My HDD died, a warning to all

[+Bongodriver 20]

Hi Folks,

 

Just thought I'd let you in on a recent disaster of mine, as the title mentions my HDD died on me a few days ago, the problem is I am reeeeallly bad at bothering to do backups.......the sad news is that all my max files (including the TSR, Islander and a new EF-2000) are all gone, so are all my reference pictures and carefully edited plan view drawings and so much more....including my personal flying loogbooks...if at this point you want to call me a jackass for not backing up then please do, I really do deserve it.

 

My ultimate reason for this post is to warn you about 2 things, first thing is if you have a seagate hard drive of almost any model (mine was a 7200.11, 500GB) then please go to seagates website and find a firmware update, the seagate drives are dying at an alarming rate I have found out, secondly if yo have one of those drives set up in a raid 0 array, then save your data NOW!!!!!

 

I have spent these few days trying some of the fixes for my drives problems which is just as well I lost my job (yes thats right, my company went into administration the day after my comp died) thats why I'm not leaving the house, with my luck I probably would get hit by a random meteorite.

 

Wish me luck while I grow a beard and dodge soap for a while but I am dedicating myself to rescueing my data if I can (without spending £££££ on a pro service, I have no job now after all)

 

 

Craig

[jomni 6]

Sorry to hear.

Losing mods is getting quite common in the community lately.

Edited March 17, 2010 by jomni

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I feel your pain.

 

Working in IT as I sadly do, I am forever telling people to back up their data...and then 3 months ago...my HDD packed up..and I lost mine!...a classic case of not practising what I preached!!

 

Needless to say...it is backing up now....HDD failure is never an 'IF'....It is merely a 'WHEN'

 

Good luck

[+Dave 2,322]

I'm a prolific backer upper........I am also reminding people all the time to back your stuff up.

 

http://forum.combatace.com/topic/53907-back-your-stuff-up-day/

 

As you can see I reminded folks the other day of that very thing.

[RichardG 3]

I avoid the problem alltogether by not putting anything important in my pc. Its a gaming platform, strictly for entertainment.

[UnknownPilot 33]

Damn, sorry to hear about your job. Wish you luck in finding a new one soon.

 

Regarding drives, I'm with ya. I've lost more drives than 3 people ought to have. At one point several years ago I had even made the switch to SCSI. The thinking being that SCSI drives are supposed to be more reliable, so I should have more secure data - they weren't and I didn't.

 

Right now I have my data spread out on multiple machines (which is good and bad), and have most of the important data on redundant arrays. In my home PC I have a mirror set for data which has most of my most important stuff on it. And I have already lost a drive (or was it 2? can't remember now) in it, but fortunately was able to replace the dead drive and re-create the mirror.

 

So yeah, at a minimum you want a redundant array, mirror set or RAID 5, and ideally want you hyper-valuable data to exist in multiple. An external USB drive 'works' (and I use that term loosely), but it's not really a backup, it's just another hard drive, and a non-redundant one at that. DVD-Rs are a good option in a lot of cases as well.

 

The best thing may well be an LTO drive. We just purchased a new one here at work, it's a 38 tape expandable library with an LTO3 drive from Quantum for less than $7,000. That is not cheap, certainly, however.... who needs a 38 tape library at home? Instead, dropping down to just a standalone LTO4 drive should be in the $1,000 area, which is within reach for the home market (finally). And that gives 800GB native capacity.

 

Of course, as with anything, all one needs is money, and in this case, it doesn't really help. I just get carried away at times.

[FastCargo 412]

Also folks, for stuff you consider important, you may want to consider an online service. We use one that's 55 dollars a year for unlimited. You can set it up for all sorts of options (things like timed backup so bandwidth doesn't get used when you're online, certain directories, etc).

 

So in addition to on site backups of critical files, we have offsite...so even if the house burns down, our critical files are not lost.

 

It's pretty cheap insurance...but it does assume you have a high speed (not dialup) connection with no bandwidth limits.

