I Don't Trust these Hard Drives anymore....

Gear In This Video

My Gear:

Microphones

Rack Gear

Monitors / Headphones

Instruments / Amps

Camera Gear

[j.ghmusic]

I make electronic music so I don't necessarily work with clients but my solution to this problem is store everything on DropBox and then have DropBox make a local copy on a 6TB hard drive. That way any time the hard drive is connected to my computer it syncs files.

When I know I'm going to be traveling I have an SSD I load specific sessions or project files on to then I make sure I put them back on the backup hard drive when I get home. If I happen to start a new project while im traveling I'll save it on the SSD and upload the file to Dropbox at the same time to. Not sure if this is a system that would work for everyone but it's worked for me since 2017 and I've never lost a session file as a result.

[TrueFallacy]

“SSD drives are generally non-recoverable” - genuinely THANK YOU for sharing information that the manufacturers would definitely NOT advertise about their products. Cheers!

[Pratt-Hancock]

I always buy 2 hard drives - a master and a backup. Saves a lot of heartache.

[MTDJ]

Hey Colt I play in a band called Mastering the Digital Journey. I had a 4 GB hard drive fail on me two years ago, and I just threw it in a drawer. Since then, my original rhythm guitar player passed away because he was unfortunately messing with fentanyl. Watching your video, I was able to recover all the material on that drive, and now I am including my original guitar player on the rhythm tracks of our upcoming album. Thanks to you, I can't express how appreciative I am of this video. Even writing this message brings me to tears. Heartfelt thank you.

[donaldtaylorii]

I love the new background. I can't wait for the studio tour! Always leveling up.

[nutellaontoast]

I have to correct you here Colt, SSD drives are safer than spinning disk drives. They can take drops/bangs better, they don't wear out since there are no moving parts, and (on average) last longer than spinning disk drives. The caveat is that when they go bad, as you mentioned, you cannot recover information as easily as on a spinning disk drive. I have learned over the years that there is only one sytem that can keep your data safe and apocalypse-proof:

- Make sure all your drives(internal and external) are from big reputable brands

- Run software and os on your computer's internal ssd(don't use spinning disk drives for internal storage as they are slower and less reliable than ssd drives)

- If you don't have much storage space/need to travel, use an external ssd for save files

- Back up internal ssd(and external ssd for save files if you have one) to a spinning disk drive

- Back up that spinning disk drive to the cloud

This is the 1 2 3 rule. 1 piece of data in two different locations(In your studio and on the cloud) on 3 different storage types(ssd, spinning disk and cloud).

[djellisdee]

A local (fast) RAID vault (mirrored drives, RAID 1) is definitely a must have, and then also regular frequent backups to the Cloud for long-term storage is a must (eg. AWS, Azure, Google, iCloud, etc.). It's totally worth it to pay a little extra money each month to get a bunch of disk space on one of these big Cloud providers to back up your data. If there is a fire or flood at your house, or a robbery, or some other natural disaster, there is no substitute for having all of your critical data backed up in the Cloud.

[markw]

25 years in the IT field here. There are around ten different versions of RAID and it all depends on the level of fault tolerance you're looking for. You can have RAID arrays that require at least 3, 4 or more hard drives, but then the total storage available goes down. But it also depends on what you want to focus on in regard to performance, reading data, writing data or maybe both. My workflow is to SSD first, long term storage on a RAID array and then cloud backup for sharing and longer-term storage since that doesn't rely on hardware that I need to maintain. None of it is permanent - I've even seen total RAID failures in my experience - so 3 independent backups is a good solution for anything that critical. Always have one backup that is offsite and not in the same physical location as the other 2.

[LukasScott-yr]

I’ve lost files before (even with having backup drives) and it is a nightmare. I now work off of SSD, have a backup of all info on a disk drive, and use Backblaze to back up to the cloud every day. I realized God forbid my house ever burn down or get hit by a bad storm I could potentially lose everything I’ve ever worked on in my entire life unless I have everything in the cloud or a drive in another location. Losing those files really got me thinking of how to never ever lose something again. It was terrible.

[delvenhamric]

I worked the last 20years, before I retired in computer support and this is good info for everybody! I was always taught that your data isn't safe, unless you have at least 3 backups! On top of that, at least one of those backups need to be off site! Now that I'm retired, I can't afford the off sight backup. My fix for that is to at least store that 3rd copy, in a fire safe box at the outer corner of my garage! This in theory is the safest place for that off chance of a fire! Yes, that solid state drive is good for speed, but not for backup!😁

[theorignl]

By using your SSDs as session drives, you are driving them to an early demise, hastening them to that failure point. With latency in recording an issue, most definitely, create a recording session on an SSD. After the recording process is finished, save the project to a platter for editing where latency it no longer an issue.

