Hard Drive Failure

[Randy1]

Got lucky and saw a hard drive failure was eminent on my old emachine when the computer started slowing down then a chkdisk.  Did a backup and a repair disk in windows 7 then replaced the hard drive.  All is well.

Just a reminder.  Hard drives will fail.  Be ready.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Got lucky and saw a hard drive failure was eminent on my old emachine when the computer started slowing down then a chkdisk.  Did a backup and a repair disk in windows 7 then replaced the hard drive.  All is well.

Just a reminder.  Hard drives will fail.  Be ready.

People should have backups _before_ any symptoms start. But most people don't. Of course it also depends on what you keep at the computer. If your family photo album or company accounting is stored on the computer with no backups, you obviously like to live risky

[Randy1]

A hard drive is going to fail.  Plan on it.

[Skuzzy]

We have lively discussions, at another board, about this.  Example;  I have just over 18TB's of live data on my system, at home.  It is simply not practical to have full hard copy of that much data.

That said.  I can recover it all, if the entire stack fails.  Not through a traditional backup, for certain, and that restoration could take a couple of weeks.

It is getting to be a real problem now, for those who have that much data and depend on it.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

We have lively discussions, at another board, about this.  Example;  I have just over 18TB's of live data on my system, at home.  It is simply not practical to have full hard copy of that much data.

That said.  I can recover it all, if the entire stack fails.  Not through a traditional backup, for certain, and that restoration could take a couple of weeks.

It is getting to be a real problem now, for those who have that much data and depend on it.

On traditional methods 18Gb gets expensive already but just to clone the data is not so expensive. 8Tb HDDs are cheap per gigabyte ($260 per drive) and it only takes 3 of them for a full backup. I take daily incremental backups (or strictly speaking they're done automatically) only from my work laptop. Gaming computers I don't bother to back up at all and my music and photo albums are small enough to fit on a couple of DVDs. I have most of the stuff duplicated on multiple hard drives and the personal stuff on DVDs that are kept in the garage building, in case of fire. About 90% of my work data sits in the cloud, anything stored locally on my computer is not disastrous even to disappear.

[Skuzzy]

I have had hard drives fail, when used as backup media.  I quit using RAID, due to two back-to-back failures which left me with nothing at all.  

SSD's rock in this area, but are far too expensive to use as backup devices, when you need 20TB's, or so.

There is really not a good backup solution, for really large data sets, today.  Not saying it cannot be done.  Just saying it is not optimal.

[katanaso]

There is really not a good backup solution, for really large data sets, today.  Not saying it cannot be done.  Just saying it is not optimal.

Yeah, it's really only enterprise-class stuff.  Nothing feasible for the average home user. 

Cloud-based solutions aren't an option for our work data, so it's a couple of NetApp controllers, with databases mirrored/log shipped to various sites on other SANs, as well as an EMC SAN for backup.  Also a Centera, which seems like complete overkill, but it ensures data availability.   Then tape backup as a final option.

The only thing to do is layer it, like wearing a belt and suspenders on a pair of overalls that are sewn to an undershirt...and yet they can still get torn and fall down.

For most folks, an inexpensive solution is a couple of 3-4TB external drives, and just back up everything important.

[Bizman]

For most folks, an inexpensive solution is a couple of 3-4TB external drives, and just back up everything important.

So far most of my clients could back up all their valuables on one single 500 GB external drive, some could manage on a 8 GB memory stick. The only exception was one guy who had one 500 GB external disk full of photos plus some more. Of course I'm speaking about private persons, not enterprises. But that includes active photographers and hobby video editors. Those most likely to ask about backups are people who have some 50 to 100 GB data on their entire computer, including Windows and programs.

[Chalenge]

In 2014 I found out exactly how many systems it takes using 6 TB drives to have a total of 1 PB of storage. I'm not using that much space right now, but I wholly believe that I will be sometime before 2020.

[RotBaron]

Thanks for the reminder; it's time to back up what I've got; school stuff I'd be in a world of hurt...

[jigsaw]

I have had hard drives fail, when used as backup media.  I quit using RAID, due to two back-to-back failures which left me with nothing at all.  

SSD's rock in this area, but are far too expensive to use as backup devices, when you need 20TB's, or so.

There is really not a good backup solution, for really large data sets, today.  Not saying it cannot be done.  Just saying it is not optimal.

Have you looked into the newer Drobo setups?  I may add one at some point. My current backup plan gets a bit cumbersome.

1. Copy work projects to PC, then NAS Raid
2. Weekly backup of System drive
3. Copy 1 and 2 to removable drive and swap with off site weekly backup
4. When raw files for work projects accumulate to ~50 gigs, burn to Blu Ray

Copying large projects back and forth over the network to the NAS gets old fast. Hence the interest in a Drobo with USB 3/Thunderbolt.

[Skuzzy]

It is still using hard drives for backup.  I can do that.  It is just not practical for as much working data as I deal with, at the moment (>18TB).

RAID 1 is the only way to have that much data backed up and having another 20TB stack on the network is just increasing the odds of failure.

Like I said before.  There are ways to do it, but none of them are really optimal.

[terrydew]

I have been using Drobo. Gives single or multiple drive failure recovery and with 4tb drives can do 25tb.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I have been using Drobo. Gives single or multiple drive failure recovery and with 4tb drives can do 25tb.

Now there are even 8Tb drives for 260 bucks a piece. Cost shouldn't be a factor.

[Gman]

18gb - holy crap Skuzzy, that's a lot of drives/data.

I have a question regarding backing up data/HD, can anyone recommend what the best program is to backup a few folders on a regular basis?  I have a documents folder with writing and other subject matter, and an entertainment folder, both of which are constantly changing on a daily basis.  What I do now is pretty much do it manually and by memory, an obviously very inefficient way of doing business.  I copy and paste whatever new stuff I add on to my external USB drives (Seagate 2TB drives that I got on sale for 50$ - yes I know they're crap, but are working so far, and hey, it was 50$ for 240$ worth of drives, so wth.)  I find as I'm getting older I'm forgetting to do it at times, or missing stuff, and it's generally screwing up my backup system slowly but surely.

I've messed around with a few things but never found anything all that satisfactory or better than my manual method.  I guess what I'd like is something that backups my 2 main folders on a set-time basis, and only adds changes or new files to the backup drives.