This is something I want to know. In the past I recorded my albums in CD and put in a box. But know I have a DVD recorder, so I always burn 2 copies of the disc, one to my personal use and other to stay protected. Also I never burn a full 4,7 GB disc, always left some space in there like 4100 MB.

Some people prefer HDs, other FTPs. Want to know other opinions.

First rule: "You never back up enough!"
Second rule: "Back up everything"
Third rule: "you never back up enough!"
;)

I lost like 700 soundtracks 2 years ago in an hard drive crash.. I was mad when i had to find all over again. (i lost like 100 soundtracks i will never ever find again).. so now i am burning asap.


When i started collecting soundtracks, i burned them on CD (i went to 80 cds.. that was a pain to do and in the same time i had the same amount of albums to burn on HD. (that i lost..)

When DVDs were finally cheap enough (and when it would not take 1h to burn one), i started to burn all over again but this time in DVD. (but the pain is still here since the high number of soundtracks i have)

I'll buy a HD in a few days for x-mas and store everything there too.
Maybe i'll open a private ftp in the beginning of the next year.

I save them to my 500GB hard drive.

I'm in the process of burning them all to DVDs. I have this paranoia that my HD is going to crash, and I'll lose all of it. It just takes a LOT of DVDs.

You know, this is an interesting question and it's one that I've been thinking about for some time now. I used to do what the original poster did: Burning two copies of whatever I ripped onto two blank CDs (One to use with a CD player and the other just to store the data in a safe location). However, after searching the Internet for the lifespan of both burned CDs and pressed CDs, I decided to go the external hard drive way. Naturally, burned CDs don't have as long a lifespan as most pressed CDs, so eventually (Probably every five to seven years to be safe), you'd have to burn whatever you saved on those burned CDs again. Otherwise, you run the risk of the burned CDs having corrupt files over time. I've looked over the original batch of CDs I burned to store my VGM music, which I did about seven years ago, and a few of those CDs have files that are unreadable.

That said, I don't use CDs to store data anymore as it is a bit of gamble, though that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. When I originally made those copies, I was pretty inexperienced with how to properly burn a CD, so the degradation of the files was probably a combination of the type of CDs I bought, using a high burn speed, and the CD drive I had at the time. In theory, if you have a great CD writer, burning program, quality CDs to burn to, then they should last longer.

As far as DVD copies go, I think the same logic applies and depending on a number of factors, the DVD copies might not last as long as you think, either.

So, to answer the question, I use two external hard drives of the same size capacity and type to hold my VGM collection. Both have the exact same content in case one fails, which external hard drives can do pretty well.

I have an external drive, usually when i download a whole new batch of gamerips, osts i just start backing them up to my external because of that fear of HD crashing.

Damn, i will never have the courage to burn a second time what i burned so far.
A special hard drive for stockage would be the best idea.

And one more external drive that you don't use often for more back-up...
talk about a setup :)

I realized about a month ago that my hard drive seemed to be on it's way out. Not all that surprising since it's five years old and gets used to play a lot of games and store a lot of stuff. Luckily, I was given a heads up to store all my music. I could have burned it all to cd's, but it just seemed like a rather daunting task, so instead I bought an external hard drive. They don't last forever, but cd's don't either, and, for the price and convenience, I thought it the better deal. Hopefully I'll be right.

Still waiting for the hard drive to crash though.

My computer's Hardrive, My brother's computer (He likes the same game music :P), CDs and Data discs.

First I download the album, of course. Then I burn the album onto a CDR immediately after the download is complete, using Windows Media Player. When burning is complete, I put the CDR into a nice slim jewel case, write the album title onto the disc with a permanent marker, and put it in a box with the rest of my OSTs. Been doing it like that from the beginning.

I have them in folders on an external drive. Periodically I archive them and put the archive on another external. That way I will have it in some form in the case of a hard drive crash.

I put them on CDs but after reading this I think I'll have to find and alternative just in case.

I keep a copy of all of my VG Music on my external drive I back up once a week as well as my stepmania folder. I also have a DVD Copy, but it's rather outdated and I haven't picked up a DVD rewriter yet.

i keep all my music (about 1/3 of it vgm probably) on an 500gb external hdd. i used to keep the music on my older 250gb external drive, but eventually i ran out of space. i would like to have important files on several locations, but i simply don't have enough external hdds, and burning it all (even if it is only the music i really listen to) on dvds is kinda a project fit for that one year long vacation i'll never have. also, regarding other important files like images and word documents, those are hard to burn on a dvd because you make changes in them all the time; i want those on a medium that can be overwritten with the updated files.

i have a 30gb mp3 player, on which a few gbs are deticated to backups of other important files. also, naturally, the music i like best is stored there as well, even if it is only the absolute very best of everything since 30gbs isn't very much when you have like 50 favourite artists and prefer lossless quality.

i wish there was some computer app that let you automatically store two identical copies of something on two locations. i mean, for example, you open a document from one of the locations, and when you hit 'save', changes in the document are saved to both locations simultaneosly. does anyone know anything about something like that?

i keep all my music (about 1/3 of it vgm probably) on an 500gb external hdd. i used to keep the music on my older 250gb external drive, but eventually i ran out of space. i would like to have important files on several locations, but i simply don't have enough external hdds, and burning it all (even if it is only the music i really listen to) on dvds is kinda a project fit for that one year long vacation i'll never have. also, regarding other important files like images and word documents, those are hard to burn on a dvd because you make changes in them all the time; i want those on a medium that can be overwritten with the updated files.

i have a 30gb mp3 player, on which a few gbs are deticated to backups of other important files. also, naturally, the music i like best is stored there as well, even if it is only the absolute very best of everything since 30gbs isn't very much when you have like 50 favourite artists and prefer lossless quality.

i wish there was some computer app that let you automatically store two identical copies of something on two locations. i mean, for example, you open a document from one of the locations, and when you hit 'save', changes in the document are saved to both locations simultaneosly. does anyone know anything about something like that?

Well, you can kinda do that if you have a partitioned drive...that way, even if you reformat one partition, the other one is intact.

Considering doing that with the new external hdd that I got for Christmas...I have a lot of rare stuff that I don't want to lose. Will have to take some time to fiddle around with it and see if it will let me. Going to use this one just for OSTs, though. I keep other important docs on my thumb drive.

I store ALL music in a backup external HD.

Backup external hard drive as well...pretty handy, but sometimes a pain when you're constantly downloading new music.