Backup failed - Backup directory not available

Well, I think you can check by plugging the drive back into a mac to verify it’s format. If you let us know here what that is we can let you know if it should work. Better to know than just reformatting and loosing everything on the drive.

Thank you. I will be back to check this early next week and report back! Ken

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ok here is a screen shot of my USB back up drive LaCie Porsche Design.

Hello @Ken_Kyser, to find out what format you’ve used, you can check via these directions, just don’t reformat the drive.

Go to Applications and Utilities and launch Disk Utility . The application will appear on the screen, and you will see the main window, with a list of available storage devices on the left and various disk management options on the right. At the bottom of the main window are storage device details, including disk description, connection type, USB serial number, total capacity, write status, S.M.A.R.T. status, and partition map scheme.

THANKS, KEN

That format won’t work for you. See:

Hi, OK I get that this USB drive is not compatible with my Nucleus+.
I suppose some drives can be re formatted and others not?
If this drive can be reformatted, which should I choose?
Or should I buy a new USB drive that is more desirable?

Also, is there a way when I back up my Macbook Pro (a separate similar 2T USB drive) that it also
backs up my Nucleus and its internal music hard drive and Roon?

Smart in so many other than computer ways, Ken Thanks again!

No, not quite - it is how the drive has been formatted that is not compatible, not the drive itself.

So, to use it for Backup on your Nucleus, you’ll need to re-format it (using your Mac). Note that re-formatting the drive will erase all the current data being held on the drive, so if you want to keep any of it, transfer it off the drive to another storage location first.

Attach the drive temporarily to your Mac, and use the Mac to format it to the exFAT format. This is the recommended format (see the section on USB Storage - Best Practice in this article):

Then re-attach it to your Nucleus, and set up the Backup schedule in Roon.

Important: the Roon Backup function backs up the Roon database and your Roon Settings - it does NOT backup your local music files (held on your internal music hard drive). What do you use to backup your Macbook Pro? You may be able to use this to access the music files held on your Nucleus over the network and back them up.

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That is what I understood. Roon-Backup is making a backup for the database, the indices for the Ronn-System.
But, why do I need a backup of the index-files? I am running a i5-xxxxx wirh M2-discs only as dedicated box for Roon. Second I am running an 8-Bay NAS with music and data. Third I am making a backup of the music and datat every night. And last but not least: I having a mirror ot he first server, just in case.

So, if the Roon-Server (I5-xxxx) loosses all the data, I have to start the index-creation-job and it takes, let’s say 5-6 hours to have the index of my 111K music-files organized again. Why should I use a backup in this case?
If I have to switch to the second (mirros) server. I cannot use the backup beacuse it is another system. So I would rather start the job pointing to the mirror-Server.
What is the backup really usefule for?

A Roon backup is very useful if you have a problem and need to reinstall Roon, for instance. You then do a restore and you’re right back to where your were before. Also, some people make a lot of their own edits to the Roon data and don’t want to lose all of those edits. A Roon backup can be useful if you want to move Roon to a different core device or run Roon on a second core device, etc.

I have my Roon core do automatic backups nightly to a USB 1TD HDD. I keep the last 20 backups. My question would be, why not?

This topology really has nothing to do as to whether you will ever need a backup.

Third party software does not guarantee a successful Roon Restore.

Can’t speak to the efficacy of a mirror.

Because of the way Roon constantly and somewhat unpredictably updates its database, the only guaranteed way to accomplish a Restore, should that be needed, is from a backup made with Roon;'s proprietary backup from Settings==>Backups.

I am quite aware that the hardware configuration has nothing to with the question of needing to do a backup or not. But I do not like to talk about a systemnot making clear how the system looks like.

Yes, you are right third party backup-software may not be reliable. Therefore I use a profssional software to backup all my data, thease are several TB of data. The backup is keeping version dependig on the configuration. For example there is no need to have a configaration for 30 versions for music-files. These files are not changing rapidly. Bt the daily report, diary-report for the costumers (also used as the basis for the invoice at the end of a month), project-files, book-keeping and so on are very nice to ALWAYS available. Therefore a mirros-system is quite a good idea. It is not really a problem not having the music-files ready for several day, but having no access to the project-documents because of a hardware failure is really bad and may cost quite a lot of money.
Maybe I am a bit paranoid, but the extrem3ely imported files are copied every day into a data-storage in the the swiss-mountains. This data-storage is also used by swiss-banks to keep their data save.
The unpredictable updates do not seen very imported to me. I am using ROON just for selecting the music on my system.

OK, I must have misunderstood then.

You seem to be using the description of your system as reasons #1 and #2 for why you don’t need Roon’s Backup. As in this quote -

And reason #3 and #4 talked about real backup schemes -

I think you misunderstand what ‘third party software’ means. You are one party, Roon is another party, and non-Roon software used to do backup of Roon’s database can be considered third party, professional or not.

These backup schemes you use to backup your music files, daily reports, invoices and so on are all well and good, but they won’t necessarily work for Roon’s database.

You asked -

And I answered -

Not sure what that means or how it might change my answer.

The bottom line is that if you want to ensure you have a good backup for any restore that may be needed, you need to use Roon’s Backup.

I am using the ROON-backup-software. Just not quite sure wether or not it usefule if I can create the indices without a problem agin. Okay the ROON background-action will be lost, so what?
Today i included the ROON-backup into the mirror-system. So the backup is mirrored and backuped to a thir server.

Then don’t use it.

Not sure what answer you’re looking for, but I’m done here.

If you ever have a problem with Roon, you will be glad you have a recent update of Roon on a separate hard drive. There is no reason NOT to back up Roon using the Roon backup solution. One of the trouble shooting steps is to install Roon on another computer temporarily. But, if you don’t want to, then don’t.

Being in the IT since 1980 I am quite aware of the importance of a backup. I just wanted to talk/discuss about the benfits of a backup since I can reproduce the data without problems by creating a new database. OK, I learned that ROON is doing some stuff which I probably do not see. Within the last year I switched the music-server twice, started the „SEARCH“ and went to bed. Next morning everything was fine again. Of course I changed the server-IP before starting the search.

Then, don’t back it up. Nobody cares.

As far as I understand there are three different „areas“ 1. ROON-Software, 2. Music-files (flac, mp3, and so on), 3. the database

Loosing the ROON-Software means installing the software again, on the same or a different hardware
Loosing the Music-files means to restore the flacs from my backup-system by using my own system-backup. ROON is not making a backup of these files.
Loosing the index-database of the ROON-Server which means to a. restore the ROON-backup or b. to start searching and indexing again.
If I have to reinstall my music-files on a different-server because of a hardware failure, is it a good idea to restore the index-backup to use it with the new server? Or is it better to start indexing again?
Are there any information about the storage of the music-files included in the index-database?

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