There are two ways to backup your library data in M1. One is automatically done, the other is something you should do manually at least once a week unless your Music 1 database is kept with a system that backs-up data daily.
Manual Backup-Zip File
When you first start M1, before you open your database, click the Backup button you see on the opening screen. This will create a zip file that will include both your library file (the ‘station’.m1 file) and your logs files. I recommend you name the file with a date. If your M1 database is named: HotStation.m1 then the zip file will be automatically named: HotStation.zip. But before you save it, add the date to the file name. So it will be something like: HotStation-mmddyy.zip
Save the file to the desktop, then move it to some external media; to a flash drive, to a backup folder on your server, etc. You can email it to yourself so the file will be then residing on your email server out there in the cloud. With this backup.zip, you are fully protected. In the event your computer dies, you can easily install M1 on another machine, unzip your backup file into the c:\music 1 folder on the new machine and you’re back up and running with no loss, no downtime. This is also a good way to move your M1 data back and forth from one computer to another. If you want to install M1 on your laptop or home computer to do some work over the weekend, zip up the data on the office/station machine and take it with you. Later, re-zip the data on your home computer to bring back to the station computer on Monday morning.
On-Board Backup
M1 automatically makes a clone of your library file when you start it each day. These clones are kept in the sub-folder named: Dailybak . You’ll see this sub-folder in the folder where your (station).m1 library file is kept. Usually this is found inside the c:\music 1 folder, but if you have your library in some folder on a server, that’s where the Dailybak folder will be.
M1 makes a clone for each day of the week, so you may have up to seven. It overwrites the clone-of-the-day the next time you open it on that day of the week. If you opened M1 on a Saturday in April but then didn’t open it ever again on a Saturday, that clone from April would remain there. The next time you open it on a Saturday, that one will be overwritten.
This on-board backup is useful in the rare instance that your database gets corrupted. Or, if you made a lot of changes to categories and/or clocks and then decided you didn’t like the result. You could then ‘jump back’ to an earlier time before the changes were made.
