Backing up a Tonverk SD card on a Mac
By Jarl, who makes TonVault.
Everything you make on the Tonverk ends up on one SD card: projects, presets, instruments, recordings, and every sample you've added. The device has no backup button and there's no transfer app, so a backup is a copy you make yourself on a computer. This guide covers the manual's way of doing it, what that leaves to you, and how to end up with a backup you know is complete.
The manual's way, USB Disk Mode
Connect the Tonverk to your Mac with a USB cable, open SETTINGS, choose USB DISK MODE and confirm. Playback stops while the card is shared with the computer, so this isn't something to do in the middle of a jam. The card then shows up in Finder like any USB drive. Copy what you want to keep to your Mac, eject the card in Finder, and press [NO] on the Tonverk to leave disk mode.
If your Mac has an SD card reader, you can also take the card out of the Tonverk and put it in the reader. The files are the same either way.
The whole card, or only USER?
The manual says that if you only want to keep what you've made and the samples you've added, the USER folder is enough, as long as you haven't saved anything outside it. That condition is the part to take seriously. A sample you dropped at the top level of the card, or a project that plays one of the factory sounds, depends on files that live outside USER.
If the card fits on your Mac, copy all of it. TonVault's health check lists every sample outside the USER folder, so you can see exactly what a USER-only backup would miss.
What a Finder copy doesn't tell you
Finder tells you when a copy has finished. It doesn't tell you whether every file arrived intact, and it never compares the copy with the card afterwards. Most of the time that's fine. The time it isn't is the day you need the backup, which is the worst moment to find a sample that stops halfway.
Two other things catch people out. Selecting everything at the top of the card in Finder leaves hidden files behind, because Finder doesn't show them. And when you copy a folder onto one with the same name, Finder replaces the folder there instead of merging the two, unless you hold Option while you drop it. That second one matters most when you restore.
A backup you can check
TonVault makes the same copy and then proves it. It checksums every file on the card and again on the Mac, hidden files included, and a backup only counts as done when every pair matches. If one doesn't, it says so instead of finishing quietly.
Each backup gets its own numbered folder with a manifest, so an older backup stays exactly as it was, and you can check any of them again later, for instance right before you restore from it. TonVault only reads the card while it does this. It never writes to it.
Restoring
Restoring is the manual's procedure in reverse, and TonVault deliberately stays out of it, because it never writes to the card. Put the Tonverk in disk mode, copy the backed-up files and folders back to the card, eject it in Finder, and leave disk mode. When you copy into a folder that already exists on the card, hold Option so Finder merges the two.
The manual's own warning is worth repeating. Don't delete anything from the card unless you have a backup you trust, and a backup you've just checked is one you can trust.
When to back up
Before an OS update and before a gig, and after any session where you sampled a lot or moved folders around. TonVault's backup list shows when each backup was made, so you can see at a glance how old the last one is.
