Reaper swapping out hardrives using external/usb hardrives & online backup sites

[CoolCat]

Ok, this is a multiple question-ish type deal.

The sons hardrive crashed which had everything on it.
Hard lesson learned for not backing up pics and music.

As troubleshooting I swapped to a 40gig Sata and this works fine and proved the point he really did lose his HD, everything else works fine. Its a consumer Compaq/Windows pc.

So now, the 40gig is obviously not enough, so can I...........

a) use a external 1 Tera byte or so USB drive?
is it fast enough, will it handle Reaper etc....

b) can I load Reaper and just work from the external hardrive and unplug it when hes surfing with the 40gig?(hopefully protecting the music data.)

also...
How does one store the raw tracks of Reaper to a "online storage" site? Does anyone do this?

hmm?
I bought a 500gig Seagate Barracuda 7200hddrive last night using coupons and a $25 card...$34 cash. But his mother board doesnt have any free SATA sockets, only one for small hddrive and the dvd player, so any suggestions on this?
He already has the 40gig about filled up with music and crap.

Obviously, if the external USB method will work I'd like that, but it needs to work with Reaper recording etc...and I wonder about the speed and access for recording.

another option is just saving the crap off the 40gig , remove it and install the new 500gig and load up Windows on it.
then get an external later...but still the question is, can I store the Reaper tracks on "backup" USB Hddrives and /or Online Backup sites?


Any inputs appreciated...

 

[DaleVO]

a) use a external 1 Tera byte or so USB drive?
is it fast enough, will it handle Reaper etc....

b) can I load Reaper and just work from the external hardrive and unplug it when hes surfing with the 40gig?(hopefully protecting the music data.)

also...
C) How does one store the raw tracks of Reaper to a "online storage" site? Does anyone do this?

hmm?
I bought a 500gig Seagate Barracuda 7200hddrive last night using coupons and a $25 card...$34 cash. But his mother board doesnt have any free SATA sockets, only one for small hddrive and the dvd player, so any suggestions on this? D)

another option is just saving the crap off the 40gig , remove it and install the new 500gig and load up Windows on it.
then get an external later...but still the question is, can I store the Reaper tracks on "backup" USB Hddrives and /or Online Backup sites? E)

A&B) I have Reaper installed on a flash drive and record with it on my laptop, the files are saved to the laptop's Reaper directory by default. I copy them back to the flash drive and use my PC for editing. Reaper on a flash drive has a surprisingly small, less than 1GB footprint. It is the full DAW and the file size can be made even smaller by omitting the custom color templates. I did not omit and the entire DAW file size was acceptable to me. When using, I shutdown AV software, WiFi, etc..

C) I don't see why you couldn't upload to online storage, after the fact, provided you have the storage space. Wave files will be large if they are uploaded ~10+MB /recorded minute. I upload my edited tracks to Soundcloud.

D) Here is a temporary solution that I use to pull data from Sata or IDE HDDs: Newegg.com - Rosewill RCW-608 USB2.0 Adapter For IDE/SATA Device (Include Protection case)
However, a clean install on the new 500 GB HDD would be my route (IMHO).

E) The wave files can get quite large, so USB storage space will depend (10+MB/recorded minute) and the accompanying RPP files, that Reaper generates, are relatively small.

Hopefully this helps.
Dale

 

[CoolCat]

great input, thanks.

i picked up a 500g external $53 USB, so hopefully he can take the 40gig out.

ok, so I'll do your IMHO.....install the Seagate 500g and have the pc back to "normal".
(and remember to plug it into a spike-suppressor too)

the backing up of Reaper will be looked into further later, but before the band starts a CD-ish venture of 10 songs.
Reaper and a Tascam 1641(1800) type interface.

this is starting to sound really huge, its been so long, but 10M+ /min and thinking of numerous tracks is mind boggling....

 

[gecko zzed]

a) use a external 1 Tera byte or so USB drive?
is it fast enough, will it handle Reaper etc....

Yes. I've been doing this successfully.

b) can I load Reaper and just work from the external hardrive and unplug it when hes surfing with the 40gig?(hopefully protecting the music data.)

Yes again. Keep in mind, though, that external hard drives are as subject to failure as internal drives.

also...
How does one store the raw tracks of Reaper to a "online storage" site? Does anyone do this?

It is possible to store files online, but you need fast broadband and lots of it. I don't do it.

 

[CoolCat]

external & internal...what goes where?

thanks gecco..

I'm wondering about the Reaper being installed into the internal or external.

How does that work, or whats the benefit of external versus loading Reaper to the internal pc-hardrive?

the 500gig Seagate 7200rpm is installed in the pc. theres a external 500gb usb. Windows 7...1T.

about to load up Reaper and the other drivers for the interface etc..etc..

 

[CoolCat]

so the son went and just re-loaded Reaper onto the internal pc hd, and started getting to it.

now more questions..

can anyone give a simple tip, on how to "backup" all the Reaper info, to the external USB drive?
can it be setup to do it automatically from within Reaper?

also, can I use my license # on his pc if we are in the same house and not using Reaper at the same time?

 

[DaleVO]

now more questions..

can anyone give a simple tip, on how to "backup" all the Reaper info, to the external USB drive?
can it be setup to do it automatically from within Reaper?

also, can I use my license # on his pc if we are in the same house and not using Reaper at the same time?

