed up.
00:05:00 And so, if anything had happened
to the work drive
we would have been..
and..
00:05:05 I'm gonna used a super-technical
term..
00:05:07 F*CKED.
We used..
00:05:10 Chronosync.
00:05:11 Because Chronosync is very fast
on incrementals,
meaning it doesn't copy all the files
every time.
00:05:16 Either..
00:05:18 that was wonderful and all
but..
00:05:21 you know, we still haven't had
a problem but there were risks.
00:05:25 The opposite of backup is
'risk', the idea of it is not
having a risk.
00:05:29 And also, we would backup
so the backup, to the backup of the
backup,
once a week or once a month.
00:05:36 Which also didn't always happen,
depending on
who got fired, who got hired
who was travelling and everything.
00:05:41 So, that sucked.
00:05:43 So we had to change it.
I came up with a
different system. So, what's your
new system?
Well, my new system is:
I'll still
do my local backups the same way.
00:05:52 And they're running at 10-minute
increments
using,
the Qdea Synchronize Pro X.
00:05:59 Which is also really good for making
bootable backups of your startup
drive. Which is another thing I
try to remember to do, every week
or so..
00:06:06 Because you update things and you
forget.
00:06:08 And if you have to go back
a month on your startup drive
you've got sessions that won't
open. So,
I try and be good about that,
there's tons of other software
which works great:
Carbon Copy Cloner
works really well
for backups that will only
happen every time
both drives appear.
00:06:25 And then it will run in the background
and you can unmount the drive.
00:06:28 But I like to leave my local drives
mounted, so
the off-site backup is what's
changed a lot.
00:06:33 So I used to have
drives that I would bring
in to the house
as opposed to in the studio. Which was
at my house, not in my house.
00:06:41 I guess if the fire would be big
enough..
00:06:43 that wouldn't be enough.
But I am not driving to a bank vault.
00:06:47 Every day.
00:06:48 Since cloud storage..
00:06:51 I've tried a million different ways
to run backups. SugarSync
is a open-source
Linux-based backup strategy
thing, which now there are
a lot of cloud backup
software that's based on it..
00:07:06 and I tried running that for a little
while, and that would run
much the way Synk Pro did work.
It would see the folder that changed..
00:07:13 but because you're going through
Linux and onto servers
your modification dates could change
and all of a sudden, the incremental
backups don't work, anymore.
00:07:22 I'm big fan of Dropbox, the
functionality of it, so at the moment
what I do is I have a second backup
script
that is copying.. so, the..
00:07:33 'main drive to backup drive'
is a backup script.
00:07:36 Then I have a synchronize script,
which is a 2-way backup,
that goes from my main drive
on my active project
into a folder that's in my Dropbox
folder
and I've got the Terabyte plan
for Dropbox.
00:07:49 And that would be uploading in
the background, so that's
backing up to an offsite thing.
Of course we've
just learnt that 68 million
passwords
for Dropbox were compromised
in 2012.. so change your password
right now, if you haven't already.
00:08:04 There are obviously issues with
putting stuff on other
people's drive, so good part is
the way most of these, and
I believe all of these companies work
is that your data can only be
accessed
by you. There's an encrypted
database to the
files, which points to where they
are in the drive
that is encrypted with your
password.
00:08:23 So it's not someone from Dropbox
can go through your stuff..
00:08:26 So unless they're credential files
get compromised, which they did..
00:08:32 your stuff is safe.
00:08:34 Anyway, to get back to what
I'm doing at the moment,
which I'm not sure it's gonna
last too much longer
but I have these backups into
Dropbox, and what it allows me to do
is I can share that folder
with somebody else, if I need
to collaborate
on a session. So if I have somebody
else working on a song
musically, or I've got..
00:08:51 let's say a friend of mine in LA,
which works with me quite a bit,
will sometimes print versions, or do
final tweaks, 'cause I don't have time..
00:08:59 he'll always have the most current
version of the song
working out of the Dropbox folder..
00:09:03 As soon as he's done, I'm downloading
all of his updates, so
so if I have to work on the song..
