Old 03-23-2019, 11:39 AM   #1
Frameshifter
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Default Drive is failing....

Hi Guys. I have a ton of songs/projects on a drive that is failing. What is the best way to ensure that the projects are saved to another drive?

The songs are stored in a single directory. I use a lot of VST's too will these be lost or have to be rebuilt (Mappings etc)

A bit bummed out.

If I can get these saved what is the best practice for project management. Tips etc to help minimize issues going forward.

Thanks in advance and hope you're all having a great weekend.
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Old 03-23-2019, 11:44 AM   #2
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What OS are you on? The easiest way is to clone the drive and then remap the drive letter to the previous letter. That way the OS and Reaper app will never care. I assume your Reaper install is on a non-failing drive as you would want to backup the Prefs in Reaper too and maybe backup your resources folder under

Options / Show Reaper Resource Path in explorer/finder
C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Roaming\REAPER
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Old 03-23-2019, 11:49 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coachz View Post
What OS are you on? The easiest way is to clone the drive and then remap the drive letter to the previous letter. That way the OS and Reaper app will never care. I assume your Reaper install is on a non-failing drive as you would want to backup the Prefs in Reaper too and maybe backup your resources folder under

Options / Show Reaper Resource Path in explorer/finder
C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Roaming\REAPER

Oops sorry. Windows 10 Everything is on that drive too (reaper install included).
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Old 03-23-2019, 12:15 PM   #4
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clone it with one of these.


https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...Cloning+a+disk

http://www.clonezilla.org/
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Old 03-23-2019, 12:40 PM   #5
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If you don't mind me asking, what are you seeing that indicates to you that the drive is failing?
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Old 03-23-2019, 08:06 PM   #6
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If you don't mind me asking, what are you seeing that indicates to you that the drive is failing?
SMART errors.
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Old 03-23-2019, 08:07 PM   #7
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I appreciate the reply and the suggestions. I only need to back up reaper, the projects and (?) can these handle that? Just certain folders I mean? Also which folders.

I wish there was a way to simply open and save the projects to a new drive... actually would that work?
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Old 03-23-2019, 09:35 PM   #8
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Just get a new SSD in a size that allows for future needs, Samsung SSD are good.

Good luck with your problem.
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Old 03-23-2019, 09:40 PM   #9
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Yes that will work I am real tired now so will not attempt the answer
Where do you keep your audio files?

Someone will give you the answer I would but as said I am in no state to do so.
There are only two folders you need to copy over by memory from the C Drive if the wave files are on another physical drive than the C drive.
You should normally back all these up to an exterior drive all the time.

There was a resent post on this subject only a week ago I think so search for that.

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Old 03-24-2019, 04:38 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frameshifter View Post

I wish there was a way to simply open and save the projects to a new drive... actually would that work?
Of course it will work....If the songs open and play ok you can just save project as to the new drive and make sure to tick copy all media to folder.
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Old 03-24-2019, 04:55 AM   #11
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Since the drive is still working why not just clone the drive? It's easy to do and can make sure that everything is exactly the same
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Old 03-24-2019, 07:41 AM   #12
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Try cloning the drive with tools like: WD Acronis True Image, or Seagate Discwizard.

If this gives you trouble..
Try installing TeraCopy, and copying the folders one by one (or by groups..);
you can also enable md5 checksum to make sure it's bit perfect.

Also, if the drive is too full (ime they tend to fail when fully filled),
deleting the folders that are already backed-up could help the drive become more responsive thru the whole process..


IMO You should backup to a proper HDD and keep it safe, or just use it for Storage.

SDD's are better for a System drive,
or for immediate use loading installed programs, or Audio Samples very fast.


There's more advanced programs that let you attempt actual Repairs,
but you don't want to go there.. try the easy fix first.
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Old 03-24-2019, 08:43 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ernzo View Post
Try cloning the drive with tools like: WD Acronis True Image, or Seagate Discwizard.

If this gives you trouble..
Try installing TeraCopy, and copying the folders one by one (or by groups..);
you can also enable md5 checksum to make sure it's bit perfect.

Also, if the drive is too full (ime they tend to fail when fully filled),
deleting the folders that are already backed-up could help the drive become more responsive thru the whole process..


IMO You should backup to a proper HDD and keep it safe, or just use it for Storage.

SDD's are better for a System drive,
or for immediate use loading installed programs, or Audio Samples very fast.