 

FC

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

1000 FRNs for a tape backup....? Wowww!!

 

My "RAID" -- Over a dozen hard drives stashed round about: Some newer, some older. They last forever when used only here and there, but I always assume they will fail right now. So I have lots of them. Turn off computer. Plug one or two drives in and copy stuff over. Turn off computer. Plug em out. Toss em in the closet. I cycle through them every few weeks or so, and only when I've been productive with new stuff that needs backing up.

 

SATA DVDs are good now for backups of the backups. I always hated backing up to old IDE CDs, but the newer optical drives I like. So I cycle through some DVDs here and there. I cycle through a number of OCZ flash drives as backups of the backups of the backups.

 

In 15 years of computing, I never lost an every-day working hard drive except for a power supply explosion (sparks flying across room and all -- open computer case) that fried most everything else in there too. I think one reason is I never get the latest and largest/fastest drives. I always use drives that have been out on the market for maybe three years, or a newer drive that is considered very "small" in gigabytage, or megabytage back in the 90s. Nothing cutting edge. The other reason -- I always assume a drive will fail every time. Maybe its a Xen thing.

 

 

My oldest drive is a 125MB Western Digital Caviar from 1993 which was old and tiny and slow when I got it. Its too small for today's Windows data -- *one* SF aircraft mod with large skins could fill this drive -- so I have DOS 6.22 installed on it. Sometimes I'll rip out the Windows drive and plug the DOS drive into my current AMD X2 250 box and boot up DOS to play Master Of Orion 1, which is still the best space strategery game today.

 

 

Losing mods is getting quite common in the community lately.

lol

Its sad because backing up home PC data has never been easier, faster, and so inexpensive with today's gear. UK Widow's poast here is why I never bother telling people to backup. They just won't do it until they pay the price and find out for themselves.

[UnknownPilot 33]

1000 FRNs for a tape backup....? Wowww!!

 

Can't read your expression there, but $1000 for a current gen buisness class tape drive is dirt cheap. (actually, I looked on CDW and it's more like $1,800, but that is still cheap and I'm sure there are other ways to get it for less than that) Even standalone drives have always been much more expensive and just about out of reach to the home user. Or... they would be too low capacity and speed to be useful. LTO4 has the capacity and the speed, and now has the price as well.

 

 

 

My "RAID" -- Over a dozen hard drives stashed round about: Some newer, some older. They last forever when used only here and there, but I always assume they will fail right now. So I have lots of them. Turn off computer. Plug one or two drives in and copy stuff over. Turn off computer. Plug em out. Toss em in the closet. I cycle through them every few weeks or so, and only when I've been productive with new stuff that needs backing up.

 

Basically a set of imaged drives you maintain by hand. Works... but is a lot of work. Would be easier just to get a higher end SATA RAID card with hot spare capability and run RAID 5 with hot spare. (I'm assuming there are SATA cards for that, I know SATA likes 0 and 1, and that SCSI does 5 with hot spare, but I haven't looked into all the latest and greatest SATA RAID cards yet)

 

 

 

In 15 years of computing, I never lost an every-day working hard drive except for a power supply explosion (sparks flying across room and all -- open computer case) that fried most everything else in there too. I think one reason is I never get the latest and largest/fastest drives. I always use drives that have been out on the market for maybe three years, or a newer drive that is considered very "small" in gigabytage, or megabytage back in the 90s. Nothing cutting edge. The other reason -- I always assume a drive will fail every time. Maybe its a Xen thing.

 

I do the same thing. I've never bought the current capacity level. Always half of what is current, and no more.

 

 

Its sad because backing up home PC data has never been easier, faster, and so inexpensive with today's gear.

 

Very much disagree. Unless you are comfortable giving your data to an outside company AND have unlimited bandwitdh (as per FC's suggestion which certainly has it's benefits), then backups are quite difficult. Always have been. Making a copy to an external USB drive is not a backup. ANY hard drive is not a backup. A backup is something that is on inert and reliable media, namely tape or optical. Something you can put on a shelf and forget about until you need it and it won't degrade or be affected much by being dropped or by EM (DLT tapes were tough bastages, haven't really tested LTOs as severly yet, but they are still better than any HDD).

