Backing Up Music Files (CORRECTLY & SECURELY!)

Quick question, are you backing up music files securely? Quite frankly, no matter what your business or profession is, you should be backing up your content. Whether you’re working as a chef, a lawyer, or a real estate agent, it’s important to have at least three copies of your vital forms of documentation in case of an emergency. This sentiment is not only shared by those in the music industry, but it deserves even more emphasis.

While a chef can always operate off of memory and a lawyer can usually use alternative documents to support a claim, there are no such safeguards for a DJ or music producer. If you don’t have your music, you don’t have your music. So you must backup music files. Lost music can be devasting!

Most people all back up Android devices, Android phones, and iPhone mobile devices. So the backup of music files and tracks isn’t a new idea. However, just because we may have a general idea of what it means to store music files on outside sources, it doesn’t necessarily mean we know the best methods to save music backup music files.

In this article, we’ll give you the correct DJ tips and break down some of the most optimized methods of backing up all your music files and your entire music. collection.

We’ll get into the importance of backing up your music as well as something known as the “3-2-1 backup method”. By the end, not only will you have the most optimized method of protecting your music, but you’ll realize that this is a foolproof method of keeping any and all of your content safe, be it music tracks or chef recipes.

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Should I Back Up My Music Files? (in short)

Yes, it is a good idea to back up your music and important audio files. Backing up your music ensures that you don’t lose your music collection in case of a hardware failure or any other unexpected event that could lead to the loss of your music files. It is always better to have a backup of your music files in a separate location, such as an external hard drive or cloud storage so that you can easily restore your music collection in case of any unfortunate events.

Why Backing Up Music Is So Important

Now, on the surface, backing up music files may seem like an obvious answer. If you’re like most people, you’d probably say that backing up is important in case you lose the initial file or want to go somewhere with a copy. While both of these answers are certainly correct, they aren’t the full story and the only reasons why you’d want to have your projects backed up.

Depending on your situation, even something as simple as the creation process of putting together a music track can need backups.

For example, how many people have worked on working on a track (either for yourself or producing for someone else) only to make a serious mistake? By holding regularly stored backups, you could save yourself a considerable amount of time and energy as opposed to essentially untangling a particularly ingrained mistake.

Another example of this is simply forgetting to back up your content and closing out of the screen. While many software systems will prevent you from closing out directly without at least offering a prompt to save your data, this isn’t universal and can end up costing you.

The same is true for system crashes in general, which abruptly disrupt everything and can often require a full restart, thus causing you to lose out on everything you’ve worked on before.

Ultimately, no matter what the specific reason is, backing up is pretty much a requirement, as not doing so can often end with you losing your time, energy, and (if you’re producing for someone else) potentially even money.

And while most people would imagine that auto storing onto a USB, an external hard drive, or on the cloud would be a surefire way to offset this issue, I have personally experienced the shortcomings of relying on only one method for holding onto your valuable data.

Using The “3-2-1” Backup Method

There’s a very appropriate phrase, when it comes to storing information, that says, “A file does not exist unless it can be found in three different locations.” And while this was initially termed specifically for audio file storage, its principles are universal in their practice.

This is what’s known as the “3-2-1” backup method. It involves the process of storing your data on not one or two, but three entirely separate devices to ensure it remains truly safe.

While these devices could be three separate external hard drives or USB drives, it’s highly suggested that you hold them on three separate platforms. One on your computer, one on a USB or external hard drive, and one on a cloud-based storage service.

What Is The “3-2-1” Backup Method?

Considered one of the most effective ways of backing up and protecting your music library, the “3-2-1” backup method revolves around storing your information on at least three separate storage devices.

Not only that but it is advised that at least one of these devices be housed in an entirely separate location. This way something that might negatively impact one of the devices won’t bother the other two.

For example, let’s say your house caught on fire or was caught in a flood. For the majority of people, not only would their primary device likely be unrepairable, but so too would the backup option, as most people keep them relatively close to one another.

On the other hand, if a third storage device was kept at your work office or your parent’s house, you’d have at least one copy that you could reach.

In addition to different storage devices, it may also be worth it to store your data on multiple backup storage formats as well. This means, in addition to putting it on three USB thumb drives, you’d also want to consider throwing it on the cloud as well as a main external hard drive. Below, we’ll go over the best formats worth looking into.

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1. Computer

Starting with your most accessible option, your music computer generally has a pretty large amount of available storage available to it. This should be the first stop for pretty much all of your backup files and the original placement for most of your files.

Consider that, as a result, your computer will almost always have the most recent and up-to-date versions of any of your files. For music producers, this means that your Macbook or PC will always have your most recent sessions while your other backup options will have sessions from a few hours to a few days ago.

