I happily received my 2017 Audiophile to 2018 Audiophile upgrade today, but before proceeding I wanted to lay out what I plan to do to make sure I am not doing something dumb. I plan to use the 2017 Audiophile USB HD as a backup drive for my current /bb, /RealTracks, and /Drums folders that are on my my internal drives E: and D:. Here are the steps I plan to follow:

1. Connect 2017 Audiophile USB HD.
2. After activating "Show hidden files, folders, and drives,“ delete all files on 2017 Audiophile USB HD.
3. Right click copy E:/bb and paste to 2017 Audiophile USB HD to back-up.
4. Right click copy D:/RealTracks and paste to 2017 Audiophile USB HD to back-up.
5. Right click copy D:/Drums and paste to 2017 Audiophile USB HD to back-up.
6. Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media to remove 2017 Audiophile USB HD.
7. Connect 2018 Audiophile USB HD
8. Run 2018 Audiophile Install program using 2018 Audiophile USB HD, installing over existing E/bb, D:/RealTracks, and D:/Drums.
9. Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media to remove 2018 Audiophile USB HD.
10. Install materials on the DVDs that came with 2018 Audiophile.
11. Deactivate "Show hidden files, folders, and drives,“

I thereafter intend to keep the 2018 Audiophile USB HD pristine.

Any suggested changes? My greatest concern is that in deleting all existing files on the 2017 Audiophile USB HD I am losing something I would not be able to obtain again. Thank you.

If you havn't changed since it when you received it last year like saving personal stuff on it, you might consider installing 2018 on the 2017 drive, no need to delete anything first IMO. Run 2018 from there to check it, then run cleanup there from the data folder. But if you saved your own personal settings, styles, songs etc on it before, get them off first. BTW In case if a total windows crash IMO it is not so advisable to install anything on a C boot partition other than the usual windows stuff, especially RT's etc; it will make your booter 2 to 3 times as large and very time consuming to backup via an image. -F

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Just to make sure I understand, it sounds like after doing what you suggest I will in effect have a backup of 2018 Audiophile on the 2017 Audiophile HD. As my intent was to use the 2017 Audiophile HD as a backup of my existing internal drive setup (and keep the 2018 Audiophile HD pristine following installation of 2018 onto my internal (non-C:) drives), I presume I would then still need to copy my existing /bb folder from my internal drive to the 2017 Audiophile HD, but I am concerned that may overwrite some useful newer 2018 files, all of which is why I normally install from a new USB HD over my existing internal drive /bb folder. Or am I misunderstanding? Thanks again.

I'm confused on how the 2018 files would end up on the 2017 USB drive to get ruined by the /bb folder backup.

Your BB folder, with all the RT subfolders, etc, would need pretty much the whole USB drive, so you should assume the 2017 data is what will be lost in the long run. I don't see how 2018 files could be affected.

If there is a given folder you are concerned about, rename it to 'filename2017'
That way if duplicates would have overwritten themselves before it is possible to retain both versions (labeled) as long as space permits.

Your plan sounds fine except your step 2. I don't see why it is necessary to delete the files. If I understand correctly, you essentially have a 2017 audiophile on your internal D and E drives? I'm assuming you've made changes to the program on your D and E drives, and you are thinking that you want to preserve the changes and that to do so you need to copy the entire thing. I would suggest instead that you copy just the bb folder files over. The RealTracks and Drums folders should be almost identical (unless I'm misunderstanding your question), you could copy them if you want and tell Windows to skip files that already exist. Also, showing hidden files and folders would not be necessary, in fact that might cause problems since Windows will complain if you try to delete a hidden system file.