Originally posted by MyopicJoe
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Catastrophic Drive Failure
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Ouch.
At least you won't have a hard time convincing them to implement a backup procedure now
Thanks for the update.
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The Verdict
It's dead.
The company could not retrieve any information off the drive. So.. we rebuild a new. Painful lesson learned for my boss.
We have the option of sending the drive to another company but our pc guys opinion is that it's a long shot.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by Amati View PostWhile the topic of backups is being bounced around, what is the easiest and reasonably priced backup to use for a home computer (PC) that holds tax records, a ton of word documents (work related), and endless emails?- Road Runner Safe Storage is free.99 if you're already a subscriber. Automated, encrypted backups up to 250MB (more capacity avail for $, natch).
- Geek Squad Online Data Backup is $49/yr for 25GB, features better encryption, triple redundancy and the ability to selectively share files w/others via e-mail.
- The cheapest (per byte) method of backing your data up on site would be to put together your own external hdd. A $73 enclosure* and a $90 HDD* nets you a 500GB ext hdd that flows up to 3Gb/sec over eSATA. Faster than Firewire or USB 2.0, this solution also runs cooler and more reliably than your typical off-the-rack ext hdd.
*Prices at time of posting.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by MyopicJoe View PostI think one big problem is how people use them. Customers want quiet external hard drives, which means no fans to cool them off. After a few minutes of non-use, these drives spin themselves down, to avoid excess heat. The problem comes when people use these external drives as their main hard drive, always reading and writing data to them, never giving them a chance to rest. Without fans, they're meant for only occasional use (to back data up at the end of the day).
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by Kungpao View PostAnyone ever had a really REALLY important drive fail on them?
Any other Horror stories?
Originally posted by Amati View PostWhile the topic of backups is being bounced around, what is the easiest and reasonably priced backup to use for a home computer (PC) that holds tax records, a ton of word documents (work related), and endless emails?
Also if the tax records is not related to your work you might want to consider them to placed on a different media (or backup set). Why you may ask? If their ever come a time to hand over all of your backup set to another party that just needs to see one aspect of what you do, do you really want them to see the rest of your stuff?
Originally posted by Leo Lakio View PostJust pick up an external hard drive that is large enough (slightly larger storage size than your PC's drive should suffice), hook it up (generally by USB), and copycopycopy. Many of them come with software that you can configure for regularly-scheduled backups.
Assuming your stuff is really important and you can afford it, get 2 to 4 of these external hard drives and alternate their usage. If you backup once a week and use 2 external hard drives for this, you use drive #1 for this week backup, then use drive #2 for next week's backup, and then use drive #1 again for the backup two weeks from now and then use drive #2 for the backup three weeks from now.
This will give you two things, if one of the external hard drives fail you still have yet another backup that can be used. And two if a file (or files) on your primary hard drive that is constantly edited you have a snapshot of it from at least two different time periods that you can possibly recover from.
Originally posted by MyopicJoe View PostCopying the files over manually is as simple and cheap as it gets, if not labor intensive. If all your word docs are in one folder, then it should be easy to drag and drop. If you're using TurboTax I think it stores things in "Documents", "My Documents", or someplace like that. If you're using Outlook, it stores everything in .PST files, I believe.
If you value your Internet Favorites or your browser's bookmarks, find out how to export them too, that way they get backed up too.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by Leo Lakio View PostJust pick up an external hard drive that is large enough (slightly larger storage size than your PC's drive should suffice), hook it up (generally by USB), and copycopycopy.
Next up for us is a "fireproof" safe or an offsite safe-deposit box. I'm a bit reluctant to put the external HD in the fridge with my backup DVDs... but it'd probably work fine when it warmed up to room temp. Maybe it's just better to send a decade of photos (about five GB) to a Photobucket or Picasa account. Indexing & organization would have to be identical, though.
In the early days of PCs it was said that the only people who appreciated backups were the ones who'd seen flames shooting out of the back of their hard drives...
