Creating a Backup Routine

I’m not going to try to convince you about the importance of regular backups. Regardless of the situation, you should be backing up. I’m going to outline our backup process, which can be applied to most situations. We have a Mac, so I’ll focus on Mac-based backups but will mention Windows and Linux options, too.

This article will cover backing up to an external drive, backing up to the web, and archiving to DVD. We use all three methods in our backup routine, which is probably overkill for most people. In our situation, if we lose our data we lose a project and a lot of money. I’d recommend employing at least one of the first two methods, and maybe even two of them.

Cloning to an external backup drive

Cloning your main data drive is the simplest way to keep a regular backup routine. To clone a drive you’ll need a drive of equal or greater capacity. You can pick up a cheap external drive from Newegg. I prefer using an external drive because it can be easily powered down when not in use – this prevents accidentally using the backup instead of the primary drive (not a problem for most folks, but in the studio this could be a real pain). In terms of data transfer rates, eSATA is currently the fastest, followed by Firewire 800. Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 have similar transfer rates. We have Firewire 400 and USB drives, and the transfer time is completely bearable, so don’t fret too much about this unless you’re backing up huge amounts of data (read: gigabytes).

Next you’ll need to decide what you want to back up. It’s simplest to clone your entire drive. Many backup applications can back up a system drive and make it bootable, meaning that if your main drive goes down you can swap in the backup and boot off it right away, with no downtime. We use SuperDuper for the Mac from Shirt Pocket. The free version of SuperDuper offers full cloning functionality, whereas the paid version adds the “smart update” incremental backup. A full backup wipes the backup drive and copies everything over from the source. An incremental backup will only copy over files that have changed on the backup drive, so the backup time is drastically reduced.

SuperDuper only creates clones of drives, so if you want to back up only a portion of your data, you should use a different application. I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for the Mac, which can perform complete clones and individual directory backups. And, it’s free.

For Windows I’d check out SyncBack. Here’s a Lifehacker article about setting up a backup solution in Windows. Here are a few other Windows backup options. Acronis is another I’ve heard good things about, available for Windows and Linux. Also, check out Time Machine. Thanks to a reader for pointing out that I hadn’t mentioned it in the original version of this post. Check the comments for more info.

Backing up to the web

Backing up to an external drive is all very well, but what if disaster strikes and your computer and backup drive are destroyed? Depending on how critical your data is, you’ll want to have everything backed up offsite. There are several ways to do this. There are many hosting providers that offer secure backup space, including Dreamhost. They offer 50 gigabytes of personal backup space free with all their hosting plans, independently from any website hosting you use (plans start around $9/month). Additionally, any additional space used is only 10 cents per gigabyte per month, which is very competitive.

Using a hosting provider to back up your files can be very cost effective, but it takes some setup and might not be appropriate for the novice user. We use a program called rsync, which can be run on Mac, Windows, or Linux. For more information on rsync, check out this Engadget article.

There are other much simpler solutions, but they do cost money. One I have set up for family members is Mozy. They offer 2 gigs absolutely free, and unlimited backups for $4.95 per month in their Mozy Home plan. The restriction is that you have to use their client, but that may actually help many users get going. They have clients for Windows and Mac users.

Another solution is JungleDisk, which uses Amazon’s S3 or Rackspace for storage. JungleDisk costs $2 per month plus storage fees, which consists of 15 cents per gigabyte, plus S3 fees for transfer and requests. JungleDisk has clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The neat thing about JungleDisk is that you can set it up as a network drive, not just a backup solution, so you can treat it as every day file storage.

I’ve heard good things about Dropbox, too, which is available on all platforms.

Archiving to DVD

Because of the large amounts of data we deal with during the course of a music project, we don’t have enough space to keep old projects on our main drives. When a project is mastered and complete, we transfer the files, using Carbon Copy Cloner, to an archive drive. We maintain a document that lists all the contents of the archive drives in case we need to restore the files for some reason. In addition to backing up to a drive, we also copy the data to DVDs and store them at an offsite location. This way, if the building burns down, we still have an archive of our completed projects on DVD, plus our current projects are available to restore from our online backups.

We use Roxio’s Toast to back our data up to DVD. It has a disc spanning feature which automatically splits the data up into DVD-sized chunks. Many other programs can do this as well, including Nero’s BackItUp & Burn for Windows. Nero also offers a version of their software for Linux.

Conclusion

Even if you’re a casual user, you undoubtedly have some photos, music, and documents on your computer. While it may not be devastating to lose those files, it’s pretty easy to avoid it. Plus, I’m sure most of you would be upset if you lost all those Eminem mp3s. When I got my 15″ Macbook Pro a few years ago, the hard drive went bad after about three months. Of course it was under warranty, but when I got the machine back from Apple, there was nothing on it. No OS, no files, nothing. I asked about it at the store and they said they could give me my old drive back if I wanted, and I could leave it for another few days to have the OS installed. All this after not having a computer for about a week! But because I had a bootable backup, I simply restored to the new drive using SuperDuper and saved a ton of hassle.

Back up your data!