Do I need to keep older versions of Pro Tools?

[wxs3]

Hi Folks!!
I've been a member since 2014 and have found answers to most of my questions here. One question that I haven't found an answer to is this:

Do I need to keep older versions of Pro Tools on my PC or can I delete them after an update??

I've just updated to 2021.6 and have versions as far back as PT 11. Can those old versions be deleted or are they needed for the current update builds?

It's probably a dumb question , so please be kind.

Thanks!!
Walt

[albee1952]

Not dumb at all. Can you toss them? Sure. Should you? That gets into a grey area. Personal opinion; I keep every version of every download of just about everything.(actually, I keep a large USB drive for nothing else). Will I need any of it again? I don't know. But if I do, I know right where to find every installer I might need(because I may NOT be able to find it for download in the future). Do you need to be as nuts as I am? Probably not, but you might consider at least saving things for 1 year before you delete. While on the subject of saving stuff, you should also save drive images and backups or all sessions(another great use of a large USB drive). There are 2 kinds of computer users; those that have had a crash, and those that WILL have a crash. Also, the age of a drive has no bearing on how long it will last. I had 2 external drives crash within 2 weeks of brand new and even had a 6 month old SSD delete critical data due to a firmware problem. The point is; you can't be too careful

[wxs3]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Not dumb at all. Can you toss them? Sure. Should you? That gets into a grey area. Personal opinion; I keep every version of every download of just about everything.(actually, I keep a large USB drive for nothing else). Will I need any of it again? I don't know. But if I do, I know right where to find every installer I might need(because I may NOT be able to find it for download in the future). Do you need to be as nuts as I am? Probably not, but you might consider at least saving things for 1 year before you delete. While on the subject of saving stuff, you should also save drive images and backups or all sessions(another great use of a large USB drive). There are 2 kinds of computer users; those that have had a crash, and those that WILL have a crash. Also, the age of a drive has no bearing on how long it will last. I had 2 external drives crash within 2 weeks of brand new and even had a 6 month old SSD delete critical data due to a firmware problem. The point is; you can't be too careful

Good insight! Was thinking it would free up some disk space. I will try the usb drive that you mention. While I'm not a professional, I will keep at least the last 2 updates on the drive, just in case. Thank you for you reply!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Not dumb at all. Can you toss them? Sure. Should you? That gets into a grey area. Personal opinion; I keep every version of every download of just about everything.(actually, I keep a large USB drive for nothing else). Will I need any of it again? I don't know. But if I do, I know right where to find every installer I might need(because I may NOT be able to find it for download in the future). Do you need to be as nuts as I am? Probably not, but you might consider at least saving things for 1 year before you delete. While on the subject of saving stuff, you should also save drive images and backups or all sessions(another great use of a large USB drive). There are 2 kinds of computer users; those that have had a crash, and those that WILL have a crash. Also, the age of a drive has no bearing on how long it will last. I had 2 external drives crash within 2 weeks of brand new and even had a 6 month old SSD delete critical data due to a firmware problem. The point is; you can't be too careful

I do the same thing here but I have two drives with all my installers. One is external connected via firewire for when I do backups and the second is an internal that gets backed-up to that external drive. Belt and suspenders as any old safety engineer (my wife) will call it. When that backup is done I power down and disconnect the external drive.

Having this has saved my bacon more than once.