Backup your music files

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I won't go into a lot of detail (becasue I don't understand the detail), but my backup crashed in the middle of the night. The error message said my 10TB ran out of space. So, I resorted to erasing the 10TB drive and starting over. No chance I should have ran out of space as my NAS drive only has 6.8TB of music on it. I even checked the folders, etc. They looked identical, so not sure what the hell happened.
This has happened to me. The backup procedure copied all of the files that had changed since the last backup. But it wrote all of those on the destination disk before it deleted any of the old versions. So two versions of each file copied were on the disk at the same time during the process.
 
My second attempt at a backup to another drive worked flawlessly. I now have the exact number of files on both drives. Now, from here, I need to create a backup schedule that only adds changes. :)
 
I use an app called SyncBackFree, which, as the name implies, is free. It has a "mirror" function that allows the two drives to always contain the same files, including new or deleted ones.

Syncback is the best IMO. For those not in the know, Syncback has 3 ways to backup.

1. "Backup" - never destructive. It only takes new files and copies them to the destination backup. If you delete from your main source, it will not delete from the backup.
2. "Mirror" - It does what backup does but IS ALSO destructive. In addition to backup, it deletes files from the destination that are not on the source. Use this if you only make changes on the source and you want to keep your backup "mirrored" to what your source. This is only risky if you delete something on your source on accident, then your scheduled profile runs and deletes what is on the destination.
3. "Sync" - Will delete and copy files on both source and destination. Use this if you are adding and/or deleting files on both the source and backup destination.

And one of the most useful features, it supports all common cloud backup methods.
 
Last edited:
I use this app called CrystalDiskTools that allows me to view hard drive health. It seems to be a pretty reliable indicator for when your hard drive is about to fail so you can buy a new drive and transfer everything over without any data loss. You know, for the data that's always changing where manual backups will always be behind.

Not so keen on automatic backup software as it can delete everything in a jiffy if an accident occurs.
 
I'm using FastCopy from Japan (windows) with verify on. You can store jobs. One job is backing up the music folder of my NAS to an external HDD that is only connected during backup. I run FastCopy under windows, it's semi automatic. And I've full control. Sometimes I'm changing names of folders, tags etc. because of optimising may database.

And: I can recommend an external drive that is only connected during backup. If the power supply of your NAS fails and the voltage moves up everything is usually damaged. No chance for the disks in a RAID0 system!

At first run it takes some time to backup but later you'll add only a few new albums.
 
Well, as a professional that have been working in the past on Backup and Contingency Plans projects for customers...... I don't use any backup software for my music. :rolleyes:

I do it manually, 'copying' manually the music and concerts files from my main location (PC server) to my second location summer house (Other PC server there). Before I use to do it via an intermediate small USB disk, when travelling there. But now I do it directly over internet. The Second PC in the second House is always UP, as I use it also for home monitoring/automation.

Yes. it is time consuming, but I do it at the same time that I register the files in my multimedia library, details, comments, etc. in a wonderful database.......: An excel sheet. :rolleyes:

I've been dealing with so many backup software packages in my professional days, supporting and fighting with its failures that, now, I just want to be a "normal" user that have fun with the manually collecting, classifying, copying, registering my music files.

Not using any cloud service for that.

Other considerations apply to my critical 'My Documents' files. I use Acronis True Image and another sync tool to keep more than two copies/locations of 'My Documents', apart from archival backups.
 
Well, as a professional that have been working in the past on Backup and Contingency Plans projects for customers...... I don't use any backup software for my music. :rolleyes:

I do it manually, 'copying' manually the music and concerts files from my main location (PC server) to my second location summer house (Other PC server there). Before I use to do it via an intermediate small USB disk, when travelling there. But now I do it directly over internet. The Second PC in the second House is always UP, as I use it also for home monitoring/automation.

Yes. it is time consuming, but I do it at the same time that I register the files in my multimedia library, details, comments, etc. in a wonderful database.......: An excel sheet. :rolleyes:

I've been dealing with so many backup software packages in my professional days, supporting and fighting with its failures that, now, I just want to be a "normal" user that have fun with the manually collecting, classifying, copying, registering my music files.

Not using any cloud service for that.

Other considerations apply to my critical 'My Documents' files. I use Acronis True Image and another sync tool to keep more than two copies/locations of 'My Documents', apart from archival backups.
All my stuff is backed up similarly; multiple portable drives (nothing online) with notes in a spreadsheet (that is also backed-up).

Through work, I've seen too many (one is enough!) automatic backups fail and devs have to restore from a manual backup that I enthusiastically encouraged they make before everything went south "just in case".
 
I must be living on the edge :) . My back-up is automated and nightly. I have experienced the disasters others speak of but have settled on:
RSync - running on my QNAP NAS, does all the automated back-ups. Bullet proof, fully trust it. Learning: Don't fiddle with it
Syncovery - when I need to make any corrections, one-time syncs and any sync's to the cloud. Also use it to verify the automated back-ups once in a while.
YMMV
 
I do it manually, 'copying' manually the music and concerts files from my main location (PC server) to my second location summer house (Other PC server there). Before I use to do it via an intermediate small USB disk, when travelling there.
I do much the same except that the intermediary portable discs are stored elsewhere as an additional resource.
 
I used to work in backup/recovery for EMC (Dell) many years ago and we had lots of specialty hardware and software for enterprise solutions. For my home system, I use a Synology NAS with an older WD NAS as a hot spare that I sync my Synology to. I backup my Synology every night to attached USB drives "just because" and keep "offsite copies" in my pickup parked in the driveway, in case of fire. I use a very old copy of GoodSync for all of my non-NAS backups which seems to meet my needs. Hopefully I could recover from most any sort of disaster short of a nuke. In the past I have kept offsite copies at friends houses but don't have any now. Might have to start doing that again.
 
Back
Top