To make sure you don’t have any issues, make sure you’re keeping your storage space as clean as possible and not littered with a lot of useless files and software. You also want to ensure you have the most recent anti-virus software installed to ensure you are not at risk of a virus or getting hacked.

This is especially important since most of your storage options can’t be interacted with by outside sources due to them being entirely offline options.

Keep your computer in an optimal state so that it can properly operate at its fullest capacity as your PRIMARY storage device.

2. A USB Thumb Drive/USB Drives

Whereas a few years ago a USB drive (also known as a flash drive) was useful only for holding small files like some pictures and songs, today they have been severely upgraded. Now, you can get tens of gigabytes (GB) on a single thumb drive. Thumb drives are easy to carry around with you and don’t take up much space. On top of that, thumb drives tend to be more financially accessible compared to other larger storage devices.

On the other hand, keep in mind that even larger flash drives may not have enough storage to hold more than one or two hefty things. For example, if you’ve got a lot of session files, most thumb drives simply won’t be able to adequately contain everything.

What’s more, because of their smaller size, it’s not uncommon for these drives to end up taking upwards of 15 to even 30 minutes to copy some of the larger files onto them. In addition, a thumb drive is one of the more unstable options and can often become corrupted, requiring a complete re-format (though this is true for all storage devices).

If you have a bit more money, you can opt for a smaller external hard drive. These aren’t quite as portable as thumb drives but generally have more storage data and faster transfer speeds. The caveat is that these are often much more expensive. Personally, I recommend having several thumb drives along with an external hard drive to act as a sort of master option that is used as rarely as possible to prevent it from getting corrupted.

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3. A Master External Hard Drive

In addition to a USB external thumb drive, you also want to ideally have a master external hard drive. In particular, you want to look at a solid-state drive (SSD) that can hold several terabytes (TB) of storage at a time. There are smaller portable options as well as larger more stationary options.

Regardless of the one you choose, it should hold at least one TB worth of storage. Depending on your situation, this should be enough to handle all of your more pressing and essential files. If you can manage to invest in one of the larger options, you can probably hold your entire computer’s worth of files, giving you a sort of “master backup hard drive”.

Having an SSD external hard drive (and a decent USB cable) is important since it’s sort of a one-stop shop for all of your digital music library consent. While you may have certain files saved on your computer and certain files saved on an individual thumb drive, your external hard drive should have as close to everything as possible. That way, if you need to restore your files from a system reset, you have everything available to instantly be replaced.

4. Cloud Storage Services

Whether you opted for the initial backup files options or not, you should ideally also have it available on a cloud-based storage software. Unless digital music is inherently private, there’s no reason not to hold it in the Cloud. Not only is it one of the most affordable options, often being free up to a certain amount of space, but it is also extremely accessible, able to be used virtually everywhere the internet is available.

The most popular cloud storage platforms include backing up music to Google Drive, Microsoft One, iTunes media folder, and Dropbox. There are others out there as well, but these are the most well-known and easy to upload files to.

On top of that, all three of these methods offer a fairly high amount of storage space entirely for free, with the option to get considerably more under a subscription charge. While people just storing regular files and information may be able to use the free storage space for a while, if you’re doing a lot of music projects you’ll probably burn through your free music backup space pretty quickly.

For those that are especially focused on privacy, cloud-based platforms like Sync stress privacy protection for files so that they are more difficult to access even by government officials.

The one thing you have to always consider is that as useful as cloud platforms are, if the company shuts down, all of your information is irreversibly gone.

The same is true if the company suffers from a hack or data leak. Depending on the situation, you may simply have gotten some of your information leaked to others, while in other situations the consequences may be losing the content entirely.

Ideally, you’ll want to use cloud storage, which includes the Google Drive App, as an easily accessible method of reaching certain files, while housing two or more external devices as secure backups that you more or less don’t touch unless an emergency is occurring.

The only exception to this is for people that have especially private information and don’t want to run the risk of it getting hacked on a cloud platform. In these cases, your best bet is to only use offline external storage options.

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Backing Up Your Music Files: The Verdict

As you can see, while this is something all DJs and music producers should implement, storing your files and information is important for just about everyone. For those in the music world, backing up all the music tracks and music files you have is far more essential to your business and livelihood and should, as a result, be done quite regularly.

Investing in several backup methods not only offers you real security but also legitimate peace of mind. By only housing your material on one device or platform, you are creating a false sense of security that can become all too real if the cloud service shuts down or the hard drive becomes corrupted.

Even having it in only two places can run you the risk of something bad happening. By having it in three distinct locations, you ensure that, even if two freak accidents happen simultaneously, you have a third failsafe.

No matter what your field, having multiple storage sites for your files is an essential investment, especially since they are more affordable and accessible than ever before.