It's not fun, it's not sexy, but maintaining a proper Backup routine is critical for every type of recording venture, from the biggest commercial rooms, to the smallest bedroom studios.   

Music & Everything 

Fig 1 Maintaining up-to-date backups is a necessity

A Brief History of Time (Machine) 

Fig 2 Apple’s Time Machine offers a backup solution that comes with the OS

Send in the Clones 

Fig 3 Popular options for mirror-image (clone) backups (on the Mac): CCC and SuperDuper! 

It’s Just Routine  

Fig 4 Many backup utilities let you set a schedule for automatic backups

Backups of backups  

Fig 5 Multiple Backups are a good idea

Better Safe Than Sorry

 

Joe is a musician, engineer, and producer in NYC. Over the years, as a small studio operator and freelance engineer, he's made recordings of all types from music & album production to v/o & post. He's also taught all aspects of recording and music technology at several NY audio schools, and has been writing articles for Recording magaz... Read More

Discussion

EdgarRothermich
Thanks for this important article. Everything nowadays seems to be about the new and shiny apps and plugins and the topic of backing up those things is often overlooked. AskAudio should have a mechanism to put your article on top every week to remind everybody how important the awareness of backups is.

I have a question about the terminology you use, especially the word "incremental". If I understand it correctly, then you use it to describe the performance of multiple backups over time, where each time, only the data is backed up that has been changed (instead of backing up the entire data set). However, I wouldn't use that terminology because there is a specific term "Incremental Backup" that, not only means something very specific, it is something everybody should be aware of before coming up with any backup strategy.

There are two questions you have to consider when backup data: "What" and "How".
The "What" determines if you backup (a) an entire drive for the purpose of using it as a boot-up drive in case your boot drive dies, or (b) backup specific folders. I use Carbon Copy Cloner since the pre-OSX days and it does an outstanding job.

The "What" to backup, that you describe very well in your article, is only half the story. Every musician and non-IT computer user should also be aware of the second component, the "How". Of course, the first time you do a backup, all the data is copied from the Source to the Destination, but the important difference is, after that, how is the data that has changed backed up on the second and third day, or second and third week. Of all the different variations, there are two main procedures, "Mirror Backup" and "Incremental Backup" that handle the "changed data" completely different.

"Mirror Backup"
With this procedure, any existing file on the Destination (backup) that has changed (is newer on the Source), will be OVERWRITTEN. Of course any new files on the Source will be copied to the Destination. That means, that the Destination is always a replica of the Source, hence the name "Clone". I wouldn't use the term "mirror image", because the term "image" has another specific meaning when it comes to backups (as in "disk image").
The important part about "Mirror Backups" that you might want to use two backup drives to rotate (alternate), because backing up means potentially overwriting and deleting old data, that you might need to access.

"Incremental Backup"
The important difference with Incremental Backups is that even time you perform a back, any changes will be "added" to the backup, so you end with a history of changes. Older data will not be overwritten until you run out of space on that backup drive. This is how Time Machine works and it has saved my butt many times.
Joe A
Hi Edgar -

Thanks for writing.. I see your note-writing style is as detailed as your (excellent) graphic manuals! ;-)

I get your point about the difference between a Mirror backup and an Incremental backup *a la Time Machine*.. I used the term incremental (small i) to differentiate between a Mirror backup that's a full backup, and one that only updates the original full backup by replacing older files with newer versions (SuperDuper!, for example). I don't know of another term (in common use) that clarifies that distinction as succinctly ("partial (Mirror) backup"?; Maybe "update-only Mirror backup"? SuperDuper! calls it a "Smart Update", though AFAIK that's just their coinage).

I am aware that people also use "Incremental" to describe the kind of accumulating-version backup approach that Time Machine uses, that's why I made a point of differentiating that method from the incrementally-updated Mirror backup strategy I was suggesting. :-) I guess if I describe that kind of Mirror backup update approach as "incremental"--in the generic sense of the word--it would be a good idea to also explain that the term is commonly used more formally to describe the Time Machine method, to make sure there's no confusion. So thanks for the reminder! :-)

Cheers,
Joe

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