DO NOT USE TIME MACHINE FOR BACKING UP SESSIONS

[chris harris]

The last 2 times I've used Time Machine to back up my project drives it has corrupted one audio file in the most recent PT session. The files still exist. And, they still show to be .wav files. But, they're corrupted and won't open in any application.

Time Machine cannot be trusted!

[Nick Sevilla]

I have been using Retrospect for years, without issue.

And also a second drive which I just drag and drop the whole session folder into as well.

No problem so far with this system.

Cheers

[digitaldrummer]

of course I realize nobody usually has time to verify all their backups manually, but as a good practice, you should always test that you can restore a file (to a temporary folder or something) - at least test it initially to make sure your application or whatever method you are using to make backups works. then maybe do a test periodically to make sure nothing changed.

if you have time, many backup apps have a "verify" option that will essentially do a second pass and compare what was backed up to the original file. but of course this will make the backup job run longer and you still wnat to make sure you can actually restore a file.

I rotate my backups to several external drives and then periodically I will also do a drag and drop copy (like Nick mentioned).

btw, hard drive prices went up last year after the floods in Thailand (there was a shortage of drives after that), but the prices are coming back down now and you can get a couple TB pretty cheap. You can never have too many backups!

Mike

[jhharvest]

Chris, do you mean it corrupted the file on your project disk? What's the file size like? Is it a physical read error (i.e. the file cannot even be copied, error 36 usually) or have the contents been mangled?

If it's a physical read error then you could try these: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20011058-263.html. If it's the latter, Audacity can open any file as an audio file if you tell it the sample rate and bit format. Maybe have a listen what's left of the file.

[alexdingley]

Hey there,

I'm starting to take a closer look at my backup strategy too. The studio i worked at for years used Retrospect to Backup to VXA tape archives... so, I never thought of it for drive to drive backups. I'll have to look into that.

What I am using right now is TimeMachine (but not hourly, I'm using Cronnix to run the "backup now" command in the wee hours of the night, and it goes to a local disk in my tower) and once a week I'm using CrashPlan to network backup to a Drobo in the other room. All of this is automated, so I never look into it.

Perhaps a fluke on my end and/or a fluke on the end of the original poster, but I've NEVER had an issue bringing back a .wav file from TimeMachine. Granted, I've only had to restore from TimeMachine... maybe less than 10 times in 3 years.

Question to the original poster: How often are you reaching into your backup archive to restore a .wav file or whole session?

[chris harris]

Chris, do you mean it corrupted the file on your project disk? What's the file size like? Is it a physical read error (i.e. the file cannot even be copied, error 36 usually) or have the contents been mangled?

If it's a physical read error then you could try these: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20011058-263.html. If it's the latter, Audacity can open any file as an audio file if you tell it the sample rate and bit format. Maybe have a listen what's left of the file.

Yes, the file was corrupted on my project disk.
It still showed to be a .wav file. And, the file size looked normal. But, OSX wouldn't associate the file with any application, and I couldn't open the audio file in any other application. PT just showed it as a missing file.

[chris harris]

Question to the original poster: How often are you reaching into your backup archive to restore a .wav file or whole session?

Not often at all. In fact, this was the first time. And, I only attempted to get the file from Time Machine because the file on my project drive was corrupted. It happened twice.

[jhharvest]

Yes, the file was corrupted on my project disk.
It still showed to be a .wav file. And, the file size looked normal. But, OSX wouldn't associate the file with any application, and I couldn't open the audio file in any other application. PT just showed it as a missing file.

Did you try repair permissions? Also, what does cp in terminal tell you?

[chris harris]

No, I didn't try repairing permissions. And, didn't have time to dig any deeper than attempting to open the file in all of my audio applications. It happened both times after returning from a break in the session. So, both times, in the heat of the session, once I realized the audio files wouldn't open in any of my audio applications, we moved on to immediately replacing the takes so we could move forward.

[jhharvest]

Okay. Sorry mate, it sucks when that happens. I definitely agree that you shouldn't run Time Machine at least when the project is still open.

[kslight]

I've never used time machine, I always back up manually. With critical projects I keep a dedicated "master" drive, "work" drive, and "backup" drive. On an album I'm working on right now we use this strategy, bought brand new drives a few months ago, and the "work" drive just failed. No data lost, fortunately.

Case in point, it is a bit expensive and PITA but when you remind the client how much ONE DAY costs, and that a faulty drive could cause weeks or months to be thrown away, it is a really cheap insurance policy.

[chris harris]

I've never used time machine, I always back up manually. With critical projects I keep a dedicated "master" drive, "work" drive, and "backup" drive. On an album I'm working on right now we use this strategy, bought brand new drives a few months ago, and the "work" drive just failed. No data lost, fortunately.

Case in point, it is a bit expensive and PITA but when you remind the client how much ONE DAY costs, and that a faulty drive could cause weeks or months to be thrown away, it is a really cheap insurance policy.

Oh yeah, I definitely do this, too. I've got my project drive, my internal backup drive, an external backup drive that I store off-site, and the Time Machine drive.

I typically do manual backups first, before running Time Machine. But, on both of these occasions, there were thunderstorms in the area and I just ran a quick Time Machine backup during a short break. The sessions were closed and I had quit PT before running Time Machine.

I could still use Time Machine if I always remember to do my manual backups first. But, I just don't trust it anymore. It's a cool system. It's a great way to just do snapshot backups of your system any time you want and the recovery process is simple. It's just not right for my business.

Manual backups seem to be the most fool-proof option.