Community Newsletter: Q&A: External hard-drive buying advice and backing up data
- 8/8/08 10:24 AM
hard drive for backup, etc.
by photobug56 - 8/2/08 4:07 PM In reply to: External Hard Drives are not the best backup! by An2n_eDWe have 2 types of backups that we all need - file, and system. File, to protect us from ourselves. System, to protect us from our computer failures.
The former is fairly easy - there are piles of software solutions to back up files to almost anything, including cd roms and dvd's, or external HD's. System backup and recovery is a whole issue on its own. I read messages suggesting backup to DVD. So, let's see, double layer DVD's, 1-200 meg go backup, now how many DVD's does this need? Who do I hire to come to my house to backup 2 or 3 PC's like this once in a while? Where do I store the stacks of DVD's?
So I finally found an external DVD for system backups, a maxtor one touch plus. The software is so so, but it does work, and if I have an outage it can get me going again. I did a backup right before a XP SP3 upgrade. No way was I doing the upgrade without it.
Now, I'd love to have a DVD or tape solution that worked and was affordable. But backup needs grow faster then affordable backpu systems do.
archiving vs. backup
by sys-eng - 8/2/08 7:58 AM In reply to: CD is the failsafe by gifro10The problem you encountered is not the fault of the external hard drive. You moved the data rather than just backing it up. In essence, you had no backup but just a different primary storage. This is called archiving which is different than backing up.
All the data on the external drive should have still been on your internal drive(s) so nothing would be lost.
Reply to Ben
by ewt38 - 8/2/08 8:14 AM In reply to: archiving vs. backup by sys-engI moved all the data from the internal drive to the external drive. Nothing is on the internal. So, I archived rather than backingup the data. What is the difference - I still lost the data (maybe). We have opened the box and found the 1st problem is that the mechanicals of the drive had failed. We do not know if the data is still available and I was told that it would cost about $800 per drive to try recovery with no guarantee.
What is the difference?
by sys-eng - 8/2/08 8:24 AM In reply to: Reply to Ben by ewt38Did you read my message? The difference is that for you to lose all your data both drives would have to fail at the same time. That is possible but extremely unlikely. Copy your data to another drive (backup) rather than archiving (moving) the data. Then you have the same data in two places. If the data is very important such as photos, then you should keep a CD or DVD in a fire-proof safe or at another site too.
What is the difference?
by ewt38 - 8/2/08 8:31 AM In reply to: What is the difference? by sys-enggot it - Thanks for the explanation
welcome
by sys-eng - 8/2/08 8:48 AM In reply to: What is the difference? by ewt38I was a data center engineer for BellSouth for 28 years. Many IT folks do not understand the difference. Be sure your backup software program does not delete the original data but just copies it.
In over 20 years of PC use, I have never once lost data. My disk drives are in RAID 1 (mirror) mode and I also perform archiving.
My Simpletech Nightmare
by asierramoore - 8/2/08 7:59 AM In reply to: CD is the failsafe by gifro10OK...So I was one of those people who thought an external drive was infallible until I lost EVERYTHING -PHOTOS, DOCUMENTS, ETC. My external drive came with a Y usb cable that went bad and one can only be obtained from Simple Tech. I needed to use the drive before I got the replacement so I bought another substitute cable and an adaptor with a voltage dial (because someone at Fry's suggested it as a regular usb cable would not be enough to power the drive)that did some weird thing to my drive. The drive stopped working. I took it to the repair center (Firedog?) in Circuit City and they opened it and tried to start the drive but it would not spin. So...they told me the only other option would be data recovery. I don't even know if the data can be recovered. I have no clue what company would be trustworthy and reliable for this kind of thing. Anyway...that's it for me and those external drives. I'll use DVD's to back up from now on.