 

And the problem has always been backup capacity and speed and cost. And it's only getting worse as drives expand and people find ways to fill them.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I don't want backups hooked up to a computer. Power supplies can blow them all away.

 

USB drive is a backup to the backup to the backup. Just that extra extra little thing, and stored someplace else in case of fire, theft, killer asteroids, F-16 pilots like the guy who missed a gunnery range at night and shot up a nearby hi school so they had to close the school and so made the Air Guard insanely popular with hi school students , etc...)

 

ANY hard drive is not a backup -- Yep -- Many hard drives are independent backups.

 

Its trivially easy today for home PC backup, several inexpensive methods. Not sure about large businesses.

 

Manually swapping hard drives in and out of a case is no work at all.

 

Work is forever losing data.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

A backup is something that is on inert and reliable media, namely tape or optical. Something you can put on a shelf and forget about until you need it and it won't degrade or be affected much by being dropped or by EM (DLT tapes were tough bastages, haven't really tested LTOs as severly yet, but they are still better than any HDD).

Yeah I see what you mean now. I like SATA DVDs now for backup. Reasonably fast and like you say they are just a "medium" and not mechanical/electrical working devices. However, I trust them as much as the floppy disks years back. They often went bad, which was not a problem because I made spare backups.

 

I don't like tapes -- too slow for me I suppose. Never used em anyways.

 

For me the most reliable primary backup is multiple hard drives stored away from the computer, but as always in combination with other methods for independent--independent data storage. Drop hard drives on a table or rug and they are fine. Always think of static electricity. When you do, they are unbelievably reliable and last forever when used a few times a year. Just assume that they aren't so have multiples!!!!

[UnknownPilot 33]

I don't want backups hooked up to a computer. Power supplies can blow them all away.

 

USB drive is a backup to the backup to the backup. Just that extra extra little thing, and stored someplace else in case of fire, theft, killer asteroids, F-16 pilots like the guy who missed a gunnery range at night and shot up a nearby hi school so they had to close the school and so made the Air Guard insanely popular with hi school students , etc...)

 

ANY hard drive is not a backup -- Yep -- Many hard drives are independent backups.

 

Its trivially easy today for home PC backup, several inexpensive methods. Not sure about large businesses.

 

Manually swapping hard drives in and out of a case is no work at all.

 

Work is forever losing data.

 

I am in IT. Disaster recovery is one of the things I am tasked with and have spent much time considering.

 

I will repeat, a harddrive is NOT a backup. It can be a copy, but a copy is NOT a backup. What that means is that a true, proper backup is something that resides on stable media. That means either optical or tape. Right now those are our only options.

 

And as such, it is NOT easy for the home user to backup. Never has been. Simply making a copy to another hard drive doesn't cut it. It is better than nothing, but it is not sufficient. (using a hard drive as a pseudo-backup is like using outdated anti-virus, it's a false sense of security, I would never trust anything that would qualify as "production data" on anything less than a DVD or LTO)

 

 

Edit, we posted at the same time.

 

Edit 2 - 120MB/sec is not slow. And with 800GB native capacity, you can pop one in, and let it run over night, no fuss, no muss.

Edited March 19, 2010 by UnknownPilot

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Yeah I hear ya. I just don't trust the DVD "medium" any more than I trusted floppies as a "stable medium." I rely on DVD backups, but only partially.

 

You keep saying "a hard drive" is not a backup. I keep agreeing by saying many hard drives are independent backups. DVDs make additional backups. USBs make backups beyond that.

 

Granted, I'm not in IT. My goal is to never need IT service for data recovery.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Never thought of this -- Backup vs Copy.

 

I make backup copies.