[SaulDeAnda]

Do you keep your backup drives connected at all times, just not in use? Or do you only connect them when you're going to back up? I've been leaving my backup drive connected at all times for ease of use, but if that also kills its lifetime faster, then I need to unmount it.

[drewbin]

I just recovered and converted over 12TB of older Protools sessions for re-mastering! A good practice is to also take your Third Master location completely Offline! What do I mean.. Literally take the HD out of the NAS and put it into an Anti Static Bag and Store it! I have Physical HD's that I have done this with that I have used for 25+ years with no Issues! Another thing that I do for legacy Items is Burn them on Blu-ray Discs or Tape Media, this would be items that you don't need access to often but are important for archival purposes! Disc's are Slow to burn and recover but are bulletproof if stored well! SSD's have batteries on board to retain data when they are not plugged in and will lose data if not plugged in for long periods of time, so you can't use an SSD for this but physical media is always the best! Be careful with the Docks also especially with newer computers and especially the Apple Silicon Models because the TOC and Management of the drive for physical drives is very different from SSD's so a newer comp could actually corrupt your drive over time! Also companies are removing legacy drivers and support for older drives because they just aren't being used by the masses so a company like OWC are great for Legacy support and Chipsets that support both Older components and Newer ones! Apple's newer chips keep the controller off the drive and on the main SOC instead, this makes them faster than standard single SSD's but since they use multiple nands that have no onboard controller, if the comp dies it takes everything with it so always use an external drive for everything important on Mac! Cheers!

[golfmanbil]

I have had a few hard drives fail, and it cost me an arm and a leg to recover "most" of the data. I was not aware that the SSD was non - recoverable. Thank you for posting this video and information. Having experienced the great pain and agony of losing so many important files, photos, etc., I will be making changes ASAP. Thank You

[ChrisThomasBone]

Something else to consider is a network storage server with many hard drives. I'm not too familiar with the different raid versions, but there's one that spreads the data across multiple disks in such a way that there's enough redundancy to replace up to 2 failed drives, but you're still able to use more than 50% of the total storage.

[ArchipelagoEnt]

In a similar boat for years, Colt. Have you used so many different types of drives over the years. Now, with terabytes of Kontakt libraries, etc. etc. Been looking into a NAS/Server set up or an OWC 1UR. Lots of great benefits to hone in 15+ TB into an SSD network solution in a rackmount frame. Been going down the rabbit hole! Great channel, Colt.

[RhythmxRecords]

I love my glyph 16TB raid system! Life saver for sure, but it is almost time for a larger option.

[planettelex-gj]

Everyone should be backing up to the cloud. Backblaze is great and super easy. Have at least one physical backup and the cloud.

[patrickburyk]

Colt - Another thought just occurred to me... When using RAID-1 (two HDDs, mirrored), you have a very robust storage solution indeed. HOWEVER... Be proactive and have, on hand, at least (1) additional HDD (same type as in your RAID) . This can then be swapped in to your RAID if you ever start to experience storage failures. I keep (2) HDDS on hand just because. It's a fairly expensive contingency but you want to make sure every drive in that usage group is IDENTICAL in storage and performance specs. Oh, and speaking of performance specs, besides RPM (eg, 7200), you want to get the fastest READ/WRITE speeds you can in your HDDs. Big Write-buffer cache is also a must too. These two operating parameters are the most common causes of DAW buffer underflows; your CPU might be sitting around waiting for your storage drives to read or write data streams. For example: transfer a large data file to an HDD (or even SSD) and, after a few seconds, you might see its performance PLUMMET if you exceed its write cache. As per my previous comment, get the best SSD/HDD you can afford for audio production use. Cheers!

[johanarens]

Hey Colt, couple of things to add, don't know with Pro Tools, but with Logic Pro, you need to close your current project if you want to back it up, if still open, the project is locked. Sight... Regarding the tiering backups, you should always keep an offline copy outside of your house (fire, burglary, cyber attack, ...). Cyber Attack is still something that could happen to us, what would you do if you end up of having all your data encrypted and asking for a ransoms to decrypt it ? Answer : offline copy. Most likely, if your backup disk connected to your computer, It is compromised too.