My Simpletech Nightmare
by ewt38 - 8/2/08 8:36 AM In reply to: My Simpletech Nightmare by asierramooreI had a similar experience with 3 WD esternals. My Tech guy told me that he could send the drives to a recovery place but the cost would be $800 per drive with no guarantee of success. I wish I knew of these problems before I used these externals for archiving
DO NOT COUNT ON CD"s or DVD's for backup
by waytron - 8/4/08 4:10 AM In reply to: My Simpletech Nightmare by asierramooreCD’s and DVD’s have proven to be very unreliable for long term backup. Even experts at IBM claim that you can only expect about a 3-5 year life with burned disks http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,107607,00.html. It was originally thought that burned CD’s would have a 50 to 100 year storage life when they first came out. NOT SO. Depending on the specific brand, the speed it was burned and storage conditions, many users have experienced failed disks after a very short period of time. I personally have found some unreadable CD’s and DVD’s after only about 6 months of storage. It seems to vary greatly by manufacturer and price. Sometimes, you can even see oxidation on the reflective layer of the CD after a relatively short period of time. Again, if your data is important to you, you must have more than one backup. Online backup is a great second source for backup. Oh, by the way both MAC’s and PC’s use exactly the same hard drives, so you need to backup regardless of the type of computer you have.
Taiyo Yuden media
by husky91 - 8/4/08 7:30 AM In reply to: DO NOT COUNT ON CD"s or DVD's for backup by waytronIf you do rely on CD/DVD media for backup, do some research on Taiyo Yuden media. They're supposed to be the best.
platform
by Jephy - 8/19/08 8:29 AM In reply to: DO NOT COUNT ON CD"s or DVD's for backup by waytronOn a forum directed primarily at non-experts/novices it's encouraging to see that waytron makes no platform assumptions--as others, and even the moderator does--and notes that Mac and PC hard drives are identical. When generating or posting on ANY computer topics in this day and age it is necessary to distinguish between platforms for both thoroughness and clarity. Thanks to waytron for a better answer.
You took a big risk -- and lost
by Thor33433 - 8/6/08 9:00 PM In reply to: My Simpletech Nightmare by asierramooreSure, no drive is going to run forever. But had you been backing up your data -- leaving the original files in place, you'd have 2 copies of everything. When your external drive went belly-up, you could just replace it and back up to the new drive.
Optical storage is not failsafe!
by LMF5000 - 8/2/08 8:23 AM In reply to: CD is the failsafe by gifro10I had to re-format my hard disk due to a multitude of problems with windows after about a year of using the computer everyday, so I made a backup of all my stuff on an Imation-branded DVD-RW. After the reinstallation of windows, I put the DVD in and couldn't read some of my data due to a "cyclic redundancy check" error. In other words, optical storage can also fail on you. Ever since that incident, I've switched to DVD+RW, which are much better (faster and more reliable) than the -RW (but harder to find in shops).
I also had a SanDisk 512MB flash drive that spontaneously corrupts its data within a few days of it being written. I've since upgraded to a 2GB flash drive called "filemate".
Nowadays I do all my backups to a 120GB Samsung 2.5 inch IDE hard disk in a cheap enclosure that I bought separately and put together myself. It uses the USB bus itself for power (no need for external supply) and is almost as fast as my laptop's internal SATA hard disk (as measured by HDTune - both are about 35MB/sec).
CD's & DVD's as backups ...
by M11MadMan - 8/3/08 3:20 PM In reply to: CD is the failsafe by gifro10I agree with you, in principle about using CD's and DVD's as backups, assuming your backup plan isn't just a wholesale copy of oyur hard drive storage media. There's more to a good, comprehensive backup plan than just copying files (yeah, I know I'm preaching to the choir). Tracking and inventorying your backed up files can be a b***h.
Another layer of protection/recovery is a program like Runtime Getback Data (NTFS or your particular flavor).
I invertantly not only deleted but formatted a WD "MY Book" 500GB external USB drive. GetBack Data recovered almost all of the data on the drive. I'm selling the software, actual milage and results may vary, but it worked for me.
Planning a backup regimen is a painstaking and time consuming task, and will vary by individual.
The bottom line to backups in the old saying - "Why do we never have time to do things right, but we always find time to do them over".
Backing up to a lower capacity medium is always a pain in the a**, but as yourself just what is your data worth.
Change that to "I AM NOT selling the software" ...
by M11MadMan - 8/4/08 2:15 AM In reply to: CD's & DVD's as backups ... by M11MadManD***ed keyboard. Spellcheckers work great, but don't correct idiot mistakes. I DON'T sell the software. It saved my bacon more than once, tho. Just remember there is no such thing as too much backup. The other thing to remember: the most common failure of back-ups is not doing them in the first place.
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