 

I never used any backup software. I'm pretty simple. Like when I spent hours working my new terrain, I get an "itch" to make backup copies of it, just in case. I get this foreboding feeling haunting me until I do it. Swap multiple hard drives, DVD disks, USBs, copy paste data, everything I worked that's new. It may be overkill but I'm peachy with that.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Unknown Pilot is correct of course..Backup to HDD is not a backup in the true sense of the word..But DVD's too are far from Ideal.

 

An offsite backup is possibly the way to go...but if like me, you merely backup to HDD...I use GM-Pro as my software of choice...just doing an incremental one every month to an external, is enough for me...Nothing hugely drastic to lose personally...yes, a pisser..but not life threatening. (all my skins for instance are uploaded to CA anyway! (so dont lose them chaps!!)

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Widow, there is confustion here. by "HDD" do you mean one hard drive? If so, you need to backup to multiple hard drives.

 

Online data storage works by storing data on -- multiple hard drives.

 

That's what you can do at home for reliable backup: Independently back up to a number of hard drives.

 

One benefit of online storage is keeping the data "safe" in another place, far away. The popular RAID backup hobby seems to violates this. One Power supply explosion and all the hard drives in a RAID get blown in a shower of sparks. I've seen it. To find the benefit of distant storage, unplug the backup hard drives when they are not being backed up to. Storing the hard drives in different locations is possible.

 

 

As far as my understanding goes, the potential to lose all RAID hard drives in one event is why I don't use it for backup. With SATA, so far I'm happy with the speed of non-raid drives.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[UnknownPilot 33]

Lexx, here's where I'm coming from:

 

In essence, one can call a spare copy of anything a "backup", because when you make a backup, ultimately, you are making a copy of the data in question.

 

However... extending that, you could call a second copy of a file stored in the very same working directory a "backup", but have you really backed it up in that case? You may have some protection from corruption of that particular file from the application using it (or your own editing), but it would be more accurately labeled a spare, or a copy, or even a "draft" (in M$ Office parlence).

 

The reason is, if anything should happen to that drive, all your multiple copies are gone. Yes, I realize you know this, I'm just starting at the beginning so bear with me.

 

Ok, so, the next step is to plug in a second HDD (Hard Disk Drive) into the machine and then make a copy or your file on each drive. Now, if 1 drive fails, then you still have your "backup", right? However, as you know, that doesn't protect against lightning strikes, or even software corruption (OS going crazy, viruses, etc - even user error)

 

So then the next step is to use an external and removable HDD to copy your file to, then put it on the shelf. This way you are not protected against fried internals, software corruption and have an extra measure against user error.

 

It's getting better, but... it's still just a copy. Only slightly safer than if it were sitting on the same drive it's being used on. In this case, it's sort of like a manual off-line mirror set, or essentially a RAID. But... as any IT person will tell you, even a RAID 5 OF RAID 5s with multiple hot spares still isn't a backup. It's just protection against hardware related downtime, nothing more.

 

So, the question then becomes, what's different about an externa USB drive and a DVD or tape? Simply put, the stability and transportability of the media. What if your spare drive is knocked to the floor? What if it gets zapped with static? What if it gets too close to a powerful magnetic field? What if it is handled too roughly in transit (anywhere)? What if it's just it's time to spontaneously die? What if software/OS corruption takes it out when you attempt to either use it, or even update it?

 

You CAN use a method of manually/religiously making copies of copies of copies on multitudes of external drives, and can incrementally increase your protection level, but, technically speaking (and feel free to call it nitpicking/splitting hairs if you like) it's still just multiple copies and NOT a (true) backup.

 

 

I'm not sure what problems you guys have experienced with optical media, and it's by no means ideal or safEST, but it's better than a hard drive. The best thing we currently have is tape. The only real problem with optical is that it's data surface is exposed and easy to corrupt physically. But on the plus side, it's also immune to EMR and static (within reason).

 

Optical is write once read many, tapes can be locked (like old school 3.5" flopies), both can be easily transported, both are media only and can be placed into any compatible drive, and as such both are actually more suited to off-site storage as well.

