(Off Topic) Computer experts...

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ChuckstrPT

NAXJA Member #791
Location
Birmingham, Alabama
So, We had our external hard drive crash....and it's currently being recovered by a local professsional. He has requested that we bring him something to put our something like 9000 pictures on since the external hard drive is no longer functional. He suggested that an external hard drive is not his first choice for storage of photo's etc. He would rather store them on the internal HD?? We got the external HD because we ran out of room on the internal, and to use it as a back up. I'm more than suprised it's crashed. BUT, here is my question: WHAT do you store all this stuff on if not an external HD?? I was under the impression that the external HD was more secure than the internal?? We've had computer crashes in the past and lost a bunch of stuff. We were trying to avoid this with the external HD....what other options are there for safe storage??
Thanks for the info!:cheers:
 
internal and external HDD are the same thing, what makes them different is how they are connected to your computer and what is on them...

you can have more than one internal harddrive (i have 2 250gig drives) but ONLY one of them has to be your boot drive (ie. one with your operating system, windows, on and typically all your program files) it is better to keep files such as photos and music or videos on a separate drive from your main boot drive because if it crashes then your pics are either lost or have to be recovered, but if they are on a seperate drive then just fix the drive with the programs/OS on it and all your pics are safe.

pros and cons, external harddrives are usually set up on USB cables, not as reliable as ribbon or sata cables and not as fast even with usb2 and they have to have a card to convert and process the usb signals to the HDD (instead of your PC doing all of it) if that ccard burns out or messes up it can screw up your HDD, But you can take them anywhere store them in a fire safe if neccessary and download pics and stuff off other computers.

internal HDD is better overall proformance and reliablity BUT you cant take it anywhere...

hope this helps.
 
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i'd suggest 2 harddrives besides the internal one (easiest way to do it). they are really cheap from tiger direct...and this way you would have two backups. a bit more complicated would be to run 2 internal hard drives on a raid setup, and have both drives mirror each other (all the info gets written to both drives). If one goes down, you havent lost anything, because you still have the other drive.
 
ChuckstrPT said:
So, We had our external hard drive crash....and it's currently being recovered by a local professsional. He has requested that we bring him something to put our something like 9000 pictures on since the external hard drive is no longer functional. He suggested that an external hard drive is not his first choice for storage of photo's etc. He would rather store them on the internal HD?? We got the external HD because we ran out of room on the internal, and to use it as a back up. I'm more than suprised it's crashed. BUT, here is my question: WHAT do you store all this stuff on if not an external HD?? I was under the impression that the external HD was more secure than the internal?? We've had computer crashes in the past and lost a bunch of stuff. We were trying to avoid this with the external HD....what other options are there for safe storage??
Thanks for the info!:cheers:
Click to expand...

(computer guy hat on)
I get this a lot, if it is something that is that important it should not be only in one spot!
Ext. HD are great if it is something you need to get to all the time and don't mind if it goes away (i.e. crash) Ext. drives are nothing more than a Int. drive in a cute case they have all the same problems as the Int. drives do and add to that they get picked up and moved around more than the computer they get attached to. If you have "stuff" that you wish to keep put it on CDs or DVDs and put them somewhere safe (i.e. firesafe or file cabinet) then when the drive goes you have a backup in a safe place.

I have a few people whos pc I work on who take lots of pics, I have them set up now to place pics in folders by year/month then at the end of every month they copy that folder to CD/DVD and file it away and when they roll over to a new year or get low on space they can delete them knowing they have them backed up elsewhere. If it is really important stuff on the CD/DVD (i.e. Taxes, legal stuff) I have them make a 2nd copy of the CD/DVD and put it somewhere like a deposit box. There are some other ways to do it but I think you get the drift.

But by no means are Ext. OR Int. drives a good backup device, they can die for what seems like no reason at all and leave you high and dry, it sounds like you where lucky with yours and someone can get some data off. I've had some like that and I've had some where I had to send the drive out for them to extract the data off for some serious $$$

If you need somewhere to buy CD/DVDs online let me know, cuz running down to Officemax/Depot Wallyworld makes them cost more then picking them up in bulk.

Sorry for the soapbox but I really do get this one a lot :laugh3:
Hope it helps
 
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Setup an eSata drive if you want an external solution
I keep an internal 1TB drive for our .nef (Nikon Raw) file storage
 
Thanks for the input. We got our external HD because the internal was full, and seemed easier than putting another into the machine. That was suggested too. Ours sat on top of the desk top, and never moved. It was an Iomega and run through a Firewire, and I was under the impression it's job was to be my back up. We did a regular back up to it, I think weekly or monthly. So....I guess the thing to do is get another external HD for computer dude to transfer our junk to....AND....then burn a DVD with the important stuff also. I used to do the DVD back up thing, until I got the external HD....thought that was better....but I guess I was mistaken. Any recs for another HD?
Possibility #2....our desktop is likely 6 or more years old...time to replace the whole thing??? I think it's got a 60 gig HD, 1.53 gigHz, 1.21 GB RAM....
Thanks for the help:cheers:
 
I have a 320GB HDD in my Mac. The drive itself cost around $120, IIRC.

