There’s a very common saying in the pro audio world that not backing up your files is a mistake you’ll only make once. Whether you’ve got ten years of unfinished songs on your external hard drive or you’re just putting the finishing touches on an album for a rising artist, I've heard countless tales of storage devices breaking, corrupting, and being lost to the ether.
I know of several producers who have been close to completing projects for a big client, only to come to their computer the next day and find their hard drive has failed. Some of them have had to painstakingly recreate entire songs from scratch, or call the artist back in again to re-record, and this has had a knock-on effect on their work going forward. I myself lost around three years of music when a well-meaning relative decided to format and reinstall our home PC without letting me know first.
So, if you want to avoid the agony of having to tell someone you lost all their data, or the pure pain of knowing all of your creations for the last few years are gone forever, it’s generally advised that you should follow the 3-2-1 rule when backing up your data. That means you should have three different copies of all your projects. This breaks down to two different media, for example, two external hard drives or a copy on a different computer, and one ‘off-site’ copy, like a cloud backup or a hard drive that isn’t connected to any network.
It’s World Backup Day today, the Amazon Big Spring Sale is in full flow, and we’re close to payday for most people. So, if you’re not already backing up your productions, then hopefully this is the kicker you need to start doing this essential piece of house cleaning. There are a lot of different hard drives available on Amazon, so I’ve done the hard work for you and found x deals on rock-solid drives that will suit any musician.
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