Backing up and archiving your data is extremely important. When you consider how much time you put into your work, and how large your files can be, regular preventative system maintenance is much less painful than re-creating a session or project. In digital audio and video production, we rely on our systems to the point that data loss can be devastating. No matter how well you treat your system, you cannot guarantee your data will be safe if it exists in only one place.

A backup is a copy of your data in a separate place from the original, such as a hard drive, tape, DVD or CD. Many people backup their work to tape at the end of the session or on session breaks. Programs such as Retrospect or Mezzo, allow you to keep track of what has been backed up, and what hasn't. At a glance you can see when the last backup occurred, and what files were copied. As you continue to record, edit or add new files to your working drive, continue to back up that data by running the backup program again.

Trust us. You're going to want to back that up.

You may also consider backing up your data on hot swappable hard drives. The working drive and backup drive can be the same capacity, making it easy to keep your files organized on both drives. Some clients are using our GT Keys as both working drives and backup drives. They can be used for an offsite copy, client copy, or simply a safety copy to put on the shelf. They can also be used with backup programs - record to your working drives, then backup at the end of the session.

Tape is often used for longer term backup because it is more likely to survive an accidental drop than a hard drive. Recovering data from a hard drive is not easy, but is sometimes necessary. Read more about Glyph's data recovery options here. Optical media may be the most robust for long term archiving. Optical media, like CD or DVD, provides you more cost-effective options for restoring your data. Like tape, hard disk drives are magnetic devices. Just as tape can exhibit dropouts or degaussing, a hard drive can crash or have bad sectors and irreplaceable data can be lost forever, unless it has been backed up. The best practice is to regularly back up your projects to a medium that you have the best access to, and over longer periods of time archive your data with optical media such as DVD or Blue Ray. Optical media offers a longer shelf life than tape, and CD/DVD/Blue Ray readers are more common, therefore you have a better chance of restoring from a backup.