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Guest Kelly

Backing up files

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Guest Kelly

How do I backup my Vinyl Master files to an external hard drive?

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personally each customer has a folder and every project is saved in .eps format so it is compatible with almost all vector programs - I have gone back years later to projects to do again on reorders or alter as customers wished.  for my stock items they are in another folder  - ALL is on a separate hard drive on my computer and backed up to a NAS and an external hard drive

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Ahhhhh, the age-old question of how to develop a file-storage heirarchy that is comfortable and accessible.

Several options -- by date, by job title, by customer.

Also, keeping in mind that VinylMaster files are in a proprietary format, you might want to EXPORT each design as an .eps that can be utilized at some point in the future by a graphics editing program other than VM.

 

 

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Don't fool  yourself into thinking that having a single external device for backup is suffice. Trust me, have a least two backups on separate drives, or have one a cloud device store off-site, or an online one such as Carbonite. It's not a matter of if, but when your external hard drive will fail. Choose your files well, because not everything should be backed up.

I keep all my artwork in .eps format, it all gets backed up to an online site, but for the layout stuff I do in the cutting software - that I don't mind if it doesn't get backed up. I have two NAS at the home office, and off-site cloud I keep at my brother's house (because in the even of an unattended house fire, running out of the house with my backup drives is not an option - besides, the animals come first ... oh yah, and the husband). I also have a Carbonite account to grab the stuff I need in the even of something catastrophic. Carbonite chugs along slowly, so that's why I have a dedicated cloud, I'm not sharing bandwidth with everyone else trying to get files on or off the Carbonite server farm).

I personally have my stuff (artwork and layout), categorized by type (auto, food, signage, arrows, etc.) and by customer/business (customer names). So I know where my layout files are, and where I can find my artwork if I need to use if for another customer. If you do need to preserver and backup your layout, then like Slice & Dice recommended, export it a multi-application file format like .eps, .svg, or .ai

Even a bad backup setup is better than a no-backup setup.

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If  you can manage to get your required files to a flash drive, that's definitely the way to go! A word of caution though - flash drives are subject to failure, but their failure rate is no where near what it is for mechanical hard drives. I've put a few of my flash drives through the washer, and it still maintains it's data integrity, not sure how many more unintentional washes it can handle though. :rolleyes:

I would like there to be (some what affordable) 4TB or 8TB flash drives! Then I'd be a happy camper, but I suspect by the time that tech rolls out to the public, I will be needing far more capacity. Hahaha

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I have a 1Tb SSD that I back up to and another 128gb that I just drag and drop my actual working files into every so often as a secondary option. I primarily function in .ai format so that's what I keep all my stuff in. Using VM or Flexi would definitely be worth the time and effort to save as something non-proprietary. 

I do similar to Dakota. I have one main graphics folder and within it are branches based on clients vs my own stuff and within each another tree of folders to help keep it from getting too messy. I find myself having to do an little reorganizing once or twice a year. 

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Guest Johnrick

Spooler Cutfiles  are saved in C:\ProgramData\FutureCorp\VinylMaster_USC\Cutfiles. 

if you want the settings too just copy the whole Vinylmaster_usc folder

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On a Windows computer, it's very easy also to create a scheduled task with a script.

Create a text file you name for exemple Backup_VinylMaster.cmd  (.bat or .cmd means batch file).

inside this text file :

robocopy "C:\ProgramData\FutureCorp\VinylMaster_USC\Cutfiles" "E:\Backup-VinylMaster" /E /R:1 /W:1

 

And add this file to your windows "task scheduler" to start everyday.

Regards,

Letizia Casanova

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