A Decade with DAZ - Safe Guarding Assets

ArtAngel

After a decade with DAZ I can say I have not mastered most assets I own, because well ... I own 500k MSRP of  assets . . .  but I can say I have masered safe DAZ assets. Over 3 decades of owning a retail flower shop and over 3 decades of photoshop taught me how to account for and safeguard assets. I invite other seasoned users to add to this thread. I hope some of you find this thread helpful.

3. Never check the install after download.

4. Never check delete after install. At a minimum copy some of the default resources and VIP SHUS for plugins and apps to a safe place first. But I never delete anything.

5. Never update DAZ or DIM without first creating a device restore point.

A note: I will share step 2 in post 2, and post 3 will be reserved for linking to other posts you feel house good tips. If I add something interesting but not great, I will not use post 3 unless someone thinks more of my post than I do. I just rescued a 6 week old kitty from my vehicle engine, so send me a PM if someone posts a great tip and I'll link to it in post 3, similar to how I did it for the 2022 and 2024 Christmas thread.

I have a drive I dedicate to DAZ-DIM downloads. For clarity I will call this MASTER. This drive is copied to another as a MASTER BUP. I never use the MASTER BUP online. As I download new purchases I offline I copy these to the master backup BUT I also have two other drives (one is a BUP copy) where I manually download the same zips DIM would and also those that DIM ignores. I do this for every purchase. I also Have a folder on this drive dedicated to RR paid and another to RR free, where I download any RR purchases. I have a complex but very effective file organization and naming process which I will not address in this thread as it has nothing to do with safeguarding assets or creating fallback drives. Do what makes sense to you.

2. The 2nd thing I do (I'll share the first thing in the next post because it will be an essay) before I open DIM or DAZ is make sure the versions and plugins I love to use are protected.  I do this in two steps. On my MASTER  drive I hunt down the following SKUs and rename them with an x so the drop to th bottom of my master

 

I download ALL 8 files for 4.24 files manually do not install. And name your folder by version and date.

Note sku 13176 always overwrite the previous version. Sometimes there have been two General Releases per version. I think 4.22 had three general releases. I find some work better than others.

BACKUP DEFAULT RESOURCES (new versions can mess things up. EG OmniHair Shader in DS 4.22 default resources will not work with DAZ 4.21 version. Also note DAZ 4.24 uses DAZ 4.23. Default resources are updated only on a per need basis nad not always with a new version, like 4.23 default resources did for filatoons.

SHOP Daz Studio 4.24.03 (sku 13176)
LIBRARY Daz Studio 4.24.03 (I downloaded ALL 8 files for years, V4.9 to 4.24, instead of just 6  for windows- now I own a mac too - glad I did) 

NOTE ALSO DOWNLOAD GENESIS 9 STARTER ESSENTIALS (not included in above bundle. As you can see, the templates are not included in DIM Downloads.

G9SE SHOP Genesis 9 Starter Essentials
G9SE LIBRARY Genesis 9 Starter Essentials (5 files)

G9ESB SHOP Genesis 9 Starter Essentials Expansion (houses anatomical elements, mouth lashes, eyes, tears & eyebrows)
G9ESB LIBRARY Genesis 9 Starter Essentials Expansion (available in GESB below)

G9ESB SHOP Genesis 9 Essentials Shapes Bundle (houses expression, head shapers, body shapes, and above Genesis Starter Essentials Expansion)
G9ESB LIBRARY Genesis 9 Essentials Shapes Bundle

SHOP page Daz Studio Pro BETA (SKU 12000 sometimes beta versions and GR versions include things that later go inactive, eg: Dynamic Clothing Control BETA , old sku 9032, inactive in Beta) paid version owned and still available today.
LIBRARY link Daz Studio Beta Pro

Note. DAZ does manually adds free content with new releases and during special Easter Egg Hunt partial buys. I wish there was an easier way to filter/hunt down these manual library additions and non-DIM downloads. sigh.

ArtAngel

I will edit as I share because this will take you a few moments to do anyway. I have lost computers and hardrives. These measures that I took, helped me stay sane during such times. They also kept me calm and unafraid to download and try newer DS Versions, knowing I can always rollback if something is not working for me. Hopefully this will help some of you. Some of us who move stuff around  and map drives etc may have no need to read this.

