Somewhat OT: DAW Online Backup solutions?

[mcgoo]

Yesterday I got a notice that my bank is discontinuing their safety deposit boxes. I have a multi TB drive of work files stored there in case of fire. It occurred to me that this is old school thinking and maybe it's time to look at online backup. There are a few that look nice (Acronis True Image may be my go to). My biggest concern is what something that is constantly syncing the computer will do to its performance for normal DAW work. Anyone have their DAW hooked up to an online backup service that can speak to pros / cons of any particular services?

 

thanks,

 

greg

[EscapeRocks]

I'm a big fan of Sentry water and fireproof safes.

 

I have one for important documents.

 

Here's their website

 

Sentry Safe

 

 

As far as "online" back up, I have a Western Digital 'Mycloud' at home 3TB storage and I can access it from anywhere.

[nursers]

I save my Logic files etc on Dropbox, works great

[Docbop]

My day gig for year was as a SysAdmin for big corporations like banks, car manufacturers and etc. When designing new server and backup systems one of the big topics was "how many levels of Murphy (as in Murphy's Law) can you survive, and how many can you afford. It's boiled down to how many copies of your data stored in how many locations around the world. I would also add was need to think about media formats too. Banks have very old data made on what was the state of the art devices of its day, so we had warehouse full of old backup gear just in case we have to restore it. The if you need to restore fast how long would it take to retrieve one of those backups in hours, days. Last something many do even think about is how good are those copies of you data, was a test restore done to make sure the backup was any good?

 

So I would say you probably want two or three copies of your data each stored in a different location. I'm not a big fan of cloud but it is the way the world is going so I say one level of cloud (and talk to them about their backup policy, how many levels of Murphy can they survive. Then a second and if key to you livelihood a third in all in different location. So cloud, home/business site, offsite at a trusted friend or relative across town.

 

That's the thought process you need to work thru for serious care of your data.

 

FYI yes for banks data was store on multiple continents. These meeting could get really funny coming up with the levels of Murphy.

[kelp]

I use iDrive and am happy with it. There are a few quirks. I don't use real time backup though. I have it set to run a backup every night at midnight and then shutdown my PC.

 

Quirks:

 

1. You can have it excludes files/folder, but then the backup message says some files weren't updated. Every now and then I get an e-mail saying something didn't backup correctly. I'll usually trigger a manual backup and everything will be fine.

2. It doesn't delete anything automatically - that can be a pro or a con for you. Files that exist in the cloud but not locally are only deleted when you execute a purge command. That being said, I *have* gone in to retrieve old data! But it does chew up more space. The basic plan starts at 2TB.

[ElmerJFudd]

Apple's price for the iCloud back up is pretty good at .99 for 50gb.

If you are a logic user there are a few ways you can package a project file (with or without various associated content).

With the cost of spinning drives dropping, though.... I saw a 2tb 7200rpm drive the other day for $50. And 4tb for $75.

If you have another location or a fireproof safe or something you can keep backups in.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Depends on just how much data. If you want to do an image backup of everything (OS, programs, and data) it gets big in a hurry. Online backup of large amounts of data usual major problem (unless you are a company with mega-bucks for 2-way very high speed) is that, with cable, the faster download speeds are accomplished by multiple streams of the data, but the uplink has only a single stream. So, you might have (example) 100meg DL, but only 7 or 8 meg UL.

 

My own method: I make Acronis Image Backups of every Windows machine monthly, and TimeMachine backups of the Macs. A complete restore can be done, but they aren't online (Acronis does have an online option).

I make a monthly backup of ALL data files, including patches. This is done on a 1TB USB SSD, and done manually. The SSD is then unplugged, and either stored in the desk or carried with me. This is to restore data if someone manages to encrypt all my data with ransomware

I have 50GB of iCloud storage (best bargain, at 99 cents a month), 30GB of OneDrive (free, but no longer available free), 50GB of Box (came for life with a hardware purchase a good while ago), Google - the space that they have for free, although I don't use it, and a small 2GB or so free for 3 devices now from DropBox.

 

My primary data files that change daily or more often are kept in iCloud. End of each day, I update a backup to a 16GB USB Flash Drive. This is supplemental to the monthly backup to an off-line resource.

 

Many years ago, I did backups (floppy drives then) and carried them to my parents' house, making a trip at least monthly.

 

I can say this much from experience (mine and clients): One WILL lose a bunch of important data at some point in time, if it is not backed up, accessible, and capable of restoration.

[Docbop]

Depends on just how much data. If you want to do an image backup of everything (OS, programs, and data) it gets big in a hurry. Online backup of large amounts of data usual major problem (unless you are a company with mega-bucks for 2-way very high speed) is that, with cable, the faster download speeds are accomplished by multiple streams of the data, but the uplink has only a single stream. So, you might have (example) 100meg DL, but only 7 or 8 meg UL.

 

My own method: I make Acronis Image Backups of every Windows machine monthly, and TimeMachine backups of the Macs. A complete restore can be done, but they aren't online (Acronis does have an online option).

I make a monthly backup of ALL data files, including patches. This is done on a 1TB USB SSD, and done manually. The SSD is then unplugged, and either stored in the desk or carried with me. This is to restore data if someone manages to encrypt all my data with ransomware

I have 50GB of iCloud storage (best bargain, at 99 cents a month), 30GB of OneDrive (free, but no longer available free), 50GB of Box (came for life with a hardware purchase a good while ago), Google - the space that they have for free, although I don't use it, and a small 2GB or so free for 3 devices now from DropBox.

 

My primary data files that change daily or more often are kept in iCloud. End of each day, I update a backup to a 16GB USB Flash Drive. This is supplemental to the monthly backup to an off-line resource.

 

Many years ago, I did backups (floppy drives then) and carried them to my parents' house, making a trip at least monthly.

 

I can say this much from experience (mine and clients): One WILL lose a bunch of important data at some point in time, if it is not backed up, accessible, and capable of restoration.

 

 

There is a Unix utility that comes on Mac and there are versions you can get for Windows. The utility is called rsync and it keeps files insync between multiple location be on the local computer or remote shares. What is good is it only copies files that have changed since you last sync'd the locations. Some of the backup programs with fancy GUI are just frontend to rsync. I first used it twenty years ago to push out only the changed file to multiple web servers. Rsync's command line has lots of options so really a cool tool.

[RABid]

I have iCloud and use it for photos, but videos and music files are just too big for my slow rural DSL. I'm currently downloading an XBox game. 26 GB is taking 8 hours. Upload would be a lot slower. I have a storage rental and keep backup drives there. If that was not an option then I would keep it at my sister or best friend's house.

[mate stubb]

Having been a software developer on web apps, I would never store my sensitive data in ANY cloud. YMMV.

[Joe Muscara]

I haven't used it against a DAW since it's been one or the other lately, but I've been using Backblaze for cloud backup and I'm happy with it.