There's more advanced programs that let you attempt actual Repairs,
but you don't want to go there.. try the easy fix first.
Can anyone quantify what ssd's buy you? I have 3 hard drives and have no problem with 150 tracks in reaper and using sample driven vsti. I just dont see any need. Like having a Ferrari to deliver the mail.
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Old 03-24-2019, 09:17 AM   #14
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Coachz,
Just my personal experience, not a computer wizard.
I record a combo of audio and midi with vst plugins for mixing on windows.
I starting use a 500 gb samsung evo SATA III as my audio hard drive about 1-2 years ago. I know some say it doesn't make a different for the audio drive but I noticed some improvement in playback responsiveness (handling more tracks of playback with less stuttering etc., but no objective measurements by me, of course their were plugins on every track). I will note I am using 96K SR though some say that is unnecessary. I believe the disk read and write speeds are faster but I don't know if that was a bottle neck for me. This was one of the faster ones I could find for write and read speed. There were a few faster but at a significant premium costwise, which I didn't think I needed.
I also have a crucial SSD as the OS drive and that is working well also. The computer and program load times are very snappy.
I use a HP elements I think it is called, 1 TB external ssd as back up, works great. I save project as to this drive. It takes about 30 seconds for say a 45-50 track project when I am copying the actual audio.
A user philbo suggested using save project as, checking copy media, as a manual back up, so i am "saving projects as" to that USB drive after a major session of recording or editing.
John
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Old 03-24-2019, 09:30 AM   #15
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USB3 HDD drives are cheap enough for a back up solution. Clone the existing drives with one of the free back up solutions and go SSD, it is so much cheaper than it was a few years ago.
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Old 03-24-2019, 11:26 AM   #16
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SMART errors don't necessarily mean your drive is about to fail, bad sectors and file system errors will throw SMART errors, but those can be fixed.

Regardless, the first thing you need to do is get one of those external USB drives and copy all your data, songs, project files, etc. to that external drive. Even if you can't find a way to backup all of Reaper, at least get the data saved. In a worst case scenario, you can reinstall Reaper and all those plugins, granted that's a bit of a pain, but nowhere near the pain of trying to replace all that lost data. So just make sure you get all that data saved first.

After you have your data saved, go into the drive properties, click on Tools, and under Error Checking, click the Check box. It should prompt you to automatically fix bad sectors and file system errors, so select those options and run the check. Keep an eye on what it does, it should at some point indicate any problems found and whether or not it could fix them. If it fixes all the problems, reboot the computer, that should reset the SMART errors and then you can monitor that moving forward to see if anymore SMART errors occur. If it encounters problems it can't fix, then you need to start looking at the best way to replace that drive, either by cloning, as mentioned previously, or using Windows to create a System Image of that drive.

But all that aside, first and foremost, save your data.
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Old 03-24-2019, 11:34 AM   #17
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Clearer head this morning

Do you have all your Reaper Project files under one folder?
Do you have all your Reaper Audio files under one folder in an independent HD?

I have all my Project files as above in my C drive ( Reaper normally puts them there) and the Project Audio files in my f Drive which is a independent physical drive than the C drive.

What is your configuration?
Find out where these two are situated
If you have the audio files on an independent drive leave them there find the
Project files folder and copy and paste them to a selected independent drive on your computer, note I wrote copy... if you cut them and something goes wrong you will not get them back.

If you have both the Project files and the audio files on the "C" drive you
should copy and paste both of these to and independent HD.
If you have got your audio files all over the place in your "c" drive then you will have to hunt them down and copy-paste them into anothe independent HD keeping them under the hood of a new named folder of Reaper Audio folder.


someone else may be better at this than I

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Old 03-25-2019, 06:50 AM   #18
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I'd simply copy/paste my projects onto a new drive.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Frameshifter View Post
Hi Guys. I have a ton of songs/projects on a drive that is failing. What is the best way to ensure that the projects are saved to another drive?

The songs are stored in a single directory. I use a lot of VST's too will these be lost or have to be rebuilt (Mappings etc)

A bit bummed out.

If I can get these saved what is the best practice for project management. Tips etc to help minimize issues going forward.