1st most important CRUCIAL things to do is back up you installed versions that reside on your C: drive (MAC may locate it via finder or for other MAC users /Applications/DAZ 3D or /Users/Shared/DAZ 3d or by searching for DAZ Studio 4. Fallback measures to take are same for MAC and PCs.

For copy and renaming, use the Daz Version. You can find the exact DAZ version by opening the DAZ app and clicking HELP on the menu bar and selecting About Daz Studio.

Also copy and save your Nvidia drivers.

In Windows PC go to

C:\Program Files\ and right click DAZ 3D copy paste and then rename it to DS VX.XX (use version number) and also copy this files to an external hard drive as a fall back. It houses the apps for DS and Beta, and the CMS Database App, the plugins and the beta version installed. Do this for any versions on any devices you own.

If you use 32 bit for LipSync or other legacy plugins goto C:\Program Files (x86)\  and right click DAZ 3D and do the same as above.

I own every version from 4.9 to current and use 4.12 and 4.15 4.23 the most depending on the task/plugin I need.

More to follow:

More fall back measures for device (not download) are:

If you have customized DS, added preferences, styles workspaces open DAZ and in Menu Bar select Windows>Save Layout.

Go to C:\Users\changedusername\AppData\Roaming\ here you want to copy paste (repeat above process for safe keeping). This folder houses Both Beta and Studio logs, GENX clones, saved workspace layouts, some user preferences, custom actions and render dimension presets etc. May house CMS database data.

More to follow:

C:\Users\changedusername\Documents\DAZ 3D may house some of your DS data files

C:\Users\Public\Documents\DAZ 3D\ typically houses Manifest files and such. Although I designate letters to my hard drives, every now and then I backup the Manifest files. On one PC when porting from internal to external rather than reinstall you can edit the drive letter/path to port to a new PC.

DIM is great to download and manage content installation. I love it, but I do back up everything religiously to avoid mishaps. Outgrowing hard drives comes faster than we expect. My biggest mistake was housing a library on Internal D drive 2TB Samsung SSDs and bup on ext mechanical drives and losing both PC and drives. 'Fixed it' by switching to all external SSDS. Underestimated growth issues. Outgrew the 2 TBs. First the installed drive than the downloads drive. Recently got red bars on 4TB Crucial SSD drives that only housed DIM download zips (no bups screenshots or manual template zips). Now I use SAMSUNG 8TB T5EVO SSD for manual downloads and specific product related info . 6TB X10X Crucials (tiny the size of a camera disk holder) for DIM Downloads and 8TB SanDisk Extreme SSDs for Installed Content. I  use the 2 TB and 4 TB drives I outgrew to map and split the libraries and house projects. The crucials are tough and survive drops and stay cooler than the Sandisks. The Samsungs T5 Evo attracts dust and takes double the space (thickness) of Crucials and Sandisks.The SanDisks are faster than the Samsung and I trust them to move between PCs for installed content (altough mechanical WD have failed me). My favorite for downloading a massive library is the Crucial x10. Used it to download my entire and current version library on a different PC and although it is tiny it is a beast.

ArtAngel

Reserved3

daveso

thanks for this. What are RR purchases? 

Richard Haseltine

daveso said:

thanks for this. What are RR purchases? 

Renderosity, I think

WendyLuvsCatz

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

thanks for this. What are RR purchases? 

Renderosity, I think

could be Renderotica but I wager you are correct  

IceDragonArt

Thank you for this.  Having just lost all of my texture files for the assets I earned for promo work I did for sympatico studio. ( and I can't expect the creators to dig out those files and send them to me again, although several have been more than helpful in that regard, others not so much, but that's okay, fortunately I can work around it in a lot of cases)  and something like 10 years of art work I highly recommend what you are saying.  Although I was in the middle of backing up my external drive from another external drive(that was not that old) and had that drive fail half way through, sometimes, no matter how careful you are, stuff happens.  I have a new pc coming where all of my assets will fit (I currenetly have almost 4TB, the new secondary drive is at 12TB with room for expansion.  I will be using the eternal drive I have everything on as back up.

ArtAngel

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Richard Haseltine said:

daveso said:

thanks for this. What are RR purchases? 

