baratunde.com - Latest Comments in baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

remove Antivirus .NET — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:43:31 -0000

Thanks for your advice! I will back up my drive tonight.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

lyrics — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:06:55 -0000

I know it sucks, but back up your data to OFFLINE media. I can't stress this enough. But Hard drives and Drobos will fail, they will get zapped by lightning. Nothing can take the place of a set of tapes or CR-Rs. Anything requiring power to operate is a liability.
Thanks

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

mobility scooters — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:40:13 -0000

I urge everyone reading this to backup your most important files right now. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But right now. Do a local backup. Upload files to a server. Email them to yourselves. Print things out and put them in a lockbox.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Win — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:51:34 -0000

You don't necessary back-up the HD twice , you just need one time but you must use a good and reliable software .
I am using : http://www.dmailer.com/dmai... , is a free software that offers a great feature to backup and store it online on their servers up to 3gb for a free account.
Also for 2 years since i am using it never let me down and it worked properly until now and i think that it will still wokr for a long time.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Guest — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:34:09 -0000

Always keep backup of your hard drive such a wonderful information here. Thanks for sharing.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

HotelBooker — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:44:34 -0000

Very good info provided here. It is always good to have an external drive to back your files to - they are very cheap nowadays.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Singapore Hotel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:10:03 -0000

Good advice, I just saw this too late and lost my data.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Tech_News — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:55:12 -0000

Hello,
Nice information you have provided. I am taking full advantage and hopefully many people will take full advantage as well.
Thanks

zahipedia.com

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

vish12 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:22:27 -0000

Hi,
Nice posting. As everyone suggest we should make a backup of our hard drive to avoid data loss. But what if you possess data loss after all precaution. Don't panic, stellar phoenix data recovery is a perfection solution to recover your data and backup.

Thanks

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

j4k3 — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:33:07 -0000

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Heidi — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:22:17 -0000

Wow! I've had something similiar, but much smaller happen to me on many computers. It made me physically nauseous, the last time. It's hard to live simply and avoid the pure magic of technology. Yet, we're such slaves to technology as well. I'm so sorry you lost the audio of your mom.

Thanks for the advice, the tips, links, everything. Most is over my head. I found your post looking for what kind of mp3 or ipod I want to buy (I bought one of the first ipods ever- and need a new one or something like it) and then dealing with (7 yrs later) the bigger project of not just having an mp3 or ipod, but converting about 1000 cds to the best option, where to store them (then to you, searching for best ways to back up those cds).

Any suggestions? I'm thinking of an 8GB Creative Zen, using freeware to "rip" the cds, and then saving them onto a back up HD. What do you recommend for an mp3 player purchase? I want to have maximum storage and quality, and, what also, what HD for backup of holding all of my CDs? I've never done this before. Only put a 6 hr. playlist onto a 2002 ipod for training for and running a marathon. All I still have is that playlist/old ipod, and, 1000+ CDs and interest in having more than an old playlist on an old ipod...... and no experience really (someone helped me start saving onto the ipod and I did it in one day for that 6 hr. playlist).
Also- if you want to recommend a good resource for my questions if you wouldn't normally advise on that sort of thing, send 'em my way and thanks in advance.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

rmccarley — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:59:10 -0000

For what it's worth spending my time and cash burning disks just doesn't do it for me. And most online backup systems get expensive if you need several GBs of data stored. Right now I'm trying filesafebackup.com. They have bigger packages and a free trial so why not?

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Guest — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:24:42 -0000

This may sound retarded, but I suggest you ALWAYS get prints made of your favourite photos. 4X6's 5X7's whatever. How many old negatives do people have sitting around from years ago? I personally have no idea where they are, but I can pull out prints. Same goes for digital...even with lost jpegs, tiffs, raws, etc....if you have the prints, not all is lost. Sometimes this sort of thing is good...it reminds one how nothing is permanent. We are really spoiled in our era of preserving absolutely everything. I can definitely sympathize with the loss of the audios of your mother's voice, but that's what memory is for. And by memory, I mean the memory in your head...just like people have been doing for 1000's of years.

Peace.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

fillerip — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:03:48 -0000

Hiya.

