Do you save your recordings?

WoollyBee · Post by **WoollyBee** » April 22nd, 2014, 6:45 am

I now have quite a few recordings saved on my Mac. I also take a LOT of photos. With all this memory used up, my computer has gotten super slow. I'm thinking about deleting most of my recordings that have been cataloged (or maybe moving them to a jump drive). Do you save your recordings? If so, why?

Sarah

Post by **TriciaG** » April 22nd, 2014, 6:48 am

I save my unprocessed (but edited) FLACs and my finished, processed MP3's. I do not save the Audacity files.

I save them in case something goes wrong at Archive and the files get lost. Or in case my PL didn't catch an error, and 5 years from now someone files an error report on how I missed a whole paragraph.

We have a backup hard drive, so I save them to that. They don't slow down my computer. You could burn them to a DVD or SD card to get them off your computer. (You could do the same thing with your photos. In fact, I'd recommend a couple backups of your photos anyway, in case your computer crashes and you lose all your hard drive data.)

J_N · Post by **J_N** » April 22nd, 2014, 7:51 am

I save the audacity files until I have the PL:OK and afterwards I only keep the mp3s (for nostalgic reasons

)... For long-term storage I have a NAS with 2x 2TB with Raid 1 (so basically I can only use 2 TB not 4) and unless both drives die at the same time, my data should be quite safe

I still have this idea of doing a photobook or two for every year but I just don't get around to doing it...

Post by **MaryAnnSpiegel** » April 22nd, 2014, 8:13 am

I used to keep only final MP3s, but more recently I also save unprocessed (but edited) FLACs. I delete the Audacity files as soon as the project catalogs because they take up so much room on the computer!

And I also have an external drive in the fireproof safe . . . every now and then I pull it out and move the FLACs and MP3s on completed projects off my computer and onto the external drive.

I have never had to go back to any of my saved audio files . . . but I'm not ready to totally delete them from my system yet (and rely exclusively on Archive) . . . I've put so much time and care into them, how can I just delete them?

MaryAnn

kayray · Post by **kayray** » April 22nd, 2014, 9:10 am

I do a big clean-up every now and then, and throw everything away. There's just too much of it. I've never needed to find an old file months after it's been cataloged, anyway.

Not saying this is SMART though :)

YouTube · Post by **Darvinia** » April 22nd, 2014, 10:45 am

I keep all my final recordings as FLAC. For the same reasons as Tricia and MaryAnn. I keep them (and all my photographs) on an external drive so they don't affect my computer's storage or performance.

Post by **philchenevert** » April 22nd, 2014, 3:43 pm

I let Internet Archive worry about my files; so far they've done a fairly good job and when I need some I just download 'em. I do keep a few of the final MP3 files of favorite stories to make videos of for YouTube but that is all. Guess I just like to live on the edge, eh? Or I'm too old to care.

DISCLAIMER: Phil is a highly trained gumbo eater and beanie hat spinner. He has years of experience in embracing uncertainty and the anxiety involved in this approach and it should NOT be attempted by amateurs or people without advanced experience in TJOLSG. (the joy of deleting stuff).

Post by **annise** » April 22nd, 2014, 4:04 pm

Things do get through the PLing process and can take a long time for someone to report - for example viewtopic.php?f=29&t=48590

Anne

WoollyBee · Post by **WoollyBee** » April 23rd, 2014, 7:14 am

Thanks, everyone, for all the replies! They're so helpful. It's cool to see all the different things people do with their recordings. I think I'll move both my recordings and photos to an external drive. Thanks again for all the ideas!

Sarah

DrewJ · Post by **DrewJ** » April 24th, 2014, 9:01 am

Sometime around ymy 1 year anniversary here I plan to archive everything I've recorded to an external drive, and have a nice clean librivox folder for the next year.

Carolin · Post by **Carolin** » April 24th, 2014, 12:14 pm

i have a separate (huge) harddrive for all my librivox stuff, including the .aup files from all my old recordings and backups of (most of the) projects i've mc'ed.

i am one of the readers who has had to re-record and edit several sections because her computer crashed and there was no backup, so i highly recommend backing up your files (and your system in general) regularly

MrsHand · Post by **MrsHand** » May 20th, 2014, 8:18 pm

I was just pondering this question today when I had recorded something that wouldn't save because it said my disk was too full (I think it meant that 35GB was too much for my one folder). Until today, I didn't even realize how much space I was taking up, and in only about 9 months!

Now I'm on the cleaning up trail. If something comes back to bite me in the rear, I'll just re-record I guess!

Post by **annise** » May 20th, 2014, 8:21 pm

If you just save them as .flac files they do not take up much room

And that really is just as good as all the "save every file the recording actually had" techniques

Anne

kayray · Post by **kayray** » May 20th, 2014, 9:19 pm

MrsHand wrote:Until today, I didn't even realize how much space I was taking up, and in only about 9 months!

Yeah and imagine if you'd been doing this since 2005 ;-)