Renderosity, I think

could be Renderotica but I wager you are correct  

If you were at Vegas you would have won the jackpot. Last time I hit RR was 2017. Blew dust off my Wishlist and stumbled on the Christmas giveaway 5 days late but caught up DEc 25th. Guess I'll return in a few more years. Love 1971s stuff.'

@IceDragonArt you are welcome. Sorry you lost so much hard work. Hope the New Year treats you well.

 

 

namffuak

@ArtAngel - Well done! I spent the last ten years of my professional career administering our backup/recovery environment and maintaining our off-site restore/recovery documentation. I do much the same as you've covered. I also capture the store web pages and readme files for the products I purchase.

ChuckM

@ArtAngel - Agreed! Thank you for the information, a great help.

Taoz

ArtAngel said:

Note. DAZ does manually adds free content with new releases and during special Easter Egg Hunt partial buys. I wish there was an easier way to filter/hunt down these manual library additions and non-DIM downloads. sigh.

The DAZ Product Manager (free now) can filter for both.  For "Manually added" just select "Order#" under Search and put "n/a" in the search field.  For DIM status, sort by DIM and the non-DIM products will show on top of the list.  See screenshot.  It looks though as if DIM status is currently broken, probably because of a change in the Product Library data, but that should be fixable. 

 

 

Ron Knights

I appreciate what you're saying here.

I've been a DAZ customer for 25 years. I never allowed myself to succumb to all those fancy databse features, etc.

I have a more basic, lazy approach to everything.

I refuse to let all the DAZ complicated stuff to take over my life.

I have one hard drive for the "original work," including the installed products. The other disc is for backups.

I use SyncBack Free to make a backup copy of my installed folders, and the original folders.

I don't mess with databases and smart content. They've always been useless to me.

squirrely

i learned the "keep the prior daz studio version before updating" problem the hard way a couple of years ago..

i was in the middle of a project with a deadline and part of the install of needed content dazim installed the latest daz studio ...
which due to some driver issue was not working on my machine anymore...

with no fallback it was a nightmare...
luckily for me i had an older version of daz on my laptop...
saved by sheer luck

backups backups backups

i have an external sata drive and an external ssd backup drive and raid-1 mirroring on my internal drives
i keep the daz installer (and renderosity zip) files on those... from them i can always recreate my content
it's not just for daz but for my work as well

the external drives are on a nearby desk so that if i have to i can just disconnect and go out the door

mindsong

Thanks @ArtAngel - this kind of protocol really needs to be spelled out just like you have done - bravo.

Let me add that a good number of the programs and utilities that we buy from the DAZ Store *are not* available as downloads through the DIM!

The only way that I know of to download and save these specific products and installers are via our respectiveDAZ account web-interface 'Product Library' pages, and knowing which of those products are available through the DIM (or not available...) used to be searchable (DIM_OK=1 in the 'Product Library' search field?), but last check, that no longer works. Bottom line, if you have ever bought a non-DS content or plugin type product (utilities, some tutorials, ????, and things for non DS, but 2d/3d work) from the DAZ store here, you may want to check and be sure you have a copy of your downloadable version stored safely in your collections. I have a 'manual_install' folder next to my DIM installers folder that I keep these products in, and manage (backups, etc.) together.

Also, I've also seen DAZ DIM content and app installers (IM000*.zip) get replaced by DIM updates that I later realized I didn't want (meaning I wanted the originals back), so as part of my DS archiving process, I also backup *any* installers that are updated by DIM, before their updates are downloaded. (e.g. the original Genesis1 Starter Essentials included the anatomicals... until they separated them and replaced the base with with version we see today...). It's a lot of work to set up, but becomes an easy routine, once in place.

Thanks again for this @ArtAngel - you are a gem!

cheers, and backup often folks - with RDNA, Poserworld, Hive3D?, ShareCG, ... all offline now, if you lose this stuff, it's really likely it's gone... (This also goes for any downloadable media from any site - other software installer versions, media, aps, and content like here at DAZ,  etc.)

Amazon downloads I'd paid for were disabled when they had contract changes (disputes) with their vendors - my purchase of 'Shrek' with downloads was discontinued when Amazon Prime and Sony parted ways. So one day... I had the right to download 'Shrek' digitally, then... I didn't. YMMV

best,

--ms