I've been there, twice. The first time I lost 8 gig of files (big by 1995 standards), then again in 2005 when my PC was stolen. Last year, I set out to find a way of backing up all of my important files in a way that was completely automatic, highly redundant, instantaneous, transparent and cheap.

I stumbled upon FolderShare (recently acquired by Microsoft, http://www.foldershare.com), which runs on Windows 2000/XP and OSX a synchronizes files over a LAN or over the Internet with no network configuration (works behind NAT and everything). I went out and bought 4 old Dell towers from a computer fair, fitted WiFi cards, installed a 2TB RAID in each. One is in my garage, one at each of my parent's houses (250 and 270 miles away respectively) and the fourth in a friend's basement. This means that if any of my Mac or Windows machines need a new HD (or if I buy a new machine) all I have to do is install Foldershare, point it to my documents folder and let it automatically sync from the 4 backup machines as well as my three desktops and laptop - my family and friends can do the same. This also means I can seamlessly stop work on a document on one machine and pick it up on another a few seconds later. Definitely worth looking at if you want a backup solution that's easy, reliable, redundant and cheap to run. The only real expense was the HDs. All my friends with multiple machines run this now - if not for the convenience, then for the peace of mind knowing your data is safe (or safer, at least).

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

debbie — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:06:21 -0000

oh god you have me crying like a baby here... this really hit home for me because i recently had a major harddrive crash not as bad as yours but still 100gbs of stuff gone (thousands of songs) my first time to Disney World pix (also my fiance and my 5 yr anniversary pix, since which ive gained 50 lbs due to medical probs LOL so it was an incredibly nice memory) pix of my chihuahua when he was a puppy and most of all pix of my mom.. who has been in the hospital for 6 months now .. she actually came out of ICU today(which is why this really hit home for me).. i cant even imagine the pain of losing your physical memories *which is what video photo and audio are* im so sorry for you losses.. all of them..

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Solo Owl — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 01:25:20 -0000

For what it’s worth, the only disk failures I have experienced were a Zip drive (the Click of Death, as grc.com calls it) and very old floppies. The floppies died because a magnetic medium needs to be refreshed every year or two or the magnetism dissipates — Spinrite, e.g., does this for hard drives.

Your ultimate backup should be on optical disks; the National Institute of Standards and Technology thinks that CD-R and DVD-R disks will last 30-100 years, that is, long after you have equipment to read them.

Put 2 DVD burners in your desktop. The best ones on the market today are $30 or $40, which probably means a short life, but you have 2 and they’re cheap. If you can afford it buy one DVD±RW DL and one Blue-Ray rewriter. One DVD DL stores 8GB and a BlueRay disk 25GB.

Don’t back up, just copy (to DVD DL or BD) *folders* of your important writings and performances, your financials, your emails and personal photos. Categorizing the files onto separate disks will make the collection more interesting and useful. As you go along, duplicate each disk. Keep one copy on a shelf in your closet. Keep the other copy in large climate-proof plastic “neat box” and store it in a relative’s house across town (but not in a flood plain).

This sounds tedious, but it’s you, man. Your career is on those drives. Besides, while the disks are burning, you can lay back and listen to music on your stereo, or use up your cellphone minutes, or whatever.

Notice I have no brief for online storage. Those are also magnetic media on hard drives of unknown brands. The files can be hacked or stolen. If the company goes bankrupt or you can’t pay the bills, who knows what will happen to your files.

Some day you will get out the BlueRay disks, fire up the antique BlueRay player, and entertain your greatgrandchildren. Which brings us back to the kids’ never being able to hear their greatgreatgrandmother’s voice. That is sad. ——Solo Owl

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

DON'T USE MOZY FOR ONLINE BACK — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:47:19 -0000

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone warn you about using Mozy as your online backup. It's taken me nearly 40 hours to backup 3.3 GB of music files on my Comcast high-speed cable internet connection with 100% of my system resources dedicated to the backup! Yes, 3.3 gigabytes, we're talking my original iPod mini library. How long do you think 1 TB backup would take? Over 12,000 hours, or over 500 days by my calculation! Long enough for another drive failure. And how long do you think the incremental backups would then take. DON'T USE MOZY! It might be cheap but you get what you pay for. I read some reviews about iBackup over at consumersearch.com and this seems to be the best for overall speed and reliability for an online backup solution. It costs a bit more but for me it's worth it. I think it's absolutely imperative to have an offsite backup system in place in the event of a fire of disaster. It's great to have a local backup system in place but that's not going to protect you during Armageddon.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

mp3sattack — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:37:54 -0000

any update on this? did you try with the guys of ontrackdata?

