Backing Up Drum Samples
Articles - Lifestyle
To most music producers and beat makers, one of the highest-value collections of sounds on our computers is the drum samples we adore. Having built hundreds and maybe thousands of drum samples - and storing many more - it is no wonder that many would simply not know what to do if the hard drive that stores these samples crashed. A lot of the songs we make often do not save drum samples and other external sounds along with the project, so it can be hard, if not impossible, to ever recover such sounds from the jaws of a crashed hard drive.
by JohnGellei


To most music producers and beat makers, one of the highest-value collections of sounds on our computers is the drum samples we adore. Having built hundreds and maybe thousands of drum samples - and storing many more - it is no wonder that many would simply not know what to do if the hard drive that stores these samples crashed. A lot of the songs we make often do not save drum samples and other external sounds along with the project, so it can be hard, if not impossible, to ever recover such sounds from the jaws of a crashed hard drive.

Storing your samples on your main hard drive may not be the smartest idea ever. The reasoning behind this? Well, computer manufacturers have long offered statistics on life of this equipment, known as mean time before failure (MTBF) which is only around 5 years. This means that most hard drives will fail after 5 years. You probably won't spend a few thousand dollars to recover your files, right? Maybe you will, but it will end up a lot cheaper if you back up right!

If financial difficulties or other reasoning prevents you from going beyond your main hard drive, you will need to look after a few different maintenance pivots. One of these is the defrag process. In short, it moves files that are similar to the same spot on the hard drive, allowing it to search and seek less when going for the same things over and over. This will increase the life of your hard drive. In fact, it will maximize it.

Flash USB drives are another option, but one that most music producers would advise against. Why? Well, they're very easy to lose track of. You could drop it into a gutter or anywhere else, so if you really need to use it for backup purposes or to store everything, connect it to your key-ring for maximum security. You can get them cheap these days, for just a few dollars, but long-term performance is not great.

CDs and DVDs - the rewritable kind - are great as a backup solution for most people that don't have huge amounts of ever-changing data on their computers, but are not ideal at being the sole location for your drum samples or other data. The reason why is that programs will not write to them on the fly.

Having a second hard drive can be a total solution for a lot of music producers. If you have a PC that only has one hard drive, consider getting a second one. It won't just be a backup solution, but you can simply store all of your files on it for performance. When programs call on it for music files, your main hard drive still has the operating system (Windows, Mac) files, so there are two completely separate streams, freeing your music hard drive from unnecessary stress and maximizing its life.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

If you're after some great-sounding hip hop drum samples or simply want to know how to make hip hop beats, just remember that you shouldn't settle for second best!