|
Avid Pro Audio CommunityHow to Join & Post • Community Terms of Use • Help Us Help YouKnowledge Base Search • Community Search • Learn & Support |
|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
Hey all, I had a project that I was working on that I opened after a month and basically a lot of audio files are missing and it could not locate them. This is odd as I have been running for years and never had this happen. I also noticed on another older session I opened that it was happening but if I closed and then reopened it was back. Its weird **** and I didnt update my macosx or anything else i can really think of. Since this was my initial working session of a new song I was kinda bummed but I have a newer version in a separate project so really I can live without it but I hate not being able to compare my versions and tweak etc. I have not been diligent lately with my time machine as I just redid my entire studio and had not plugged that drive in again. This got me to thinking about computer 101 we all know but get complacent in which is back your **** up all the time. The protools auto backups wont save me on missing audio files and I dont really love time machine. Is there any recommendation of free or low cost softare for MacOSX (Mojave at the moment) that I can use to just backup my working directories to an external drive on a regular basis that is lightweight and simple? I dont want to just start googling and installing random stuff trying to guess what is best and wont infest my mac pro. Thanks. Peter
|
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
3 words:
Carbon Copy Cloner |
#3
|
||||
|
||||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
^^ That. And if you keep your computer on 24/7 you can automate it to backup when you sleep. Otherwise need to remember to backup after you stop working. Anyway, best bucks spent for the last decade or so.
__________________
Janne What we do in life, echoes in eternity. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
There's also Chronosync for more involved settings.
But for quick'n'easy nothing tops CCC.
__________________
iMac Pro - MacOS 10.14.6 --- - Pro Tools U HDN 2019.6 - Avid HD Omni + HD I/O 8x8x8 - C|24 | S3 | Dock |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
You should work out why you are losing content. It might be reasons like content is getting recorded to a drive you do not expect it to be... and backups of where you think it is will not help you. Get your workflow and templates sorted out. Make sure audio content is going into session folders. You can Use “find” to scan all drives looking for audio files outside of session folders.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a fantastic tool for cloning boot/systems drives. It can also be very good for cloning entire audio/session drives, but it may not be the only tool you want to use for that, or may not even be the best, it depends on what you want to do/workflow/recovery needs. Think this through, are you trying to protect against? User mistakes? Drive failure? Computer failure? Theft? Building failure? How exactly will you recover? Just copying sessions to a NAS server or a set of external drives as backup can work *great*. Command line ”cp” command, or just drag and drop, maybe bundling them up with compressed tar or gzip commands to save space, there are lots of great choices with no extra software needed. Disconnect those drives/remove from are when finished to avoid finger mistakes. Don’t rely on auto save giving you rollback ability, save separate copies to the NAS or wherever at key points in time. Time Machine can also be useful for session backup, more useful there than with boot drives. Your sessions are not really backed up until you have about three copies with at least one stored off site. One of those should probably be cloud storage today... not complete cloud backup, just get the session folder and all content copied up to cloud storage like google drive or Dropbox etc... do not run stuff from cloud folders, I would create a compressed tar or gzip file of sessions and copy those to cloud storage. For archives of sessions or key milestones you will likely make more copies and focus on secure/offsite storage and maybe recording onto different hopefully long-usable life media for future playback. You should test your session backups work, ideally test on a different computer than they came from. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
Thanks all for the advice.
@Darryl: This is a very strange situation. I generally record my stuff on my internal 1TB SSD and I keep copies on external drives. There is no other place than the directory structure for the files to have gone. Its odd almost like they were deleted and I have had a few hangs where i had to restart but this is odd. It could be file system corruption but that should smoke all the audio files. Its super weird. I am still looking at this and its possible I inadvertently did something but I don't think so. It was a session I saved and then moved on to a new one. That said its not end of world but its a bummer because its the first rendition of a new song and I like to go back and reference what I did during the original composition. In the case of the other session I could see the clips but it was like they un-linked. When I restarted the files were there but not completely. Totally inconsistent but only in a few sessions. Maybe the session is corrupting. If you recall I had that issue many months ago you commented on with inputs being unavailable and it was only in that specific session. Who knows maybe another avid feature. :) As for the carbon copy program, I agree that may not be the exact solution but its worth looking at so I am going to install the demo and check it out. I am more interested in features like they have in windows to backup certain directories to an external drive as opposed to cloning a drive. Time machine can work but I dont like how it does this and while I have recovered files in the past, I would rather have the simple point and restore. I do have an external RAID5 TB2 enclosure to store stuff in addition to my Time Machine drive. I just got complacent I think. I keep my mac running 24x7 so something that automatically will backup my session directories only is really what I want. I am not afraid to wipe and rebuild as being an IT guy I believe this is good to do from time to time as systems get slow. Thanks all for taking the time to give me input. I will check all options listed. |
#7
|
||||
|
||||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
I'm on Windows and not sure if CCC is only a clone program, but the backup program I use will clone a drive, image a drive (a clone in a file), or just designated files/folders.
Avid used to recommend Super duper for Mac.
__________________
Take your projects to the next level with a non-union national read at reasonable rates Demos: brucehayward dot com SonoBus Source-Connect: brucehayward Options for Remote Direction |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Re: Session Audio files disappeared. Looking for backup software recommendation.
Quote:
|
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
All audio files(.wav) have disappeared | fgbdrum | 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac) | 1 | 01-04-2011 01:20 PM |
Need a software recommendation for burning audio CDs | DonaldM | General Discussion | 3 | 11-04-2010 04:40 PM |
Session and all files disappeared...Is there any way to recover? | jameslenger | 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Win) | 0 | 01-14-2010 01:18 PM |
Audio files disappeared from session and Audio file folder? HELP | Wookie | 003, Mbox 2, Digi 002, original Mbox, Digi 001 (Mac) | 2 | 01-10-2010 03:14 PM |
My Audio Files folder disappeared!!! | Detlef Brockmann | Pro Tools TDM Systems (Mac) | 4 | 01-09-2005 01:59 PM |