 

This is why they are what one would call "true backups". Though there again, you could split that hair even further if you want to insist on backup software and schedules (as opposed to manual file copy).

 

 

And just to toss in one other bit - I barely trust HDDs that are permenantly inside a machine on the (earthquake safe) east coast. Any drive that gets handled and moved around (ie, external HDD).... forget it. That's like playing with matches in an oxygen rich environment, you're just asking for trouble.

[UnknownPilot 33]

Widow, there is confustion here. by "HDD" do you mean one hard drive? If so, you need to backup to multiple hard drives.

 

HDD is "Hard Disk Drive", and so would just be 1 (HDDs would be multiple, generally speaking, but I don't mean to put words in Widow's mouth)

 

Online data storage works by storing data on -- multiple hard drives.

 

Actually, it's much more than that. Those places are businesses, and your data is their production data. That would not and could not be trusted to "multiple hard drives", it would remain online on "multiple hard drives" so that it is always accessible to you, but rest assured, they would do nightly backups of it as well. (to tape)

 

 

One benefit of online storage is keeping the data "safe" in another place, far away. The popular RAID backup hobby seems to violates this. One Power supply explosion and all the hard drives in a RAID get blown in a shower of sparks. I've seen it. To find the benefit of distant storage, unplug the backup hard drives when they are not being backed up to. Storing the hard drives in different locations is possible.

 

 

As far as my understanding goes, the potential to lose all RAID hard drives in one event is why I don't use it for backup. With SATA, so far I'm happy with the speed of non-raid drives.

 

The real benefit of online storage is that it is actually backed up properly and thus, always available and safe, and it's easier and cheaper than buying the gear and doing it yourself (IF you trust another party with your data, I'm not comfortable with that, personally).

 

However, as I mentioned above, RAID comes in many levels, and is not a backup in anyway. It's simply a form of data protection from HARDWARE failure - there are many more threats to your data than that. Also, if configured for it, RAID can withstand that hardware failure, keep running, and even be repaired on the fly (hotswap RAID 5s).

 

The chance of losing all drives in 1 event is both very unlikely, and also highlights why it is data protection, or harware redundancy to increase uptime, but NOT a backup in any way. And you would not implement a RAID (for protection) without taking other precautions as well, such as putting it on a file server which does nothing but serve files (ie, not used as a workstation), has limited internet access behind a firewall, up to date virus protection, and finally with a good UPS/power conditioner which would smooth out brownouts, safely shutdown during blackouts and protect from lightning strikes. This too can be further enhanced when getting into server room or data center design.

 

RAID can do mirroring, striping, or striping with parity.

• Mirroring is just that, using hardware to simultaneously read and write to 2 drives (or arrays). This is expensive in terms of disk storage (as you get only 50% usability out of your total capacity). This can survive the loss of 1 drive and keep going, can be repaired/rebuilt, and does not offer any speed enhancement
• Striping (without parity) is purely about speed. It access multiple drives at once to increase total data throughput, but offers no protection of any kind. And since you lose ALL your data if 1 drive dies, it's actually LESS secure than if you used just 1 drive alone.
• Striping with partiy is the same as above, except that it writes parity data across all the drives in the array (and requires 3 or more), and offers a slight read performance boost, while at the same time offering protection from a single drive failure. However, if you lose 2 more more at once, your data is lost. Fortunately you can replace the dead drive and rebuild the array from the parity data. Some controllers allow you to do this on the fly (that is, with your data still accessible during the process)
• More expensive striping+parity (ie, RAID 5 (as virtually nobody uses 3 anymore)) implementations will not only be hot swappable (meaning you don't have to shut down to replace a drive OR rebuild the array), but also include 1 (or more) "hot spares". In the event of a drive failure, the controller will activate the hot spare (a spare drive resident in the array and online, but not PART of the array) and rebuild itself with it. You can then replace the dead drive at your leisure, and the replacement then becomes the new hot spare. This reduces the chance of losing the array to multiple drive loss by reducing the window to replace the dead drive to virtually 0 (only the amount of time it takes to rebuild itself)
• And a more recent trend is to combine types, such as mirroring 2 striped arrays, or striping across 2 or more mirror sets, etc. Using this technique you can increase your drive loss window to more than 2 drives at once (so long as it's not within any single sub-array).

