The Best Way To Back Up, avoiding confusing files Options

[mellotron]

what is the best way to back up if you are using a cd burner to do it? right now, i end up backing up and my files become confusing. i will start a session in logic or reason and record basic tracks. then, i back those up. the next time i get a chance to record more, i do so and then back up the new tracks to the same cd. i also backup the new document file that is created as result of adding new things to the session. after a while, things become confusing because i have multiple files that all go back to the same session. it becomes difficult to remember what files i want to use and which ones i decided not to keep, or redo, or whatever else i decided to do with the recordings. does anyone have a routine that eliminates some of the confusion of backing up to cd-r's?

[Bart S.]

I've found Firewire drives to be a cheap (getting cheaper and cheaper everyday), safe and convenient way to back up. I recently bought a 120G firewire drive for about 350€/$... I had a lot of songs and projects to back up and I can tell you I'm far from reaching the 120G limit!...
Just a thought...

[lepetitmartien]

Remember that a drive is still a drive so has a MTBF…

and that can come in 100000hours or tomorrow…

Si save to a 2nd drive is okay, but save to a good CD or DVD is better… definetly

[Teiwaz]

Mellotron,

I highly advise backing up on to separate CD's (after all, a pack of CD-R's are very cheap these days) and date each one separately, so that you can see which version of the song/track that you backed up is the most recent.

Also, Bart's suggestion of getting an external firewire drive is even better. That's what I do. After each session, just drag the folder of the song that you've been working on to the firewire drive's icon (make sure you don't do it the other way around...)

[Bart S.]

Yep,lepetitmartien, I get your point... I just forgot to say that all the datas backed up on the Firewire drives still reside on my "audio only" 80G+60G IDE/ATA drive...The chances that both drives (ATA+ Firewire) may crash are really, really slim...
And when I really wanna get rid of some of those datas, CD is definitely one of the best way to go (I just hope I'll soon be able to buy a DVD recorder...).