Backing Up Your Data

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Backing Up Your Data!

Now that you have recorded several terabytes worth of data for your current project, what happens when the power fails and your hard drive crashes? If you're like me, you don't even want to contemplate this possibility. To avoid the ultimate catastrophe, it is important to back up your data regularly. With the amount of data a project such as a film can generate, a simple CD burn is not going to cut it. It is necessary to come up with a secure backup plan that has even three or four levels of redundancy.

I talk to many people who say they back up their data only after a project is completed, in order to save time and space. This is foolhardythe time to back up data is while you are working on it, because that's when a data loss will affect you the most. After the project is finished, you're safe, for the most part. You still must back up after finishing the project in case it comes back for revisions or you need to create a derivative work. This happens with commercials all the time. The client might want to re-create a commercial that is almost identical to the original minus a few changes in the price of a product or a telephone number. A complete backup will make this process much easier.

NOTE

YOU WILL LOSE DATA EVENTUALLY

It happens to everyone, given time. Hard drives fail and power surges occur at the most inconvenient time. Power supplies are doomed to blow up without notice. No computer system is infallible. If you accept this truth, and plan accordingly , you will be better off in the long run.

Backup Plan

When creating your backup plan, decide how much data loss is acceptable to you in the case of a system failure. Imagine your audio hard drive decides not to work today. What are you going to do? How much work can you afford to lose and still survive? Is one whole day too much? Is one hour acceptable? Once you decide where your threshold of data loss is, creating a plan to avoid it is simple. The decisions involve format choices and frequency of the backups .

An effective backup plan has several levels of redundancy in order to ensure data recovery. They can be divided into three basic categories:

1. Short- term or immediate backup.

2. Long-term storage and archiving.

3. Off-site fire protection backup.

The short-term or immediate backup should be to a medium to which you can copy files quickly and that can be recorded over, as this is really a temporary backup. Hard drives make really good short-term backup devices. Re-writable DVDs and CD-RWs can also serve as short-term backups.

Long-term storage should have a long life expectancy. It should also have a large capacity, as this backup will never be erased and might contain several versions of a large project. This is the permanent storage for whatever projects it contains. Tape drives function well as long-term storage, as do DVD-RAM discs.

Off-site fire protection backups should be portable, to facilitate easy moving and storage. They should have a large capacity, as this backup is not updated as often as the first two. It should be able to contain all of your volatile data including samples, library sounds, and application settings. Anything that you cannot replace from a store should be on this backup. This is in case of a catastrophic loss due to the burning down and complete loss of the studio. Software can be replaced . Computers can be purchased at the store. Original data can't!

I hope you never have to use the fire protection backup, but it's good to know it's there. Imagine losing, in one fire, an entire sound library that took twenty years to amass , when the whole thing could fit on one small DLT tape cartridge. Enough said.

Automation of Data Backups

Manual backing up of data is not realistic, given the amount and complexity of day-to-day changes. Software designed to back up data is essential for smooth operation. Digidesign recommends using Mezzo software for backing up Pro Tools data. Dantz Retrospect is another popular solution that will work for media files as well as other data on you computer (that is, contacts, calendars, e-mail, and so on). Either software is capable of automating the backup process. They can analyze the data on your hard drive and determine which files have been created or modified since the last backup and copy only those files that have changed. This saves space and reduces redundancy in backup data. The software can use most storage devices, from VXA and DLT tapes to CDR and DVD discs. It is even possible to back up data to an Internet location, thereby keeping the backup off-site. This, however, requires a very speedy Internet connection.

You can schedule backups to take place in the late hours, when you are not working, or manually whenever you decide to. Each type of backup is completely customizable. Once you have things configured, backing up should be as easy as sticking in a tape and pressing Start. Figure 5.31 shows a scheduling setup for Retrospect. You can determine how often the backup will occur and at what time of the day it will start.

Figure 5.31. The scheduling setup window in Retrospect.

Possible Backup Scenario

A backup plan could work like this:

1. A secondary hard drive could be used to store data throughout the day. A script could be set up to copy any newly created or modified file to this hard drive automatically when the script is run. When you go to lunch or step out for some coffee, run the script. This will really help keep the downtime to a minimum in case of a drive or system failure.

2. A daily backup of the current project could be made to a DVD-RW. This could be written over every day and the media used again.

3. A tape-based storage system such as a VXA-1 drive could be used to incrementally back up the whole project every other day or so. This could be done at certain milestones in the process, such as when the dialog has all been conformed and then again after ADR has been completed.

4. An off-site backup should be made once a week and taken to a remote location, to protect against fire and other catastrophic loss.

Note that any one of these backups can, and probably should, have two copies that rotate each time. That way you have an additional level of protection in case a disc or tape gets damaged.

Mass Storage Media

There are many mass storage devices available on the market today. Tape systems, such as the Ecrix VXA-1 drive shown in Figure 5.32, have traditionally been the only way to save vast amounts of data. Optical media such as DVD discs can compete with the size and cost of tape-based systems. Your choice should be based on how you like to work. Tape systems can hold more data in one unit than DVDs. If you like to back up large quantities of data overnight without being at your computer, tape systems have the advantage. If your backups are smaller and you want to organize them in smaller chunks , DVDs might be the way to go. Ideally, a combination of media will yield the most dependability .

Figure 5.32. Ecrix's VXA-1 tape drive. One VXA tape cartridge can hold up to 33 gigabytes of uncompressed data.

Tape-based systems are usually proprietarythat is, you must have the drive on your system or on the network in order to restore information. Also, backup programs such as Mezzo and Retrospect save data to their own format, requiring you to use that program to retrieve the data.

DVDs can store proprietary info from Retrospect or Mezzo but can also store data in its normal format using programs such as Roxio's Toast or Easy CD Creator. DVDs created in this manner can be read by any compatible DVD drive, and the data can be copied directly to your hard drive. This type of backup is useful after the project has been completed to create a final copy for long-term storage. In the event that you need to go back to this project, simply copying the files directly off the DVD will restore the entire project. Any computer with a DVD drive capable of reading DVD-RAM or DVD-ROM discs can access this type of backup. No special software is required.

NOTE

DVD-RAM VS. DVD-R VS. DVD-RW VS. DVD+RW

There are two primary formats used to store data files on DVD discs. DVD-RAM is a format mostly used on PC/Windows machines. This format is capable of storing 4.7 gigabytes of data on one DVD-RAM disc. The DVD-R format is more common in Apple Macintosh computers. It stores 4.7 gigabytes on DVD-R media. These formats are not compatible with one another. DVD-RW and DVD+RW are two re-writable formats that are also not compatible with one another. They offer the advantage of being able to reuse media more than once, which is ideal for daily temporary backups.

DVD burners typically record only one of these data formats, although some newer drives are capable of reading more than one. Be sure you know what format your DVD burner is recording in and if it is compatible with other systems you might exchange files with.

This is another moving target. Technology changes so fast that you should always look for the latest information on bleeding-edge standards like DVD.

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