The Windows Back up routine is no longer there - I don't know what happened to it, it just simply does not appear and I'm not doing any upgrades to find it again. So I bought a backup program, years ago, when this happened, and have been using that since. Not exactly sure how that would work in the event of a drive failure anyway. I back up the actual recorded data routinely to an external hard drive, but also have other hard drives with various "full system backups" on them. It's just a bit scattered and I don't really know what the hell I'd do with them, given they're done on an external program, anyway, if the damn thing died.
From where I am now, backing up "the computer" as such seems to be a complete waste of time. If the hard drive or SSD fails, the PC is probably sunk forever - I won't be able to find something similar in terms of hardware to replace the drive and the OS is obsolete, and why would I even bother? If a drive fails, that would become the catalyst for a new complete computer with new OS.
It seems to me that what I should now be doing is backing up, in more than one location, not just the data but everything relating to any program that's on it - and I'm thinking VSTs etc. - so all the myriad plug ins, which are usually just single .dll files - plus the larger items that are currently in use such as the Slate drums, the Omnisphere synth, Pianoteq and their samples - that sort of stuff. So that if this PC dies before album completion, I can resurrect everything on a new PC with a minimum of fuss. (Ha!
) To some extent I'm sort of already doing this but there's stuff everywhere and getting systematic and organised about it is probably a good idea.So that's the question - ditch the full computer back up thingy and just track down all the individual VSTs and executables and ensure I have them all backed up as well, in multiple places, or continue with "proper" full system backups? The hard drive is making the odd noise and I'm getting nervous.
What say you?
