3 Ways to Backup Tool Database
How to backup your tool database using 3 different methods in Vectric software. This is very important to do and will prevent you from loosing all of your tool data if something were to happen to your computer. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve, Aspire, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this week's lesson, it's gonna be a short one, but a very important one. And that is how to back up your tool database in Vectric software. So over time, the more you use your Vectric software, the more tools you're gonna add into your tool database. And as you could see from my long list here, it will sometimes get very large.
And this took a long time to create over the years. So you don't want all of that hard work to go to waste if something were to happen to your computer. And just last week, I know somebody that lost their entire computer because of a lightning strike. And they were even using a surge protector on their computer, but apparently those don't last forever, so sometimes the lightning will still get past those.
And there's also many other crashes that could happen to your computer. So it's always a good idea to back up your data, whether it be your tool database, or your project files, any type of files you save, you should have them backed up somewhere. But today we're gonna look at how to back up the tool database.
Okay, to start, we first need to open our tool database, and there are two locations that you can open up the tool database, either in the toolpath tab on the right hand side. There's gonna be a button here that says display tool database that will open up your tool database or at the very top where it says toolpaths, click on that.
And then at the bottom click tool database, and that's gonna open up your tool database and you can see, we have all of our tools in here. We have different materials, if you added those in and different machines, if you have several machines. And right now, all this data is stored only on this computer.
And that makes that data very easy to lose because it's only in one place. So we wanna back this data up and the easiest way to do that is to back it up on your Vectric portal account. So if your computer is connected to the internet, you're gonna see a button up here that says online. And if you're not currently logged in, there will be a button right here to log into your portal account.
Just click on that button, log into your account, and then come back into Vectric and you'll see these two buttons here. So one is to upload your database to the cloud, and that's the button to back up your data. So if you just click on that one time, that will pop up a message, letting you know the last date that you saved this.
And currently it's been about five months since I backed this up. So anything I've added in the last five months has not been backed up. And if something were to happen to my computer, I could have lost all of that data. So you have to make sure you remember to do this every so often. And if you wanna override that one, just click, yes.
And now all of my new tools have been backed up and then you'll see the message will appear letting you know it's done successfully. So click,okay. And now all of our data's backed up. Another nice thing about using the Vectric portal account is if you have your Vectric software installed on multiple computers, you could upload your tool database from one computer.
And then go on your other computer, as long as you're signed into your Vectric portal account, you can click this second button that says, download your latest tool database. And that will download your backup file onto your other computer. Same thing, if something were to happen to your computer and you replace the computer, just install Vectric software, sign into your account and then click that download button.
And that will download your most recent backed up tool database file. And finally, if you prefer not to back up your data onto the Vectric portal count. Or if you're using a computer that's not connected to the internet, you can also back up your tool database to your local computer. And to do that, you first have to select the group of tools that you want to back up.
So let's say I only wanted to back up these 3D tools. I would select that title there, where it says 3D tools. And then at the bottom click export the selected tool/group. So this will export that entire group, or I can export a single tool by selecting that and clicking the save. And if I wanted to export all of these tools, I can click the Imperial tool group and that will get everything in this list, except for the metric tools that is in a separate group.
So that's how you can back up your big, long list of files. So just click on that save button, and then you could select a folder and give it a name. You can also back it up on a USB drive. Which is good, so you have a physical backup copy, or you can also use that to transfer to another computer.
All right, so those are two different ways you can back up your tool database. And one last thing I will show you here. If you go up to file and then click open application data folder, that's gonna open up your Vectric files. And then if you go to tool database folder in here is gonna be your current tool database.
And the one that says tools.vtdb, that is your current tool database. So if you have some type of automatic backup system on your computer, you can actually set this file to automatically backup. And you could do that with Dropbox,you could do that with Google drive or any type of cloud service you can set these files to automatically back up and you could do that every time they're updated.
That way you don't have to remember to back it up to your Vectric portal account. Also, if you happen to completely mess up your tool database file, you can actually delete this file and then take this file down here. That says the same name, but it has the dot Vectric at the end. This is the standard set of tools that Vectric comes with.
So if you were to rename this, you have to right click and then click rename, and then you erase the dot Vectric at the end and save that, that will make this your new tool database. And what that does is basically like a factory reset on your tool database. And you'll be back to the default tool database that Vectric comes with.
