Backing up

[Armistice]

So, long story short, I now have a OneDrive subscription with 1TB capacity - ie. more than I would ever need.

My recording PC isn't hooked to the internet (can if I want to....). Previously I've backed up all files to a separate hard drive, and actual MS backup to another hard drive and both to a third, off site hardrive. Following the philosophy that anything digital has to exist in 3 places to be safe...

Now I'm thinking I should use my OneDrive space to back up some stuff to the cloud, especially seeing the off site hard drive is at work and I haven't been there for months #thankscovid.

But what??? I'm not seeing the point of backing up anything but actual musical work - Reaper files and their assorted .wavs. Can't see the point of spending hours sending a bunch of plug ins and software up there as if I ever need to start again, I'm going to have to get new everythings from the source, and I have the plug .dlls and samples and what not in two other places already.

That make sense? Anyone have a different opinion?

I do this by getting the back up hard drive, transferring the material to my new laptop, uploading from there, and then deleting it from the laptop - seems easier than configuring the recording PC.

That way, once finished, I've really only got to remember to upload NEW folders... or folders I've worked on.

[Tadpui]

Man I'm not sure what to suggest. My own backup strategy is pretty haphazard so I don't have much advice.

I use a NAS on my home network as a backup destination from any device that has backup capability. I could use an app running on my NAS to sync to a cloud location, but I would hit my ISP's data cap 20x over before I got it all uploaded. So I'm pretty much in acceptance that my data could survive a drive failure but not a house fire,lightning strike, or other disaster.

For your disconnected studio computer, that's kind of a wrinkle in the cloud backup scheme. Maybe grab Windows SyncToy (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... x?id=15155) and mirror your Reaper media folder to an external USB drive. Then occasionally copy the drive's contents to one of your computers that is internet connected and let that machine handle the cloud sync?

I looked for a few minutes to find a way to connect a computer to a local network but prohibit internet access, but I haven't found anything definitive yet. If you could pull that off, you could just set Windows File History on your studio machine to back up to a share on one of your internet-connected computers in the house. Then sync that share with the cloud.

[rayc]

I don't bother with cloud saving because their "ownership" stuff is pretty whacky and the user agreement is WAY too long to read.
BUT if you are saving projects as you go you could simply do an extra save to an attached external, the project'll have what's needed to run but won't copy plugs etc - just the settings. You can then upload the saved projects from the ext drive to the cloud via your lap to.

[JD01]

I have the internal SSD in my laptop which is my main work drive - about 250GB
It also has a 1TB internal HDD (which I just checked is close to being full!)
Then I also have an external 1TB drive which I occasionally back up to.

In fact, I think I need to clean out my backups and buy a larger external drive!

I'm not interested in cloud storage or any shit like that.

[Armistice]

Yeah, it wasn't the "how" it was the "what" - bearing in mind that I have the originals on the recording PC, an exact copy on an external hard drive, I think I'll just upload Reaper project files and the .wavs, and not bother about anything else.

Which is what I'm doing now - and even that takes forever, so perhaps I'll leave it at that,

[JD01]

Ah, I just drag and drop whole directories (after I've cleaned them) for backup.
But then, I always use the same very small group of VSTs, most of which are bundled with Reaper.

Even when moving to a new machine I've never had a problem. I just install Reaper, EZ Drummer and my Focusrite VSTs on the new machine, transfer my archive across and all the old projects open up just fine.

[Lt. Bob]

wifey just backs up all her stuff to dropbox

[vomitHatSteve]

For Regdar and the Fighters, I distribute remix kits for all songs to patreon subscribers. This has forced some discipline.
I can't assume users have any VST(i)s, so anything like that has to be applied. I bounce everything down to per instrument stem mixes with everything except eq, automation, and compression/transient control applied.
Then I keep a copy on my server and at least one copy locally

For group projects, if it's important enough to back up, I give someone else a thum b drive