WORST CASE SCENARIO: All Files Lost!

Are you prepared for the WORST CASE SCENARIO? Lets draft it: You did the best production ever, maybe you worked up your ass till the early morning and the next day you switch on your MAC, you have a hard disk issue and all your files are lost! All the hard work for nothing! Days, month maybe years of audio Imaging, just gone by the twinkle of an eye. Wouldn’t it be great to recover all your files with just one click?  Sure, what a question! But that requires a secure backup. Again:  Are you prepared?

Backups help you to sleep well and you can always be sure to recover any of your files, if you want to. It also helps you making your boss happy (maybe he wants the musicbed of the last campain or same samples be used again or or or) as well as your clients.  There are a few backup softwares out, which help you easily to safe all of your data and creative work. In this post, I will feature some hardware solutions of them.

We here at Benztown work with Macintosh computers and use three backup softwares for different cases.

1. Macintosh Harddisc with all your system files

To store our entire Macintosh harddisc, we use the onboard software Time Machine of MacOSX. This tool is massive and let’s you easily recover any specific file you want to. We backup our disc every week on an external harddisc. I recommend to use FireWire disc, ’cause they’re a lot faster than the USB discs. This will help you to safe time.

You’ll get all infos here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html

2. Audio Harddisc with all your audio data & creative work

To backup these sensitive data, we use a cheap but powerful little tool called “SuperDuper!” You can customize the backup process like you want to. For example, you can only backup newer files since your last backup! You can choose the option that your destination files never will be overwritten – so you’ll never get rid of your files! As for the backup of the Macintosh Hardisc, I recommend external FireWire discs as well!

You’ll get all infos here: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

3. Create bootable system discs

For that case we use the free software of LACIE called “SilverKeeper”. You can easily create bootable system disc. This helps you to boot your system from any disc you want! For sure, you can use that tool to backup the traditional way, too.

You’ll get all infos here: http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/?CFID=78640480&CFTOKEN=72213912

Important:

Once you’re done with your backup, disconnect the destination disc and keep it safe at a different place (other than your source disc). The best backup is useless, if it gets destroyed or even stolen. We here at Benztown even do a backup of the backup and keep it safe at home (not in the studio). We do this every week! That’s the best way to preserve losing our data.

There are a lot of backup softwares out there (even for PC users). Just take a look around and chose the ones that fit your needs best. No matter which tools you’re using: do backups minimum once a week!!! Life will be easier, i promise :-). Please let me know what you are using and how often you back up. Just email me blog@benztown.com