If you have a desktop computer, you can install two really big hard drives and use the second one as backup. Then, you get another drive to set on your desktop. Two locations of backup data.

I've only had one hard drive ever fail on me and it was a Hitachi. I will NEVER buy another Hitachi. I will only buy Seagate and Western Digital. Hard drives are pretty cheap nowadays so there's not reason not to spend that extra $20-30 and get the next size larger.
 
i am a firm believer in western digital drives. and the DVD backup is good too because they dont get rewritten over and over and the pc wont move files because it thinks it needs to put a file in its place on that sector...
 
I have a WD drive I got out of an external HDD and I've had it for like 7 years.

I would never back up anything to DVD. It would take too long and use too many DVDs.

Plus I like creating bootable images of what I back up -- so in case I lose anything I can just pull the image back over and it'll boot up like nothing even happened.
 
bigalpha said:
I have a WD drive I got out of an external HDD and I've had it for like 7 years.

I would never back up anything to DVD. It would take too long and use too many DVDs.

Plus I like creating bootable images of what I back up -- so in case I lose anything I can just pull the image back over and it'll boot up like nothing even happened.
Click to expand...

If Macs used something other than there pokey superdrive it wouldn't be that slow :laugh3: (and yes I have both Macs and PCs)

I have seen all drive brands fail, I have a nice pile of drives from just the last year and half everything in there from Seagate, WD, Maxtor right now more Seagate drives in pile then anything else I've had 2 of them fail in the last 3 months. There is a reason company's do not backup to disk for long term storage or for that matter archive purposes tend to be done to non-magnetic media.

So backup the important stuff pics,docs,pdf,porn whatever to something other than a HD Int. or Ext. Hasta

As far as the age of your PC that's really your call if you find it still does everything you need it to in appropriate amount of time then stick with it, just cuz it is new and shiny doesn't always mean its better.:)
 
Do *NOT* rely on CD/DVD media for archival storage. Unless you get the high end media, bitrot is a serious problem with recordable optical media. And regardless of format, never, ever, rely on a single copy. Personally, I use mag tape, but that's simply not an option for most people

If you're serious about a backup method (and obviously have a high speed net connection,) look into one of the online services, like Mozy. Even ISPs and some financial institutions are starting to offer this service.
 
bigalpha said:
Really, the best media to back up to would be solid state. Of course, that's still pretty expensive.
Click to expand...

Heh well solid state does by today's standard "wear out" we only use them where it makes sense for us as there much better at being REALLY fast.

I thought this was an XJ forum when I signed up, think I've been had :laugh3:
 
X2 on what Bigalpha said. SSD (solid state drive). they have no moving parts and are about as reliable as you can get at this point. the only real draw back is they are still quite expensive. my company does fulfillment for Sandisk and after looking into some of the testing they have done for durability i am quite impressed. once the price comes down some, you will quickly see HDD and external HDD being replaced by SSD.

a cheaper alternative might very well be online storage. there are some free sites, you just have to take the time to upload to them (with 9K worth of photos, this could take a VERY long time). i use http://g.ho.st/ for my online storage needs but they only provide 15G of free space which depending on your photo size may only be ~1500-2000 worth of pics...

good luck!
 
I am a firm believer in solid state and flash memory! Way less stuff to break and use way less energy and power usually faster too. As far as your computer goes what do you do with it that's the biggest question you want to ask yourself if you are thinking about upgrading. Do you need a faster computer with more memory? If not stick with what you have!

I work on my computer all day long and i require a lot of power out of my computer so to me your computer is a dinosaur but then again I do 3d modeling so I even make super computers seem slow as molasses.
 
hightime81 said:
X2 on what Bigalpha said. SSD (solid state drive). they have no moving parts and are about as reliable as you can get at this point. the only real draw back is they are still quite expensive. my company does fulfillment for Sandisk and after looking into some of the testing they have done for durability i am quite impressed. once the price comes down some, you will quickly see HDD and external HDD being replaced by SSD.

a cheaper alternative might very well be online storage. there are some free sites, you just have to take the time to upload to them (with 9K worth of photos, this could take a VERY long time). i use http://g.ho.st/ for my online storage needs but they only provide 15G of free space which depending on your photo size may only be ~1500-2000 worth of pics...

good luck!
Click to expand...

Online one I've liked is http://www.backblaze.com/
 
ok, thank you all for the input...but it's a little confusing. So, the computer may be ok, but I shouldn't store anything of importance ONLY on any one of 3 hard drives (2 internal and 1 external?), nor should I store it on DVD's. Can't go the SSD route because it's too expensive for my needs, mag tape is out for same reason.
So, I should get a couple internal HD's installed, and find some online storage for now until something cheaper in SSD comes along??
I think I got that correct??
So, doesn't the external HD function just like the seconde internal HD?? and when did the HD's become so unreliable? I think Iomega's selling point (maybe 3 years ago) for that external HD was to back up your internal HD. hmmm
Thanks again for the input!:cheers:
 
If you are worried about the data just get 2 internal drives and run a redundant raid
 
x2 on redundant raid configurations. It copy's your files to multiple drives, so if one fails you can recover it with the other drive. At least that's the jist, it seems to get overly complicated when you really get into it. Theres a pretty small chance that you will have both drives crash at the same time.
 
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