 

 

That about covers the basics of it I think.

Edited March 21, 2010 by UnknownPilot

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Thanks. Pilot be careful out there. If you have drives hooked into one power supply, you can lose all of them if the supply blows up in sparks. When that happened to me it was a cheap power supply. Lesson Learned.

 

 

I would like to know if these online storage companies make tape backups, and if so, how many tape backups. I knew one small outfit that I don't think did. But they were "affordable" so to speak lol.

 

 

 

Pilot::

You CAN use a method of manually/religiously making copies of copies of copies on multitudes of external drives, and can incrementally increase your protection level, but, technically speaking (and feel free to call it nitpicking/splitting hairs if you like) it's still just multiple copies and NOT a (true) backup.

We can ruin optical drives by handling them. The language of "true backup" makes no sense to me. Worse, DVD disks are too small for people needing to backup much larger amounts of data. They need hard drives -- or tape I suppose if the tapes are large enough, and they are slower.

 

Even worse, we need multiple tape backups. I would never trust a backup to *one* tape. Maybe I think too much about the old music cassette tapes and how the tapes could get mangled by the tape deck. I suppose computer backup tape decks are designed better, but I won't be spending 1800$ to find out.

 

I don't want "true backups." I want backups. I prefer swapping in-out multiple internal hard drives. Others, far more normal, may prefer external e-SATA drives, or hot swap drives, or whatever is out there now. Just use more than one, and independently so. Don't drop them on concrete, and know your static electricity especially during winter.

 

Folks, its not complicated. If all you have is a USB flash thumb drive, use it NOW. Imagine if 76 had his/her SF2 copied three times, once to a thumb, once to a DVD, and once to some extra hard drive. It could be restored from one of them.

[UnknownPilot 33]

Thanks. Pilot be careful out there. If you have drives hooked into one power supply, you can lose all of them if the supply blows up in sparks. When that happened to me it was a cheap power supply. Lesson Learned.

 

While I have never had a PS/u take out drives, I have seen it frag MoBo's and CPUs. Both expensive enough that I simply will never use cheap power supplies.

 

 

 

I would like to know if these online storage companies make tape backups, and if so, how many tape backups. I knew one small outfit that I don't think did. But they were "affordable" so to speak lol.

 

If they don't, then they don't belong in the data protection buisness. There is 1, and only 1 way to backup large amounts of production data ("production data" is business critical data, and in the case of internet storage companies, that is YOUR data that you've placed on their servers).

 

 

 

Pilot::

We can ruin optical drives by handling them.

 

Yes, as I referenced previously, however, I have been handling optical for so long now that that just doesn't happen anymore. Plus in the case of a backup (rather than a frequently accessed item like audio CD), it will rarely, if ever, get handled and so that problem reduces to almost zero.

 

 

 

The language of "true backup" makes no sense to me.

 

I'm simply trying to stress the difference between a backup, and a mere copy that someone is calling a backup (but isn't). Bottom line is, be as careful as you want with your hard drives, it almost doesn't matter. I have personally experienced too many drive deaths while taking all precautions. You are free to use your own method, just be aware, while you USE it as a backup, it's actually (technically) not. And it's not safe - just BETTER than doing nothing at all (again, want to stress that, you and are are in agreement that if it's all ya got, do it, because it's better than not doing anything).

 

 

 

Worse, DVD disks are too small for people needing to backup much larger amounts of data. They need hard drives -- or tape I suppose if the tapes are large enough, and they are slower.

 

Even worse, we need multiple tape backups. I would never trust a backup to *one* tape. Maybe I think too much about the old music cassette tapes and how the tapes could get mangled by the tape deck. I suppose computer backup tape decks are designed better, but I won't be spending 1800$ to find out.