00:09:08 give it 20 minutes and now
I am right where he
left off, and that will synchronize
itself back onto my main work drive
which then backs itself up onto
my backup drives.
00:09:16 - So what you do when your
1Tb is full?
- As an Amazon Prime subscriber
for $5 a month or $60 a year
you get
unlimited space on Amazon servers.
00:09:28 And I would say of all of the
servers in the world
Amazon server have got to be
the most robust.
00:09:35 They have the most people stuff on
them as well as their own stuff.
00:09:39 A company like Dropbox which isn't
creating their own data..
00:09:42 they could go under and just have the
servers go..
00:09:45 Gobbler had a problem, where they
were renting
server space from someone and all
of a sudden those servers
are no longer available, for a minute.
00:09:52 Everybody's data is - not lost -
but it is not accessible.
00:09:55 Amazon is staying online.
00:09:57 So now what I do
is I then copy from Dropbox
to Amazon
and they're a lot of different
servers which allow you to copy
from cloud drive to cloud drive and
the key to this,
especially because I live in the country
and my internet
is terribly, terribly slow..
00:10:15 is I don't wanna be copying
through my computer. When I was
in LA,
screaming fast internet, it didn't
really bother me to have
to download and re-upload it.
Now, if I've got to
download and re-upload 1Gb
that's a full day.
00:10:28 So, at the moment I am using
a company called MultCloud
which allows me to have multiple cloud
stuff mounted, including FTP shares,
so I've got my web server
as well as my Box account,
my Dropbox account
and my Amazon account
all mounted, and they
are in a web-browser sort of hard drives
so you can actually set up backup
scripts
that run incrementally.
00:10:50 So I can archive to Amazon
from Dropbox,
continue to work on the album
and then run that archive script again
and only the new stuff gets copied.
00:11:02 So far that's working, we'll see
what happens in the future.
00:11:04 - You are a brave soul!
- Thank you.
- I am way, way lazier than you!
- Well I'm lazy 'cause it's all
automated.
00:11:13 - ..ish!
So for those of you whose heads are
spinning
right now, trying to figure out
what's going on..
00:11:18 Andrew has a local backup
and he has - for the current project -
a sync to another folder in his
computer, that one
syncs to Dropbox, online,
the files are
gonna be online.. then he has
another system
where the Dropbox files
get copied
online to online, to the
Amazon S3 servers.
00:11:35 - Correct.
- It's impressive!
- What I am getting to is where on
Amazon will actually be
everything I've worked on
in the last 12 years.
00:11:43 - So that's the idea.
00:11:44 - That is the idea, and I actually
had to use it, when we were shooting
the mixing videos here, I had an archive
hard drive with me, of older
material
and one of the songs we're mixing
was
just one drive before the individual
drives I brought with me
that 4Tb backup drive,
took it down.. about 2 weeks ago.
00:12:03 And I forgot. And the day before
we were supposed to shoot
I said: 'mh! Where is that song?'
And fortunately, it was on Amazon. So
I downloaded the 10Gb overnight
and was able to show up with the song.
And
otherwise I would have needed someone
to FedEx the drive to me.
00:12:18 And we would not have been able
to shoot the video.
00:12:21 - Saved the day!
So, here's what I do:
I work off Dropbox.
00:12:27 End of story.
- Directly? - Directly.
00:12:29 It used to be horrible.
00:12:31 But because it was simple
and low-impact, I still did it.
00:12:36 What used to happen is: sometimes
Dropbox would
try to upload the file that you had
open.. and corrupted it.
00:12:43 Which was a tremendous amount
of fun.
00:12:45 But since I am paranoid and I have my
auto save on Pro Tools on 1 minute
and I save the last 100 backups..
00:12:51 that has saved my ass many, many times!
I always got away with it.
00:12:56 But, they fixed that problem.
00:12:59 And I have expanded my Dropbox
strategy to something that's
maybe a little overkill but it's
working great.
00:13:04 I have unlimited storage on Dropbox.
I pay dearly for it.
00:13:07 They have a minimum
of 5 users per year..
00:13:10 5 users per account,
sorry.
00:13:12 $12 a month, per user
$15.. it's costing me
$700 a year.
00:13:17 That's my backup strategy.
