Author |
Message |
Diet H2O_TSGK
TSGK Member
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 3281 Location: Ireland (right, left, then second on the right) Country: Age: 52
|
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 13:10 Post subject:
External Hard drives - learn from my mistake |
|
So Diet made a new PC and bought an external hard drive (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=549) to back up and transfer data. The most important data was 1.5k photos, emails and docs. You know where this is going already, don't you?!
The hard drive that I used was a replacement to another drive of the same model which turned out to be faulty. I ran into problems with this one as well. Essentially, the files were coming across 1kb/sec. And things got worse from there. I did a few things that made the situation worse (like zeroing it) but I've now learned that this didn't really matter. Although I should have made two separate back ups.
I gave the hard drive to an IT security company that we use in work and they took it apart, removed the disc and analysed it. They found that the disk was physically faulty. Essentially they said that it was useless.
Prices have plummeted in respect of hard drives, and they said this is due to the fact that the products are made of sh*t (to quote them). As a result, they said that they had seen a massive increase lately in hard-drives being submitted to them for data retireval. Also, they find that external hard drives are the worst offenders - they're simply not portable, they've no dampening and they're basically internal hard drives put in a tin box with a crappy controller.
They recommend avoiding hard drives as a back up solution and to look at online storage solutions. This is a reputable one www.mozy.com. For the price of a single hard drive you can have 2 years unlimited back ups (and never have to worry about local hardware failure). Encryption, auto-back up, etc as standard.
Anyway, you might consider to avoid going through what I did.
_________________
Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen with all the fat taken out
|
Back to top
|
|
|
Wonderbanana
Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 404 Location: Hertfordshire Country: Browser: Age: 48
|
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 14:03 Post subject:
|
|
I recently became 'data paranoid' and ended up getting this last week:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=49BR
and 2 of these:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=57Q2&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=Western+Digital+640GB+Caviar&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0
Great thing is you can hot swap the drives out and yet their connected up via SATA so rip through data transfer. The fan on the unit helps keep em cool too
Gonna use the extra slot for Vista or Windows 7 soon for a dual boot rig when funds allow
|
Back to top
|
|
|
StonedCabbage
TSGK Member
Joined: 18 Jun 2006 Posts: 2273 Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom Country: Browser: Age: 37
|
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 20:29 Post subject:
|
|
I was kind of bummed when my external HDD started making some dodgy noises while trying to get some files off it not too recently. Lucky I got what I needed. I keep about 3 'live' copies of everything I want to 'definately keep' now too make sure it never gets lost due to a small incident involving the loss of 2000 music files + lots of other stuff some few years ago.
The small flash drives are good, carry all your daily files onto something that fits on your keyring.
Then you got this online cloud thingy coming, which should really explode in the next few years.
_________________
I hope that packet gets lost forever in network oblivion
|
Back to top
|
|
|
gtamike_TSGK
TSGK Member
Joined: 20 Aug 2006 Posts: 2991 Location: Mapper since 2007 YouTube: gtamikesvideos Country: Browser: Age: 34
|
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 20:42 Post subject:
|
|
I paid for a new 16 GB USB Flash drive off ebay only £12 and free postage, it can from Hong Kong took 5 days or so and works fine.
My friend paid for a 2GB USB for £15.
_________________ http://gamebanana.com/members/215600
https://www.youtube.com/c/gtamikesvideos
Public OneDrive (My Maps/Download)
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=3BA901DF57014CE8%21110&cid=3BA901DF57014CE8
|
Back to top
|
|
|
The Borg_TSGK
TSGK Member
Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 2756 Location: Suffolk, England Country: Age: 52
|
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 21:07 Post subject:
|
|
Ever since i started building my next/new pc, i kept the old (largest) HDD and have used this for storage/backup.
Also every month i use a drive image program and make a backup of my main HDD. Last month i got a bad virus by just leaving IE8 running while i had tea, so all i had to do was restore the image from the previous month. Only lost a few pics from that month and some emails, nothing compared to all my family pictures stored on my computer
_________________
|
Back to top
|
|
|
Lawitz
TSGK Member
Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 2337 Country: Browser: Age: 34
|
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 21:55 Post subject:
|
|
you can buy 8gb sandisk or other good vendors sticks for 10 Euro. (at least in germany) I got an Verbatim 8gb one. I recommend avoiding cheap no name sticks, they can be unreliable, at least not a good place for important data.
_________________
|
Back to top
|
|
|
Diet H2O_TSGK
TSGK Member
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 3281 Location: Ireland (right, left, then second on the right) Country: Age: 52
|
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 17:47 Post subject:
|
|
Indeed. There are many solutions. I'm am using mozy now and I'm very happy wit it - simple to use and intelligent. I have never noticed it running. What's important to me is that even if my PC was destroyed I still have a copy of all my precious data. And for a price that's much less than the price of a hardrive. The image shows how you use it - it simply appears as another hard drive.
Description |
|
Filesize |
73.11 KB |
Viewed |
275 Time(s) |
|
_________________
Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen with all the fat taken out
|
Back to top
|
|
|
opti185
TSGK Member
Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 595 Location: vienna,austria Country: Browser: Age: 45
|
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 19:44 Post subject:
|
|
make mozy automaticly a backup every day,week,month....,-or u make it manual?
_________________
|
Back to top
|
|
|
M-83 Frag
Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Italy Country: Browser: Age: 44
|
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 22:25 Post subject:
|
|
Nice One Diet..V for Vendetta is amazing!!!
|
Back to top
|
|
|
Diet H2O_TSGK
TSGK Member
Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 3281 Location: Ireland (right, left, then second on the right) Country: Age: 52
|
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 00:51 Post subject:
|
|
opti185 wrote: |
make mozy automaticly a backup every day,week,month....,-or u make it manual? |
Whatever way you want.
M-83, yes V for Vendetta is exceedingly good
_________________
Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen with all the fat taken out
|
Back to top
|
|
|
|