 

DVDs are actually rather large. If you break it down and organize your data, then you could put your hyper critical data on to 1 or more DVDs (and that generally won't be more than a couple for the typical person, if even that), and then the stuff that you could live without but would rather not, on to more plentiful and less secure HDDs and USB thumb drives.

 

Tapes are NOT that slow. 120MB/second is NOT that slow.

 

Capacity is up to 800GB native now (meaning uncompressed storage). Just how many terabytes are you suggesting most people currently have spinning? And how much of that do you think actually needs to be backed up (and isn't cache files, installed apps, things they can re-download for free, and duplicated files)?

 

LTOs are self contained cartridges and don't see the abuse that old audio cassettes do, so they last a heck of a lot longer. Yes, they CAN get "eaten" (I've seen it), but that's a rare event - a hard drive going tits up is not. Not really a tough choice there, tape is simply more reliable. (and cheaper than disk)

 

Tape libraries (and auto-loaders) handle jobs that run across multiple tapes. As we are currently using LTO3 for tape inventory and compatibility (with ohter sites) reasons, we are working on a 400GB native tape size. Our full backup spans only 2 tapes. We'll be hitting 3 soon, but we have plenty of backup window to work with and tons of spare slots in the library.

 

When taken to the business production level (yes, I realize this is beyond the level of the typical consumer, I'm just explaining...), backups are done nightly on a scheduled and automated rotation. Typically speaking, at the end of each week a full backup will be done, and then each of the first 4 days of the week, a differential backup is done, backing up only those files which have been modified or added since the last full backup. The dailies are re-written once a week, the weeklies are rewritten once a month, the monthlies are rewritten once a year, and the yearlies are typically held indefinitely for legal purposes. In this way you almost instantly span across several tape sets and are in NO danger of losing everything should a tape get eaten.

 

 

 

I don't want "true backups." I want backups.

 

This is my point - there are true backups, and then there are copies. You seem to be interested in copies. (reiterating once again, this is better than not doing anything at all, I just wanted to point out that it's not technically an actual backup and also highlight the dangers that still exist - wasn't mean to turn into an argument)

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Remember the Pet Rock? Basically, as a small home PC user years ago, I was not impressed by the Zip Drive mania, and other fly-by-night "removable" backup hardware. Although the LS-120 I kinda liked, I never went for it because it was a kinda super floppy. I just stuck with plain hard drives -- lots of them -- while everybody around me shed tears over lost data. Alot of it is having the Backup Attitude. No gear can help if you don't have the "itch" to preserve your work or data.

 

 

Pilot, you are slowly getting there. You need to press the importance of multiple independent backups.

 

Do it !

 

DVDs are actually rather large. If you break it down and organize your data, then you could put your hyper critical data on to 1 or more DVDs (and that generally won't be more than a couple for the typical person, if even that), and then the stuff that you could live without but would rather not, on to more plentiful and less secure HDDs and USB thumb drives.

Yea! Long ago I had to back up "critcal" work to floppies -- many floppies just for one backup. But everything, including the core "critical," I backed up to a single hard drive, and again to another hard drive, and again to a third hard drive, etc...maybe a dozen total I'd cycle through over time -- independent multiple hard drives, averaging about 400MB back then.

 

DVDs are the new floppy. Perhaps the security of DVDs comes from: they don't store much. When we begin to need multiple DVDs for just one backup, reliability and practicality plummet as the number of disks needed rises. I think DVDs are much more reliable than floppy disks, but I do not share your apparent full faith in DVD media.

 

The security of hard drives comes from having multiple independently backed up drives in case one fails. As for your claim of bad experiences with hard drives, you may be doing something wrong. I've never had a problem, perhaps because I always assume data storage hardware will fail, every time. Maybe it a Xen thing.

 

 

Pilot::

When taken to the business production level (yes, I realize this is beyond the level of the typical consumer, I'm just explaining...), backups are done nightly on a scheduled and automated rotation.