- Which is.. in..
00:13:20 for a business, that's not terrible.
00:13:22 For writing the checks, it sucks.
- Yeah. I hate it.
00:13:26 But I no longer by hard drives.
00:13:28 I don't have a local backup.
I don't want a local backup.
00:13:31 I don't want that responsibility.
00:13:32 I'd rather be able to scream at Dropbox.
00:13:35 And they have
amazing redundancy on their servers.
00:13:39 It's unbelievable.
- Yeah, it's all around the world
encrypted, but available to you.
- Exactly!
So, what happens is this:
I create
I have assistants. They all have an
account.
00:13:51 I have an account for my main machine
and one for my laptop.
00:13:55 And everybody is considered a user
even if it's a machine.
00:13:59 And so, my main machine, I sit
at it,
whatever I do, is being uploaded
to Dropbox in real time,
because I am in NY and I have
a decent connection.
00:14:07 - Yeah.
- What that does, it means that
about 5 minutes after I'm done, it's
already on my assistant's computer
and on my laptop.
00:14:15 Already. I don't have to decide
to do it,
I don't have to think about doing it.
It just does it.
00:14:21 So, if I do, whatever,
I open a backup,
I open a session and I am doing
a quick recall..
00:14:26 I do my quick recall. I print it.
I close it.
00:14:29 That is the end of my brain share
to that recall.
00:14:33 It's now on my laptop,
it's on my assistant's laptop
and it's also available online
and it's available, here.
00:14:40 So that means I can launch
the Dropbox app here
and right now I can access
anything I've done
with no process on my behalf.
00:14:48 Anything I've done. Any mix.
Send it to people, play it on my phone,
do whatever I want.
Since I've done that
the communication with my clients
have come down, drastically..
00:14:59 tracking of what's what has gone
down, drastically..
00:15:01 like..
00:15:02 'which version is which', 'you didn't
send me, you didn't communicate..'
You have a Dropbox link
and you click on it, and you have
every single mix we've done
properly incremented with a very,
very, very OCD
naming system.
00:15:15 And that, for me, although it's costly
has totally changed the way I work.
00:15:22 Because, basically, if there's
not no backing up
there's no not backing up..
if..
00:15:28 - Yeah. 'If it exists, it's backed up.'
- Period. So you can't fail!
- Yeah!
- This is perfect for my team.
00:15:35 And when the apocalypse comes
and the internet shuts down
we won't really care anymore.
- No, I just really want an apple,
- An actual apple, to it.
- Yeah, not that one..yeah.
00:15:42 - Yes. So it will be fine!
- So that's another strategy!
That's not as thorough
and as immediate, but it's..
00:15:49 it's only possible if you have a fierce
connection.
- And the only thing I'd say, is:
if you are looking for cheaper ways
to do the same thing, you've got to be
100% sure about
where things are encrypted, where
they are not encrypted, because you're
putting other people's stuff, up there.
I know for a fact
that nobody else, unless they get my
password,
which I do change, and I try and keep it
not the same as any other service
etc. etc.
00:16:14 that..
00:16:16 I'm the only who can get to the stuff,
no one else can get to that stuff
and that it's actually secure.
00:16:20 Because that is a big deal.
Intellectual property
value, even if no one wants to pay
for the records themselves
it's still a very valuable commodity. So
security is as important as the backup.
00:16:32 To that purpose, there's another option
which is kind of the same as Dropbox,
which is a local cloud system.
00:16:39 If you have a network,
if you have a network..
00:16:43 there's a couple companies
that make
local clouds.
00:16:45 - OnCloud is a good PHP-based one.
00:16:49 That's more advanced. There's one
called Transporter.
00:16:52 So, Transporter is a little box,
it's a little box, you plug
it ethernet in your network
you put a hard drive in it
and basically you designate a folder,
you can work off that folder
on your internal drive
and it will backup automatically
to that drive.
00:17:07 In real time. And it's non-destructive.
It works very well.
00:17:11 But, you don't have dual redundancy.
00:17:13 You can buy 2 Transporters and they
talk to each other
and they back up each other.
00:17:16 And then once your 2 drives
are full
then you have to remove them
and put other drives in them.