Thanks in advance and hope you're all having a great weekend.
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Old 03-25-2019, 09:15 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyMusic View Post
Coachz,
Just my personal experience, not a computer wizard.
I record a combo of audio and midi with vst plugins for mixing on windows.
I starting use a 500 gb samsung evo SATA III as my audio hard drive about 1-2 years ago. I know some say it doesn't make a different for the audio drive but I noticed some improvement in playback responsiveness (handling more tracks of playback with less stuttering etc., but no objective measurements by me, of course their were plugins on every track).
Having one local drive for OS and programs, and a second local drive for data is, generally speaking, always a more efficient setup from a throughput standpoint. Has to do with the way drive controllers work.

The other huge advantage to having all your data on a separate drive is ease of backup. With all your data on a separate drive, all you need to do is plug an external drive into your computer and copy and past the root folders of the data drive to the external drive. Boom, done!!

At least once a week or so, depending on how much my data changes, I'll connect my 1 Tb USB drive to the computer and copy and paste all the root folders in my data drive to the USB drive. Then about every month or so, I'll connect that same USB drive and do a Windows System Image backup to catch everything on the C: drive. Works great.

Johnny, any chance you know where Wadena is?? I was born there.
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Old 03-25-2019, 09:17 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toleolu View Post
Having one local drive for OS and programs, and a second local drive for data is, generally speaking, always a more efficient setup from a throughput standpoint. Has to do with the way drive controllers work.

The other huge advantage to having all your data on a separate drive is ease of backup. With all your data on a separate drive, all you need to do is plug an external drive into your computer and copy and past the root folders of the data drive to the external drive. Boom, done!!

At least once a week or so, depending on how much my data changes, I'll connect my 1 Tb USB drive to the computer and copy and paste all the root folders in my data drive to the USB drive. Then about every month or so, I'll connect that same USB drive and do a Windows System Image backup to catch everything on the C: drive. Works great.

Johnny, any chance you know where Wadena is?? I was born there.
Is there any advantage from separating sample based instrument VST eyes from Reaper project files and keeping them on separate drives. I currently have them on separate drives but don't know if I need to
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Old 03-25-2019, 09:19 AM   #21
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Stop using your drive immediately and clone it, from there you can do anything you want. If your drive is on the way out then you don't want it screwed before you can clone it - because the task of cloning involves much reading/activity from the drive.

You can copy from that clone, or even run it in a virtual machine and resave projects into folders that you need.
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Old 03-25-2019, 09:33 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Skijumptoes View Post
Stop using your drive immediately and clone it, from there you can do anything you want. If your drive is on the way out then you don't want it screwed before you can clone it - because the task of cloning involves much reading/activity from the drive.

You can copy from that clone, or even run it in a virtual machine and resave projects into folders that you need.
This ^^^^

I was going to suggest getting a USB drive and cloning the whole drive if space permits. I recently had a drive going bad and cloned everything on it to two large capacity flash drives that I already had. It took a long time to write the data to flash media, but reading it back onto a brand new SSD took no time at all.
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Old 03-25-2019, 10:09 AM   #23
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Quote:
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Is there any advantage from separating sample based instrument VST eyes from Reaper project files and keeping them on separate drives. I currently have them on separate drives but don't know if I need to
Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with the internal workings of Reaper to comment on that, but maybe if you look at it this way:

Consider that a computer, specifically your CPU only does one thing at a time. Regardless of what you might be doing, there's always a lot of stuff going on inside your computer, so what happens is the CPU spends a certain amount of time on one task, then goes to the next task, and on and on.

When one of those tasks involves read/write operations to or from a local drive, in very simple terms, the CPU tells the drive controller what it wants, then leaves the details of how to do that to the controller while it goes about servicing other tasks. Eventually the CPU comes back around to the controller and checks on the status of that previous request. If that requested action is done, the CPU processes whatever was involved with that task and then goes about it's business. If, on the other hand, the request has not been handled by the controller the CPU says OK, I'll catch you next time, and then goes back about it's business. The more times the CPU has to come back around before the controller has what it wanted is where things start to slow down a bit.

By spreading that load over multiple controllers, i.e. multiple hard drives, you increase the chances that the next time the CPU comes around to check on things, it's going to have what it needs. That's throughput.

That's a very simplified explanation, and it's not meant to mean you should load up your computer with hard drives. But I do think that one thing that gets overlooked a lot when it comes to computers and computer performance is good data management. Having a drive dedicated to just your data is an excellent data management tool. Remember that local drives are sequential access devices, meaning that if you're looking for "Z" the drive is going to start at "A" and then go down the list until if finds "Z". The deeper it has to go, and the more spread out things are, the longer it's going to take to find things.
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