Thread November 8, 2014 editorial: comments

Your Data at Risk?

Although I didn’t lose any data when it happened, my laptop coffee-spill incident described in last week’s editorial (The $600 Cup of Coffee) got me thinking once again about the issue of backup. On the immediate level, we all have to deal with figuring out systems for backing up our data. If you’ve ever lost music you were working on due to a computer crash or hard drive failure, you know how miserable the feeling is. Not only did you lose the fruits of your musical labor, but you wasted a bunch of time, too! If you were working on a project for a client, you probably blew your deadline and possibly lost out on future work with that person or entity. Overall, losing data  sucks, and we back up to protect against it.

So should one go beyond just backing up an on-site drive (or drives)? Probably so. Although a catastrophic disaster like a fire or flood in your studio isn’t a likely occurrence, it can happen. And with the increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, one can’t be too careful. What’s more, having more than one backup is definitely a more secure strategy.

It’s now very inexpensive to arrange for cloud-based backup. In addition to sites like Dropbox, dedicated cloud music storage sites like Gobbler and Splice, provide music-specific backup capabilities, as well as sharing features. If you’re doing projects for clients, you should consider offsite backup to be a part of the cost of doing business. 

Then there’s the more vexing question of long-term archiving of your projects. How long will data on a hard drive last? It’s hard to say, but if you put a drive away and store it, are you sure it will work when you turn it on again five years later? I certainly wouldn’t depend on it. That’s another reason to store on the cloud. Of course, there’s no guarantee your cloud-based storage company will be around in 10 years, so that’s not foolproof either. There’s also no guarantee that your DAW projects will still be compatible with your DAW down the road. For that reason, before archiving a project, it’s a good idea to make individual bounces of all track files, starting from bar 1 and beat 1. That way,  you could resurrect your session in a different version of your DAW, or a different DAW if need be.

What steps have you taken to protect your data. Any thoughts on long-term archiving? Let’s discuss.

Have a great week.

Mike Levine

U.S. Editor, Audiofanzine