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Oh! Way cool, LM. I was trying to google for something like this at consumer prices instead of a $5k solution from IBM, but I wasn't having much luck with the search terms I used.
Yeah. Too bad it's only USB 2.0 and not Firewire too. I suppose you can drop $200 for the option to attach it to your Ethernet network.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Another great solution for serious users is:
Drobo
These things are awesome. my only mark against it is it doesn't have a firewire connection only usb.
Here's a great demo video with a hottie tech chick here
It makes RAID easy as pie
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by Amati View PostWhile the topic of backups is being bounced around, what is the easiest and reasonably priced backup to use for a home computer (PC) that holds tax records, a ton of word documents (work related), and endless emails?
Copying the files over manually is as simple and cheap as it gets, if not labor intensive. If all your word docs are in one folder, then it should be easy to drag and drop. If you're using TurboTax I think it stores things in "Documents", "My Documents", or someplace like that. If you're using Outlook, it stores everything in .PST files, I believe.
As Leo also suggested, external hard drives tend to come with free software for doing scheduled backups. You could give that a try. You still need to know which files/folders you want to backup (or you could do your entire main drive which is slow and takes up a lot of space).
Originally posted by tutusue View PostFor some reason this bass ackwards approach works best for me.Your setup makes a lot of sense, because you work in two places. The data in your hard drive is the center of your universe, not the computers at home or in the office.
Originally posted by zff View PostI know two people who have recovered their own hard drives by taking the bad drive apart and swapping the platters with an identical drive that works. No clean room, and both times, it worked perfectly.
I'd be too nervous to do that. No eating Cheetos while touching those disks; they're finger print magnets!
I have to admit, those highly polished aluminum platters are very pretty. They make excellent mirrors. Probably better than makeup mirrors, if it wasn't for the huge hole in the middle.
Originally posted by Composite 2992 View PostTo this day I'm amazed the IT guys didn't get fired after they made the same mistake a second time.
Originally posted by Kungpao View PostBoy the two guys that were on vacation all week are going to be in for a surprise when they come in Monday morning.
SO, I've got 2 years worth of autosaves on my local drive and we've got most of the newer e-mails with the architect's drawings. Technically, we can work but it's just a matter of time to rebuild things.
FYI, not to make you uneasy or anything BUT, according to our computer people talked to the tech at the drive recovery place and when he mentioned it was an external drive, the recovery place specifically said "Was it a Mybook?" Apparently they get their share of them. The mybook we had was a WD Caviar 500GB SATA drive.
I think one big problem is how people use them. Customers want quiet external hard drives, which means no fans to cool them off. After a few minutes of non-use, these drives spin themselves down, to avoid excess heat. The problem comes when people use these external drives as their main hard drive, always reading and writing data to them, never giving them a chance to rest. Without fans, they're meant for only occasional use (to back data up at the end of the day).
I think Western Digital uses the same quality drives (I could be wrong) in their MyBooks as you would get in your personal computer. The difference is your computer has a noisy fan which keeps things cool. Heat kills hard drives.
My wife works at a bank and one of their "regulars" brings in a hard drive to put into his safe deposit box once a week. Apparently, he has 2 drives and he clones his working drive once a week and keeps it in the box.Does he happen to be a photographer by chance?
If your data is your livelihood, storing one copy off site is critical. If you read the prospectus for some publicly traded tech companies in Silicon Valley, it'll say something like, "We have mission critical data backed up and stored at a MidWest site, in case the Big One hits San Fran or the entire western seaboard gets taken out by a tsunami." For backups you keep at home, you might want to consider putting them in your fireproof safe with your other important documents.
Also realize recordable CDs and DVDs don't have as long of a shelf life as you'd think. Some people reburn them every few years. Quality varies widely. Acid from pen marks or adhesive stickers can etch away the thin silver lining where the data is stored. Heat and time can fade the dyes used to store the data. Recordable DVDs aren't made in the same way as the movie DVDs you buy at the store.
