Don't Forget the Backup! My 'Lost' Audio Trauma

I learned the hard way that 'record until card full' doesn't mean 'record until card corrupt.' We were shooting a short film with an ARRI AMIRA, and I had my MixPre-6 II diligently running. The scene involved a critical monologue, and everything sounded perfect. At the end of the day, I went to offload the audio, and one of the SD cards showed 'corrupt file system.' My heart sank.

The solution, which should have been standard practice, is always having redundant recording pathways. Now, I frequently run a Track E timecode box into my MixPre-6 II, but I also route a direct backup feed into a second recorder, sometimes even just a simple digital audio recorder if the budget is tight, or a Zoom F8n if there’s room in the kit. For that specific shoot, the backup would have saved me hours of painstaking ADR and a whole lot of stress. Is there ever a scenario where too much redundancy is a bad thing?