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Jeremy P. — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:48:46 -0000

As a tech savvy enthusiast myself, I have been nearly bitten three times by a data loss demise of several hard drives: mine, my fianceé's, and my parents'. I have been fortunate enough, however, to either have already copied the files to disc or have been given enough final chances before the drives died.

I remember an instructor at a college once state, "Save. Save often." Well, I now know, "Back up. Back up often."

Yet, knowing this I have meandered back and forth with questions of uncertainty: What will be my next purchase will be for a desktop? Was my recommendation to wait for Mac OS X Leopard with its Time Machine feature a correct suggestion for my parents? Do I buy a mirrored external hard drive for my fianceé?

Reading your article, Mr. Thurston, has thankfully reaffirmed my resolve. I will purchase a Mac Pro with a RAID array. And yes, my recommendation for my parents to wait for OS X Leopard was correct (I can then suggest an external hard drive and UPS for them). Yes, a UPS and an external hard drive for my fianceé is a good idea as well.

All in all, I am most certainly glad I read your article. Thank you for sharing your painful and time-consuming experience. Oh, and happy belated birthday!

Peace.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Ray Fowler — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:07:36 -0000

So sorry to hear about your loss. I blogged earlier today about losing my hard drive last week and linked to your story here. My story is not nearly as traumatic, but it is still hard to lose stuff you can't replace. What kills me about your story is that it seems you did everything right. There was such a narrow window of time when things could go wrong, and yet somehow it still happened. I would guess most people are nowhere near as careful about backing up their data. I also appreciated your perspective that we live in an unprecedented time in history when we can actually preserve our memories like this in picture and sound. That is a good perspective for me to hold on to with the some of the pictures that we lost.

Thanks and all the best.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Pazu (Lhasa, Tibet) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:31:41 -0000

Recently I have a very similar situation, I took a plane from Lhasa to Hong Kong and i probably wasn't too careful about my hard driver (2.5" notebook hdd, 120GB), it crashed. I searched on the internet for some solutions, some suggested I put it in the freezer and maybe I can get back some bits of data, strange it sounded, but I did it all, and nothing could be helped.

I lost some photos, documents, video footages, I always think, it's really important to back up all these datas, but I think I'm too lazy to do it all. Of course, after hearing your story, I think I will at least backup some of the most important memories from my hard disk, but it's really difficult to keep everything backup, especially data is so huge these days!

I'm now back in Lhasa, I think I'll have plenty of time to see what I need to backup...

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Jackie — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:35:30 -0000

So sorry to hear of your loss. Losing data (all that personal stuff) is really horrible. Happened to me once. A lot of pictures I took in Iraq I will never have again... yet it taught me a valuable lesson.

Take care.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Brajeshwar — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:56:15 -0000

Yes, 2 total Hard Disc crashes in the past taught me one thing - Always have a minimum of 2 parallel Back-ups. And thou shall backup everyday.

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Manu Sharma — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:55:22 -0000

Next time your drive crashes, send it to India for recovery. It should cost you no more than $200 shipping.

http://www.stellarinfo.com/...

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Please backup your hard drive now... twice!

Red — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:55:22 -0000

Raid 5 is the best way to go for protecting your data in a single computer. One of the hard drives in a RAID 5 array is responsible for backing up the data via a parity bit. When a drive in the array fails, you can just buy a new one and the array will rebuild itself with no data loss. It takes several hours but its well worth the wait.

You can build a RAID5 setup from newegg.com for cheap check out this controller N82E16816115029 and this hard drive N82E16822145137. If you get 4 hard drives you'll have 1.5TB of space with one drive being the parity drive.

The only way this drive setup can fail is if multiple drive failures occur at the same time. As long as you keep them cooled the likelihood of this happening is extremely small.