00:17:20 - And you need to put that other one
somewhere
- Somewhere else.. the thing that's
amazing about Transporter
is actually, you could put,
your 2nd Transporter, which will be your
redundancy,
at your girlfriend, if you still live
with your mom
and it will back up, secretly,
encrypted,
in a tunnel, from Transporter to
Transporter, over the internet.
00:17:39 - And I suppose, if you're not really
sure about your girlfriend
it gives you an excuse to still
live with your mom.
00:17:44 - Correct!
That works! You need to have
your own apartment for security reasons.
00:17:48 - Yes.
- That works, that's great.
00:17:50 And the cost is low, because
it's a one-time cost.
00:17:53 But you still have to buy a hard drive..
00:17:55 But there's no
intellectual brain-share
all I have to back up.
00:18:01 What I see is: most of the clients
I work with
99% of the clients I work with
show up with a drive
at the studio
or FedEx me the drive
and I say:
'thank you!'
You have a backup, right?'
- No!
- 'No, that's the master.'
*claps*
- Yeah.
00:18:22 Don't ever let that happen.
00:18:24 Kids.
00:18:24 - Friends don't let friends do that.
- No.
00:18:27 - All right! Well, that was
very informative!
- Yeah, I think so. I think that works.
00:18:31 Talk to us in a week and it will be
totally different.
00:18:33 I think the key to all of this is,
the tools change, get better, get
worse, get different..
00:18:41 but you need to have a backup philosophy
and make sure the tools you're
using adhere to that philosophy.
00:18:47 So, for me the philosophy is:
one local backup, one remote backup,
that are up-to-date at least daily
on all of
my work and I hope every week
on my startup drive, though
I am not nearly as good about that.
00:18:59 And I don't have an off-site backup
for my startup drive, but
no matter what tools I use
that is exactly where I back up
my stuff
all the time, and then there's the
file security:
whatever your concept is about that
make sure that
whatever tools you're using adhere
to that even when you change tools.
00:19:16 - And..
00:19:17 my strategy is to make sure
there are no human beings
involved in the backup process,
because - no matter what -
human beings will fail!
More often than machines will fail!
And that's why I removed the
human being from my backup strategy.
00:19:29 The main human being failing
at backup being me, of course,
but you gotta know thyself!
The end word here, is:
no matter what,
if you don't backup,
you don't own it.
00:19:41 Et voila'!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Andrew Scheps is a music producer, mixing engineer and record label owner based in the United Kingdom. He has received Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album for his work on Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium, Album Of The Year for Adele's 21, and also Best Reggae Album for Ziggy Marley's Fly Rasta.
Andrew started as a musician, but found that what he enjoyed most was working behind the scenes. This led him to study recording at the University of Miami. After graduating, he spent some time working for Synclavier, and then on the road with Stevie Wonder (as a keyboard tech) and Michael Jackson (mixing live sound). But he found his home in the studio, and he honed his craft working for producers such as Rob Cavallo, Don Was and Rick Rubin.
Andrew collaborated with Waves in order to create his own line of plug-ins which include the Scheps 73 EQ and the Scheps Parallel Particles.
Andrew is one of the best known mixing engineers in the world, well-known for his Rear Bus mixing techniques that he developed working on his 64 input Neve 8068 console and his love for distortion of any kind. If you are watching pureMix videos you will see that he managed to carry his analog sound signature over to a fully portable digital rig. These days, Andrew mixes completely In The Box as it allows him much greater flexibility and the ability to work on several project simultaneously.
Great video but one thing is not clarified .. ok to backup for projects you are working on, but once they are completed how long do you keep them in backups? Many thanks
completeFic
2020 May 20
Love this kind of insight - there's a million demonstrations on EQ and compression, but very little on the nitty gritty realities of data management and workflow, so thank you guys!!
I know I'm a couple years late here, but I have one question (for anyone who has experience with it): is there any reason not to use the same hard drive for a bootable backup, as well as a local backup for working files (provided you still have your data in three different places)? I have an external drive that I use as a local backup - just wondering if the bootable drive needs to be separate from that?
kulturfolger
2020 Jan 22
I totally agree to the way Andrew Scheps describes his process. The way he copies the data multiple times it’s pretty robust and fail safe with multiple copies.
