Backups
The 3-2-1 backup for music producers
Three copies, two kinds of storage, one somewhere else. Back up sessions, bounces and masters so a dead drive costs you an afternoon, not an album.
Every producer knows someone who lost a project. A drive that stopped mounting, a laptop left in a taxi, a sync client that “helpfully” deleted a folder everywhere at once. The fix is old and boring and it works: the 3-2-1 rule.
- 3 copies of everything that matters.
- 2 different kinds of storage.
- 1 copy somewhere else: not in the same building, not on the same account.
Here is what that looks like for music.
What actually needs backing up
Not everything is equally precious. Sort your files into three groups:
| Group | Examples | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Irreplaceable | Recorded audio (vocal takes, live instruments), final masters, approved mixes, stems of released songs | Cannot be recreated. Losing them means re-recording, or losing the song. |
| Expensive | DAW sessions, bounces, stems of work in progress, lyrics, credits and split sheets | Can be recreated, at the cost of days of work and some arguments. |
| Replaceable | Sample libraries, plug-in installers, DAW caches, freeze files, analysis files | Can be downloaded or regenerated. |
Back up the first two groups with 3-2-1. The third can live on one drive; leaving it out keeps your backups small and fast. Cache and analysis files (.asd, .reapeaks, .pkf, Freeze Files, Cache folders) are safe to exclude.
The three copies
Copy 1: your working drive. The session on your computer or studio drive. This is not a backup; it is the thing being backed up.
Copy 2: a second kind of storage, nearby. An external SSD, a NAS in the studio, or a second internal drive. It should be updated automatically, at least daily. Nearby copies are fast to restore from: when a drive dies on a session day, this is what saves the session.
Copy 3: somewhere else. A cloud service or a drive that physically leaves the building. This is the copy that survives fire, flood, theft and the one bad day when everything nearby goes at once.
Sync is not backup
This is the part that catches people. A sync service (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud in their default modes) keeps folders the same everywhere. If you delete a file, or a plug-in corrupts a session, or ransomware encrypts your drive, sync faithfully copies the damage to every device.
A backup is different: it keeps what you had, even after the original changes. When choosing or configuring a service, check three things:
- Deletions are not propagated. Deleting a file on your computer should not delete it from the backup, or it should keep deleted files for a long retention period.
- Old versions are kept. If a file changes, you can get yesterday’s copy back.
- Conflicts are kept, not resolved silently. If two copies disagree, you want both, with a clear name, not a winner chosen for you.
Many sync services can be made to behave more like backups (version history, deleted-file retention), but check the retention period: 30 days is common, and a corrupted session you don’t open for two months will be past it.
Verify, don’t assume
A backup you have never restored from is a hope. Twice a year:
- Pick a project at random.
- Restore it from copy 3 to a different folder.
- Open the session. Play it. Check that the audio files are there and the plug-ins load.
- For masters, compare checksums with the originals. On macOS or Linux:
shasum -a 256 "Hayati Master 03.wav". On Windows:certutil -hashfile "Hayati Master 03.wav" SHA256. The same hash means the same file, byte for byte.
A backup system that records checksums when it copies, and checks them again when it restores, does step 4 for you on every file.
Make it readable without the software
In ten years, the app you use today may not exist. Keep backups in a plain folder structure that makes sense in any file browser:
Hayati EP/
Hayati/
Current/
Versions/ Mix 12 - Hayati Mix 12.wav
Masters/ Master 03 - Hayati Master 03.wav
Stems/
Lyrics/
Metadata/
A small text or JSON file per project that lists every file, its version and its checksum turns a pile of files back into a catalogue if you ever need to rebuild.
A setup that works for most producers
- Working drive: your computer or studio SSD.
- Nearby copy: an external drive or NAS, backed up nightly by your operating system’s backup tool or a dedicated app.
- Off-site copy: a cloud backup of masters, approved mixes, stems and recorded audio, with deletion protection and version history, updated whenever something new is approved.
- Twice a year: a test restore.
It takes an hour to set up. The first time a drive fails, it pays for itself.