We can't "truly" backup our data in large amounts unless we spend a fortune in "IT" equipment or service.

 

You are talking your book.

 

 

Pilot::

This is my point - there are true backups, and then there are copies.

Point makes no sense if we make multiple independent backups to prevent data loss through potential drive *and* media failure.

 

You folks seeing this: the core about backing up data is making multiple independent backups: More than one, more than two, until you feel comfy, and then one more, in case one or two backups fail. For the home PC, its so easy and inexpensive to make backups with today's gear. Do it!

[UnknownPilot 33]

Pilot, you are slowly getting there. You need to press the importance of multiple independent backups.

 

Do it !

 

Excuse me?! I don't know where you get off with the attitude or what you are implying here, but it doesn't sit well.

 

 

 

DVDs are the new floppy. Perhaps the security of DVDs comes from: they don't store much. When we begin to need multiple DVDs for just one backup, reliability and practicality plummet as the number of disks needed rises. I think DVDs are much more reliable than floppy disks, but I do not share your apparent full faith in DVD media.

 

Yeah, because 8GB compares to 1.44MB, right?

 

A DVD can not get eaten, it can not get accidentally over-written, it can not be damaged when you hit a bump on the road while transporting it, it can not be damaged by being near a powerful magnet, it has no exeternal enclosure or power source to go bad, no motors to go bad, and since it gets burned and put on the shelf untill needed, almost never gets handled.

 

No, you are locked into your system by habit and preference and are arguing flips and twists to try to make it seem better (perhaps even to yourself). It just doesn't add up.

 

 

 

The security of hard drives comes from having multiple independently backed up drives in case one fails. As for your claim of bad experiences with hard drives, you may be doing something wrong. I've never had a problem, perhaps because I always assume data storage hardware will fail, every time. Maybe it a Xen thing.

 

I have been a tech, a consultant, and now network admin. I have not been doing something wrong. Here is more of your attitude. The simple and pure fact of the matter is this - hard drives are NOT reliable. Adding dozens of them only increases the burden on the operator and increases expenditure with a low return in reliability. You don't have to like that, but it IS a fact. I could take you on a tour of any data center in the world. There is no buisness that will put it's data (ie, money) in the hands of such a risky strategy as you employ. Getting facetious about it and calling other methods slow or "unreliable" just indicates your lack of experience, but also changes nothing in the matter.

 

 

 

Pilot::

We can't "truly" backup our data in large amounts unless we spend a fortune in "IT" equipment or service.

 

You are talking your book.

 

 

More of what I mean, you've taken this personal, and must apparently feel threatened by my comments about your method. Don't - it's your data, and your time, and your money. Do what makes you feel good and go in peace. But stop with the attitude and the flawed arguments. I've shown many ways to not spend a fortune to do the job right. You've chosen to close your eyes, plug your ears and go "la la la la la! I can't hear you!" in order to make this argument.

 

 

 

Pilot::

Point makes no sense if we make multiple independent backups to prevent data loss through potential drive *and* media failure.

 

You folks seeing this: the core about backing up data is making multiple independent backups: More than one, more than two, until you feel comfy, and then one more, in case one or two backups fail. For the home PC, its so easy and inexpensive to make backups with today's gear. Do it!

 

Optical media doesn't fail (you can damage it, but it doesn't die on it's own - y'know, like hard drives do). Tape fails FAR less often than hard drives do.

 

IF one uses hard drives, then yes, make several, then several more. Spend large sums of money on 5 or 10 drives and go nuts writing and tracking your data. Or spend a fraction and get a few tapes, or a couple DVDs (and supplement that with better data management).

 

Anything is better than nothing. But this idea that hard drives are *better* or that tape is too expensive, is simply preposterous, and the result of a lack of experience and knowledge. Tis a shame it brought out such attitude and veracity, really didn't want to go down this road....

[FastCargo 412]

Alright you two, go to your corners. At this point, neither of you are going to convince the other.

 

The original point has been made. Let's leave it at that.

 

This thread is closed.

 

FC