But on the other hand the way Fab handles his data is just syncing data between devices while only Dropbox maintains all of his data on their hard discs. A sync is no backup. Having every file constantly on access on every device may lead to silent data corruptions is happing. Like any of his devices could replacing old files with defective files (as an example) without him ever noticing.
Soundlight
2020 Jan 09
Thank you
nersonangelo
2020 Jan 07
Nice reminders and ideas.. by the way what's that somewhat exotic phrase Fab keeps on saying in the end..?
sherrylynnlee
2020 Jan 04
I have 3 backups:
- External hard drive via time machine so I can go back to a particular point in time e.g if a an update screwed things up.
- Dropbox - real-time sync on multiple devices for easy collaboration + portability
- BackBlaze - backs up all my computers and can restore files from any of those computers anywhere, any time. They'll even ship me a hard drive if requested.
Like Fab, I prefer to leave the human out of the equation and opt for set and forget systems :)
Venetian
2019 Aug 21
For the automatic dropbox uploading, the command would be: ./dropbox_uploader.sh upload /Volumes/Backup/ProTools/MyProtoolsFolder/* MyProtoolsFolder
and this uses https://github.com/andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader
You have to do a funny "create app" thing on dropbox.com, and paste in an API key to get this script to run, but once it's going it works well.
Venetian
2019 Aug 21
I'm very impressed with the clarity of the video. following this strategy, you can open Terminal and run a command:
$cp -Rvn LOCAL_PATH REMOTE_PATH
e.g.
$cp -Rvn /Users/Name/Protools/MyBigFolder /Volumes/MyBigDrive/ProtoolsBackups
This will copy all the projects in MyBigFolder to the ProtoolsBackups folder on the drive.
you could also put this in a shell script, I'm guessing that's what happens in the system described in teh video.
The second thing is copying from the backup drive to Dropbox. This can be done using
https://github.com/andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader
Great systems!
Venetian
2019 Aug 21
I'm very impressed with the clarity of the video. following this strategy, you can open Terminal and run a command:
cp -Rvn
,e.g.
cp -Rvn /Users/Name/Protools/MyBigFolder /Volumes/MyBigDrive/ProtoolsBackups
This will copy all the projects in MyBigFolder to the ProtoolsBackups folder on the drive.
you could also put this in a shell script, I'm guessing that's what happens in the system described in teh video.
The second thing is copying from the backup drive to Dropbox. This can be done using
https://github.com/andreafabrizi/Dropbox-Uploader
Great systems!
natalyt96
2018 Sep 21
It is really interesting in the way you are searching different clouds or new forms for maintaining you information safe. I don't know but it is quite interesting if you recommend HDD too, I mean, Fab doesn't like it but maybe you can share us information about it.
I think if you have your computer, a cloud and a HDD is the basics. Yeah.
NeilGrahamIvesMusic
2018 May 24
Andrew and Fab,
What brand of Hard Drives do you both use? Are there any particular brands and models you have found reliable over the years?
Thank you,
Neil.
NeilGrahamIvesMusic
2018 May 24
Andrew and Fab,
What brand of Hard Drives you both use? Is there any particular brand, model and size you have found reliable over the years?
Thank you,
Neil.
bgrichting
2018 Jan 10
AFAIK Transporter has ended support for their products in September 2017, according to their website: http://helper.nexsansupport.com/tfc_support
Have one myself but now thinking about some other solution.
melissa.f
2017 Dec 29
This is great, but don't forget about those of us who are just starting out! We don't necessarily understand things like "scripts" and "incrementals." Just an extra sentence defining these things would be incredibly helpful.
valderval.o
2017 Dec 27
Great video!!! I use time machine (4tb ext) to backup both boot drive (500gb ssd int) and audio drive (2tb raid thunderbolt).
When the project finish it goes to a ext hd named by year to die alone.
fpred
2017 Nov 13
Very very practical and importat video for today´s work strategy.
