BACKUP! my drive died

[+Stary 2,427]

My WD drive died two days ago, writing from second home from secondary rarely plugged "zombie invasion" system "far far away". Lucky, I'm kind of "too many backups to find the right one" guy so everything should be back to normal in a week or so (in the spa town I live in, not much of computer stores, mineral water, yesss)

 

Lost few WIP things but nothing mayor sans my SF:Israel, Korea and SF2:Merged and FE2 installs, rebuilding that would be

 

So fellas, plug in the secdrives, backup!

 

Stary

 

oh, browsing through pendrives I lost my unified effects update and fragmentation mod wip

 

edit: Fargo is ok, so is the pit

Edited March 17, 2011 by Stary

[+whiteknight06604 934]

damn. I wish you the best rebuilding.I know too well how much a pain in the @ss that can be.

[dsawan 624]

Sorry to hear this. I use a WD external 2 td. How many external drives does anyone recommend backing up mods to? I tried dvd's but every now and then something happens to the dvd's. I prefer external but only have 1 connected to back up mods, so dont know how many externals they shd be backed up to.

[+daddyairplanes 10,248]

it really depends on how secure you want to be or paranoid you let yourself get. i have a 500GB external that i download to periodically to maintian my files. if im not savin something or lookin for something on it it stays unhooked from my computers. others are alittle more hardcore in their backup standards.

[+Zurawski 33]

I feel for you Stary... I really do. Have not had a HD go tits-up on me yet (knocks on wood) but can offer you a personal "got a better one" that might make you feel better...

 

About 6 months ago my wifes OS took a major dump that resulted in BSOD no matter what I did to try and rectify it. Decided to simply install Windows to a new directory and recover the stranded files etc. Somewhere between pressing install and my second whiskey sour, I must have elected to reformat the drive instead of repairing it...

 

I know... It's the wifes PC, what is she going to lose... A recipe or a coupon to get her nails done? Nope... Me in my infinite wisdom choose to archive all my original 3D Studio MAX files to her drive as a "poor-mans" off-site back-up solution.

 

...Yup, I lost all my original Sabre, P.11, P-38 Los, Pogo, Talon and Osprey .3ds files.

 

Just typing this made me vomit in my mouth a little...

 

Lepszy szczęścia mój przyjaciel!

[Slartibartfast 153]

Ouch not good... me I have a pair of 500gb backups one for music etc the other for flight sims and back them up after any major installs... or downloads granted the one for the flight sims is the one that crapped out on me but thankfully most of everything I needed is right here... if the music one goes damn I am in trouble...

[+Veltro2k 6,351]

Yikes !!!!!!!! thats what happened to me... Twice. First time I lost all my WIPS...Second time i had a backup.

[Teras 67]

so sorry man that really bad @ss thing

 

oh, browsing through pendrives I lost my unified effects update and fragmentation mod wip

been waiting this mod since u released the first one , so now no need to wait!

[+Stary 2,427]

I allways back up, force of habit. Used to CDs, then DVDs, for two years now with 300 2.5" and 250 3.5" externals, unimportant stuff (read: Pron) goes onto DVDs.

 

@Zur: I have your original complete Pogo .Max file archieved if you want it

[+Zurawski 33]

I allways back up, force of habit. Used to CDs, then DVDs, for two years now with 300 2.5" and 250 3.5" externals, unimportant stuff (read: Pron) goes onto DVDs.

 

@Zur: I have your original complete Pogo .Max file archieved if you want it

 

Thank-you sir... that would definitely be a small step in the right direction!

[+Stary 2,427]

I'll mail it to you Sir, shoot me adress via PM -but in "a week" if that's not a problem Zur

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Start::

if the music one goes damn I am in trouble...

Get another, or two, or how ever many until you feel no concern about it. Always assume *one* will go down. Right now, you have one. Consider it already failed.

 

---

 

Best is a top line tape drive if you can afford it. Few can. I can't.

 

Next best is go out and BUY a few small hard drives, perferably older ones if you can find them, 20GB maybe. Hard drives have fallen in reliability over the last 6 or so years in the rush for high capacity. If you don't want to handle hard drives directly plugging them in before booting and unplugging them when shutting down when you want to make backups, next is...

 

...those "convenient" external hard drive boxes but I never touched them. I am good with my old hard drives, and I tolerate no 3rd Party circuit boards so I don't use external hard drive enclosures, and I've witnessed too many crying and tearing of clothing over failed external hard drive backups. If you go this way, get several of them for multiple independence.

 

Next is DVD, but they are low capacity "new floppies," and make a lot of multiple copies because, unlike the CD or DVD disks the big media corporations use, the common consumer blank media we buy in the stores tends to lose data more quickly -- or so I've read!!!!! I don't know if that's true, but it makes some sense, and I assume its true just to be SAFE and conservative until I learn differently to my satisfaction.

 

Last would be flash drive if you have to rely on that. Its by far the most convenient but I don't fully trust it yet. However, its far better than doing nothing.

 

One tip I learned lately with the newer drives (250GB here)... the more data you have, the more chance of a tiny bit of seemingly small data corruption: but one bit error and a whole LOD or terrain file may become unusable. I think this is what happened to me last year. For some reason, the F4D lod failed to show in game, and my backups didn't help. I had to re download it. Since then, I have not backed up to some of my backup hard drives since I don't want to risk backing up corrupted data on my working newer hard drive to my more reliable old small hard drives.

 

Sometimes you can get un-used shrink wrapped small hard drives for cheap, for example at computer shows, like last year I picked up a half dozen 2.5" 40GB laptop drives and use them for multiple independent backup from my desktop. I plug them in (with computer OFF) and copy stuff to them and plug them out (after computer SHUTDOWN) as the months pass by, slowly cycling through them and other drives, but I handle them *carefully* and plan to build a small portable rack for some of them so I don't have to handle them directly so much.

[+Zurawski 33]

Thank-you sir... that would definitely be a small step in the right direction!

 

Thank-You sir! I've re-obtained my Talon files from another selfless individual whom I share them with and with the Pogo I'm well on my way to re-building my stable...

 

You may send to: zur at zur-tech dot com

 

Dziekuja