My microSD card containing about 18,000 FLAC songs suddenly stopped working while I was using it in my FiiO M15 music player. The player first showed "file not found," and then the library count dropped from 18,025 songs to just one. My computer no longer detects the card either, so recovering the collection may be expensive and is not guaranteed.
I have been slowly rebuilding the library from various sources, but restoring, renaming, organizing, and sorting everything is taking a huge amount of time. My old laptop does not have enough internal storage to hold the entire collection, which is why I never created a complete backup in the first place.
Once I recover everything, what would be the most practical and reliable way to back up a large music collection without relying on computer-internal storage? I would also appreciate advice about preventing this kind of loss in the future.
3 Answers
The important thing is not finding one perfect storage device; it is maintaining multiple independent copies on different media. Drives can fail without warning, and flash memory such as microSD cards should never be treated as permanent storage. Consider periodically moving the collection to new drives, checking that files can actually be opened, and keeping especially valuable material on an additional backup such as cloud storage or archival discs. At least one copy should be stored outside your home.
You do not need a computer with enough internal space. A large external hard drive is usually the most affordable option for a collection this size, while a portable SSD is faster and more resistant to bumps but costs more. Use a reliable sync or file-copy program to duplicate the library, and repeat the process regularly whenever you add or change files. Keep the original and backup disconnected when you are not actively using them so a hardware or malware problem cannot affect both.
The usual recommendation is the 3-2-1 backup rule: keep at least three copies of the data, on two different types of storage, with one copy stored somewhere else. For example, you could keep the working library on a large external drive, make another copy on a second drive or NAS, and store an additional copy with a reputable cloud provider or at another physical location. That way, a drive failure, hardware problem, or disaster at home does not wipe out everything at once.
That makes sense. I had thought of a backup as one extra copy, but keeping one off-site is the part I completely overlooked.
Storage prices can fluctuate a lot, but replacing a drive is still far cheaper than trying to reconstruct years of music manually. Even starting with two inexpensive external drives would be a major improvement over keeping everything on one card.