I read a story about a photographer who kept all his film negatives in his basement. Flood basically destroyed all his life's work. The only thing he had left was a framed picture in his living room (he had to make copies from that print since the negative was lost). He was so heart broken, he couldn't touch a camera for 10 years. He's now a digital photographer and goes through great lengths to backup his photos.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Haha, no, no vacation(unfortunately...i'd rather be working on my house) I've already started compiling old data from autosaves on local machines and E-mails we've sent/received. Boy the two guys that were on vacation all week are going to be in for a surprise when they come in Monday morning. See, the architect sends us a plan and we create a new drawing which references that plan and pretty much draw on top of it. When my software autosaves, all the stuff I've drawn on top of the referenced plan gets saved to my local drive. Unfortunately, the referenced plan does not as it's just referenced. This saves space on each individual file and allows someone to update the plan while I'm working on the other stuff. Stuff being, ductwork, electrical, plumbing, structural members etc... SO, I've got 2 years worth of autosaves on my local drive and we've got most of the newer e-mails with the architect's drawings. Technically, we can work but it's just a matter of time to rebuild things.
Originally posted by Leo Lakio View PostI've used a few MyBook drives from Western Digital, ....
Originally posted by zff View PostI know two people who have recovered their own hard drives by taking the bad drive apart and swapping the platters with an identical drive that works. No clean room, and both times, it worked perfectly.Besides, I've already had my review/raise for the year and it's not my money going towards the recovery lol.
Originally posted by Composite 2992 View PostI store all my source material and archives on Level-1 RAIDs (mirrored). Anything I'm working on gets backed up on a separate drive.
ALWAYS assume the hard drive will crash soon, because hard drives crash at the worst possible time.
A company I worked at failed to heed my advice several times, and lost huge amounts of unique, irretrievable material more than once. To this day I'm amazed the IT guys didn't get fired after they made the same mistake a second time.
TWICE?!? Man, I wouldn't be able to live with myself after making that mistake. I've got a pretty clear concience because I've told my boss on numerous occasions that we should be looking into this If it weren't for me actually, we wouldn't have any sort of backup. I at least have old information from several years ago on disks at my home.
My wife works at a bank and one of their "regulars" brings in a hard drive to put into his safe deposit box once a week. Apparently, he has 2 drives and he clones his working drive once a week and keeps it in the box.Last edited by Kungpao; June 27, 2008, 05:09 PM.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
I store all my source material and archives on Level-1 RAIDs (mirrored). Anything I'm working on gets backed up on a separate drive.
ALWAYS assume the hard drive will crash soon, because hard drives crash at the worst possible time.
A company I worked at failed to heed my advice several times, and lost huge amounts of unique, irretrievable material more than once. To this day I'm amazed the IT guys didn't get fired after they made the same mistake a second time.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
I know two people who have recovered their own hard drives by taking the bad drive apart and swapping the platters with an identical drive that works. No clean room, and both times, it worked perfectly.
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
I admit I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to backing up...altho' not neurotic enough to back up as often as I should...
I work off of a 40gb external, portable hard drive (soon to be a 160gb) and back that up on my computer...instead of the other way around. For some reason this bass ackwards approach works best for me. In town I have a 500gb ext. HD that gets the same 40gb back up. When in Makaha I back up the 40 giger to the computer that resides out there and to a 250gb ext. HD. Only the 40gb portable HD gets transported back and forth.
I've saved many master data base entries with these back ups. Ditto for my iTunes library. Many tunes have become corrupted for reasons unknown. I've been able to find uncorrupted copies in my back ups.
I've had many hard drive failures but only one (that I can remember) that cost me one day's worth of work time which necessitated postponing a casting session.
I last backed up yesterday!
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Re: Catastrophic Drive Failure
Originally posted by Amati View PostWhile the topic of backups is being bounced around, what is the easiest and reasonably priced backup to use for a home computer (PC) that holds tax records, a ton of word documents (work related), and endless emails?
I've used a few MyBook drives from Western Digital, for both work and home, that have given good results - but that's just one of many brands out there.
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