Ableton Forum

had a computer crash years ago that put the fear into me. getting along in years on SSD and wondering if i am backing up all that needs to be.
if i haven't changed anything from the way live would store things by default. if i back up the "ableton" folder on my hard drive am i getting everything that would be needed for restoring if hard drive crashed?

also is it detrimental to store everything in one temp project folder (i have well over 250 songs with all accompanying samples, wav files etc.)

I don't believe projects are saved in the Abelton folder by default, not on mac anyway. So you'd have to back up wherever you are saving your projects.

Btw if you want complete idiot proof peace of mind for backup I use an online service called Backblaze. It's automated online backup of all your data and it costs about $5 US a month.

thanks for tip on backblaze. i had a well known back up service (carbonite) only to find out that they don't back up all the files in a folder you have set for backup.
after speaking with their tech people they confirmed that they don't back up files that you update to. say i have a track/project i am working on and i do some subsequent vocals to it. those new sample files are not backed up. it limits back up's to certain type files. could be a carbonite thing.
can you confirm that backblaze is a constant backup if you have it set for a schedule. thanks.

i highly recommend Arq:

https://www.arqbackup.com/

you can use it to backup to another cloud service, e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, etc., and they now offer an all-in-one solution too.

backblaze is truly unlimited everything for one price and continuously backs up files in real time as they are changed or created.

edit Arq looks sick. although costs extra beyond 1 TB or works with existing cloud storage it seems. A caveat of backblaze is that it isn't like cloud storage, backups have to be prepared and take a few minutes.

Arq gives you lots of control over your backups...

looks like Arq isn't set up for windows quite yet. (i am using windows)
when you say the caveat of backblaze is "have to be prepared" not sure what you mean by that. i don't mind a little work at end of session.

micksmuse wrote:looks like Arq isn't set up for windows quite yet. (i am using windows)

the standard version is Mac and Windows compatible. it's the all-in-one version that isn't available for Windows yet.

what i mean is that backblaze backup service is not the same as a cloud storage. just that when you retrieve your backups, should you need them, they take a few minutes to prepare to download from backblaze.

your data gets backed up automatically in the background and requires no other action