The best tandem A&F F&A
Thanks a lot
TOMMYMATOE
2017 Oct 31
So what is the tech. for a typical home dummie like me and some other guy/gal??
CyberMinions
2017 Oct 30
AMAZING. Thanks :)
rpierrot
2017 Oct 28
AWS now charges $60/year for 1TB .... No more UNLIMITED storage for 60 Bucks ...
https://www.amazon.com/b/?_encoding=UTF8&node=15547130011&ref_=cd_auth_home
bildjan
2017 Oct 27
you guys sound like dropbox salesmen :-) Great advise though
erickp
2017 Oct 26
Excellent talk! Suggestions to add to the fun:
1- Local backup: No backup at all, just setup your system via a RAID-1 system. Every byte copied to one drive gets copied to the other at the same time. Oh and don't get into RAID-5 or 6...the rebuild time will kill you. If 2 drives for your RAID-1 is not enough just use 3.
2- Local Cloud/Network: check out http://www.drobo.com/
3- Cloud Backup: https://www.cloudberrylab.com/ + Amazon EC2 or Glacier
Et voila!
Erick P.
Montreal, Canada
beatweezl
2017 Oct 26
Wow, nobody uses Carbonite? For $60/year, I have it installed on my PC at home (I know not everybody has a home studio) and it is constantly backing up any changes it finds 24/7.
Candymanjl
2017 Oct 26
ShameDawg, within the last year Dropbox started to allow you to select a location other than your system drive for your Dropbox folder.
Since Fab is using a laptop his Dropbox folder is probably on the main drive. But if you have a desktop with multiple drive you can dedicate one as your Dropbox drive leaving more free space on your system drive.
At the moment I an archiving to Google Drive since I can get more than 1TB without going to a business plan. I'd love to go to a business Dropbox but Google is cheaper for now.
mataran
2017 Oct 26
Great video! Thank you. I've been using Synology solutions too for years now, robust stuff and their software is fantastic. With an array of SSD disks, you can have both performance and robustness. In addition, Synology "offers" a powerful "Cloud sync" function with the major Cloud Platforms providers, so if you're lazy like Fab ;-) , no problem, it does it for you like in a dream. "You don't backup it, you don't own it" all is said!
AScheps
2017 Oct 26
Just a quick update. Since shooting this video Amazon starting charging a ton of money for space, so I still use Dropbox the same way but am using a local Synology server for archiving. Synology's servers are pricey but AMAZING!
ShameDawg
2017 Oct 25
I am wondering if Fab runs his sessions from the system drive? Since Dropbox works best on the system drive. I am interested in expanding my dropbox usage, but run all my sessions from an external drive (which is still best right?). Thoughts?
AndresDaza
2017 Oct 25
Whats the very OCD naming system Fab uses? This would be great to know
darrenjensen
2017 Oct 22
Great Video. Maybe a part 2 to this video could be session archiving? Just wondering if you guys keep the sessions and files given to you by your clients and if so how long? Thanks
Gary Ambrosino
2017 Oct 20
How about TimeMachine ?
leonido
2017 Oct 19
Great tutorial! Thank you very much for covering this subject since it is overlooked quite often
Here is my backup strategy. After each session, I do 2 things:
1) Backing up my local session drive with 2 Time Machine disks in RAID 1 (mirroring) with a G Drive Dock. Since I can physically unmount one of the 2 drives, I can take one to a fireproof box in my place.
2) I create a RAR file for the entire session of the day that I copy to my local NAS that uploads on his own to Dropbox. I don't want to leave the studio computer running all night long.
What do you guys think?
composermikeglaser
2017 Oct 19
Great tutorial! One of the most overlooked, but incredibly important topics.
Tripp
2017 Oct 19
wondering exactly how Fab automatically backs up to dropbox (what software?)
Tas
2017 Oct 19
That's great, thank you very much!
i'm definitely gonna try something out, after all it is time i changed my back up strategy...
WombatStudio.Org
2017 Oct 18
THIS is the most powerful studio secret in modern mixing today. It is devastating to lose a drive and not be able to recover anything that is/was on it. Unfortunately the Amazon Unlimited plan has gone away. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/08/amazon-ends-its-unlimited-cloud-storage-plan/