All right so that's just some quick tips on backing up your tool database, and it's very important that you do that, so make sure you get that done. And if this video helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
And this took a long time to create over the years. So you don't want all of that hard work to go to waste if something were to happen to your computer. And just last week, I know somebody that lost their entire computer because of a lightning strike. And they were even using a surge protector on their computer, but apparently those don't last forever, so sometimes the lightning will still get past those.
And there's also many other crashes that could happen to your computer. So it's always a good idea to back up your data, whether it be your tool database, or your project files, any type of files you save, you should have them backed up somewhere. But today we're gonna look at how to back up the tool database.
Okay, to start, we first need to open our tool database, and there are two locations that you can open up the tool database, either in the toolpath tab on the right hand side. There's gonna be a button here that says display tool database that will open up your tool database or at the very top where it says toolpaths, click on that.
And then at the bottom click tool database, and that's gonna open up your tool database and you can see, we have all of our tools in here. We have different materials, if you added those in and different machines, if you have several machines. And right now, all this data is stored only on this computer.
And that makes that data very easy to lose because it's only in one place. So we wanna back this data up and the easiest way to do that is to back it up on your Vectric portal account. So if your computer is connected to the internet, you're gonna see a button up here that says online. And if you're not currently logged in, there will be a button right here to log into your portal account.
Just click on that button, log into your account, and then come back into Vectric and you'll see these two buttons here. So one is to upload your database to the cloud, and that's the button to back up your data. So if you just click on that one time, that will pop up a message, letting you know the last date that you saved this.
And currently it's been about five months since I backed this up. So anything I've added in the last five months has not been backed up. And if something were to happen to my computer, I could have lost all of that data. So you have to make sure you remember to do this every so often. And if you wanna override that one, just click, yes.
And now all of my new tools have been backed up and then you'll see the message will appear letting you know it's done successfully. So click,okay. And now all of our data's backed up. Another nice thing about using the Vectric portal account is if you have your Vectric software installed on multiple computers, you could upload your tool database from one computer.
And then go on your other computer, as long as you're signed into your Vectric portal account, you can click this second button that says, download your latest tool database. And that will download your backup file onto your other computer. Same thing, if something were to happen to your computer and you replace the computer, just install Vectric software, sign into your account and then click that download button.
And that will download your most recent backed up tool database file. And finally, if you prefer not to back up your data onto the Vectric portal count. Or if you're using a computer that's not connected to the internet, you can also back up your tool database to your local computer. And to do that, you first have to select the group of tools that you want to back up.
So let's say I only wanted to back up these 3D tools. I would select that title there, where it says 3D tools. And then at the bottom click export the selected tool/group. So this will export that entire group, or I can export a single tool by selecting that and clicking the save. And if I wanted to export all of these tools, I can click the Imperial tool group and that will get everything in this list, except for the metric tools that is in a separate group.
So that's how you can back up your big, long list of files. So just click on that save button, and then you could select a folder and give it a name. You can also back it up on a USB drive. Which is good, so you have a physical backup copy, or you can also use that to transfer to another computer.
All right, so those are two different ways you can back up your tool database. And one last thing I will show you here. If you go up to file and then click open application data folder, that's gonna open up your Vectric files. And then if you go to tool database folder in here is gonna be your current tool database.
And the one that says tools.vtdb, that is your current tool database. So if you have some type of automatic backup system on your computer, you can actually set this file to automatically backup. And you could do that with Dropbox,you could do that with Google drive or any type of cloud service you can set these files to automatically back up and you could do that every time they're updated.
That way you don't have to remember to back it up to your Vectric portal account. Also, if you happen to completely mess up your tool database file, you can actually delete this file and then take this file down here. That says the same name, but it has the dot Vectric at the end. This is the standard set of tools that Vectric comes with.
So if you were to rename this, you have to right click and then click rename, and then you erase the dot Vectric at the end and save that, that will make this your new tool database. And what that does is basically like a factory reset on your tool database. And you'll be back to the default tool database that Vectric comes with.
All right so that's just some quick tips on backing up your tool database, and it's very important that you do that, so make sure you get that done. And if this video helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
