Ableton Forum

I was wondering what Live bacup entails exactly.
All my Live Sets are Documents in fact thats all thats in my Documents folder.
Then theres all my sample files that all my clips refer to. Most are just folders on my HDD but some are from Itunes.

I guess my ? is : If I back up all my stuff will my Live Clips still be intact if the path is different?
Or do most ppl just back up their entire hard drive?

Any suggestions would be helpful or just tell me how you do it!

Thanks

Live project files maintain absolute paths to samples that are outside the library or project, so if the paths dont match, it cant find them and them you have to use the file manager to tell it where they are.

Khazul wrote:Live project files maintain absolute paths to samples that are outside the library or project, so if the paths dont match, it cant find them and them you have to use the file manager to tell it where they are.

Damn.......Whats up dude? You answer all my ?'s. I saw your studio! Do you have a dedicated Computer thats always connected to the Forum????

HaHA Im just playin.

So..........how do YOU back up? exactly

Backup anyway you like, just make sure you restore to the same locations again

Hi,

There is a number of ready backup solutions for Mac (I assume you are on a Mac judging by your signature) including Apple Time Machine that ships with Mac OS X. I prefer SuperDuper! - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ ... ption.html

SuperDuper! can store full bootable HDD backups, as well as smart update backups that only store what's been updated since last backup. So here's my way to configure backup using SuperDuper!:

First create a full bootable HDD backup onto external USB drive. It will format the external drive and copy your entire system drive image to external drive and will make it bootable - it becomes a perfect clone of your system drive. Then configure a customized "smart update" backup schedule to run at the specified time of day of week. You may also choose specific folders for it, as it defaults to the entire disk. This is it. Next time the schedule is run, the smart update will check what has changed since the last backup and will transfer the new and updated files to the backup drive.

On my system "smart update" is seamlessly performed every night and my external drive is always attached to my computer, which is on all the time as well. I am pretty happy with this solution as it is transparent and basically lets me to forget about backups, until they are needed.

SuperDuper! is not free but it's excellent for my needs. As a free alternative, you may look into Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC).

Hope it helps,

Andrejs

Superduper is great for creating bootable external disk copies, The problem with using it as a regular backup is that if you accidentally delete or corrupt a file you will eventually lose it from your backup as well. Time Machine allows you to resurrect old versions of files from previous backups. I use both but I think TM is now good enough to be used on its own for on-site backups. There is a quick-recover from TM option on the OSX boot CD which can be used to recreate the entire disk following crash or replacement. I keep Superduper HD copies in my firesafe and keep the TM copies online all the time for the best of both worlds.

I just make copies of my Projects and Samples every few weeks, and store them on my Skydrive or Adrive accounts online. I also have a hard drive on a second computer that I have backup folders on as well, so the online stuff is more for extreme emergencies.

I make sure all my work is consolidated to the "Library" and then multiple copies are sent to multiple external disks using robocopy (it is a free and powerful tool from Microsoft). All of this is scripted (very simple shell commands) and works in the back ground. One of these external drives is exchanged with a partner of mine when we jam for offsite storage.

So, in essence I could completely lose my laptop to whatever nuisance and would simply need to acquire another (in a pinch borrow,) load the Live Demo and be ready to jam instantly with my library either copied to the new machine or running off the external drive.

Ultimately, I would suggest using whatever tools you prefer to have a copy of everything you would need to get going again on the presumption that your actual hardware may not be available to you when you need it the most.

Backups and the chair we sit in are the two most over looked aspects of many a producer. Good Luck!

I backup my projects to 3 external drives.
I also clone the main machine on one drive.
I have a 2nd machine as a 'working' back up too.
I am also thinking of dumping stuff in the cloud too.

^^^ nearly the same here... i had years ago a real bad HD crash and nothing absolute nothing could be recovered, since then i am super paranoid and back up everything at least 2x, and music and work stuff up to 4x times... using time machine, ibackup and silver keeper for it.

I wrote a blog post a ways back discussing my backup strategy.

Step 1 - Create Hit Song, Step 2 - Backup Your Data!

i honestly can't think of something more important then owning dozens of external drives, besides nice monitors LOL.

Nice thanks everyone.
A Lotta great solutions.
ABleton users are so F'n smart.!!!!!
One day we'll take over the world!!!!

Sunsetter wrote:Nice thanks everyone.
A Lotta great solutions.
ABleton users are so F'n smart.!!!!!
One day we'll take over the world!!!!

I think we did on... oops cat's out of the bag.

two drives.

OS and apps on one, data on the other.

buy a bigger drive (cause the data is filled up), copy the data to the new drive. install the new one, store the old one.

now I just need to make something worth backing up.