CoolCat,
In Preferences/General, you can set the default directory to your Ext. HDD. I assume you were speaking of the rendered track-saves, when you said "backup" all the Reaper info.



Regarding the license use, I refrain from commenting because I am not a lawyer, and I cannot remember what the license agreement said.
Dale

 

[CoolCat]

Thanks.
I'm reading the manual a little at a time here.

I get confused with the terms Project and rendering and others.

When I record I just arm the track and add effects or not, mix a bit and then Save as a "song" then Render the entire "song" to Waves.
So it would be nice to backup/copy the tracks and mix to a 2nd hardrive or something in case of a crash.

Maybe once I save a few things it will make more sense, right now it makes no sense.
I know how to save and copy pictures and simple things....but this Reaper seems much more complex.

 

[CoolCat]

CoolCat,
In Preferences/General, you can set the default directory to your Ext. HDD. I assume you were speaking of the rendered track-saves, when you said "backup" all the Reaper info.

View attachment 76673

Regarding the license use, I refrain from commenting because I am not a lawyer, and I cannot remember what the license agreement said.
Dale

I never render individual tracks, I dont think. unless its automatic.

It'd be great to have it save to two places? Is that possible?

 

[DaleVO]

Dual saves- I have never tried that. I understand your "once bit, twice shy" planning though.

Because I like to know where a software is storing things, what I have experienced in my use of Reaper is:
By default, unless specified in the Prefs/General dialogue box, Reaper will save rendered tracks and Peaks files to the directory I have open at the time. With an unmodified Prefs location, the files are saved to the default-created Reaper directory, in My Documents/Reaper Media.

If I record to my laptop in the studio, save the .wavs to my flashdrive, move to my PC for editing, the saves and RPPs are saved to the flashdrive by default, since that is where I opened the project. If I pulled the .wavs to my desktop, then start editing, the saves go to the desktop.

I hope that I didn't muddy the waters more.
Dale

 

[mjbphotos]

If you want to 'back up' your files/productions/completed tracks, you need to drag and drop them to the back-up drive (copying them). There is back-up software that will do this automatically for you (when you buy an external USB drive, they usually package this software with it) - you tell it when/where to do it.

 

[CoolCat]

Thanks, I'll check that out.
going to the store to get a new flash stick.....

 

[CoolCat]

I surfed around a little bit on the hardrive.

Theres two folders in the document file and numerous Reaper saved to the Music File with word data added.

Which ones do you back up? All of them?
Do you compress first?

 

[DaleVO]

CC,

Not knowing what files you are seeing in the directories (My Documents/Reaper Media and My Documents/"My Music"<< I assume), Dale's tendency is to drag-n-drop, backup ALL files that are not typical Reaper installation configs. I do not compress.
Dale

 

[gecko zzed]

There are a couple of things you can do to make your recording and backing up life easier.

If you use Reaper's default filing path ( . . . Reaper Media) or a folder somewhere else that you specify you will end up up with a whole bunch of undifferentiated files. It's relatively easy just to back this folder up, but what you get is a backed up mess that may prove troublesome later on.

Consider creating a separate folder for all your music. Within this folder, create a new folder for each project that you start. You can create this before you start recording or after. If you create it after, then you can go to file/project/save as, and tick the box that says 'copy media into folder' (or something like that).

This makes your recorded fils easier to manage later. For example, if you've recorded a whole mess of rubbish that you want to get rid of, you can just deleted selected folders, instead of trying to ferret out the relevant files.

 

[CoolCat]

CC,

Not knowing what files you are seeing in the directories (My Documents/Reaper Media and My Documents/"My Music"<< I assume), Dale's tendency is to drag-n-drop, backup ALL files that are not typical Reaper installation configs. I do not compress.
Dale

thanks... I was reading the manual a few times now and still have a some confusion but made some headway.

there is the default settings.

the reaper media folder which is the auto-default project save location, and also my music folder which has a lot of songs/rendered from Reaper.

The confusion is there are a bunch of copys that end in "data". not sure what this is?

gecko, I realize the organizational issue is needed. I dont record large amounts of time so this will be done fairly easily. I like that idea of having it all in a project/song folder.

thanks for the inputs and tips.. I noticed 16gig Jump Drives are only $20 now, and good old fashioned CD-R would probably work for back up too.

 

[CoolCat]

There are a couple of things you can do to make your recording and backing up life easier.

If you use Reaper's default filing path ( . . . Reaper Media) or a folder somewhere else that you specify you will end up up with a whole bunch of undifferentiated files. It's relatively easy just to back this folder up, but what you get is a backed up mess that may prove troublesome later on.

Consider creating a separate folder for all your music. Within this folder, create a new folder for each project that you start. You can create this before you start recording or after. If you create it after, then you can go to file/project/save as, and tick the box that says 'copy media into folder' (or something like that).

This makes your recorded fils easier to manage later. For example, if you've recorded a whole mess of rubbish that you want to get rid of, you can just deleted selected folders, instead of trying to ferret out the relevant files.

speaking of cleaning up....the manual mentioned "Clean Current Project Directory". When I went to do this it gave a warning some of this might be used in other Projects so I didnt do it. What is it refering to? are they just garbage -takes for that project?