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All my external hard drives died! Should I get a tape backup unit and what do I need to know about it. buying and using tape.
All my external hard drives died! Should I get a tape backup unit and what do I need to know about it. buying and using tape.
Hi Everyone,
I had 6 external hard drives averaging 60 gb, and one by one they have died. I deliberately bought them with a fairly small capacity dividing them into 3 pairs having identical data and figuring that, if, one died , I wouldn't be losing all my data. If I had put all my data onto one or two large capacity drives, I would have lost a lot more data-or so I thought. (Hope you get my logic here!) I never figured most of then would die within a few weeks of each other! Some of then died in pairs! I didn't even keep them plugged in as I didn't want any viruses getting to them.
I found this article which says that is quite common. http://www.computercraft.com/docs/externalharddrive.shtml. Wished I'd have known that before.
Fortunately, I had backed up most of the data onto DVDs but still lost a lot of irreplaceable information. Plus I hate the time consuming DVD burning thing and then hunting them up when I wanted to replace data onto computer.My question is whether I would be better getting several thumb drives as they seem more stable to me, though the larger capacity ones are just too expensive right know. This seems like a lot of hassle and I have found articles which disagree and say that external hard drives are more stable than flash drives.
I have heard of tape back up but wonder if it's easy to use and if the software is expensive. I have had a quick look on Ebay and some of the units don't seem that expensive, especially second hand.
What would I look for when buying a tape drive? Or is there some better method to save my files? My operating system is Windows XP pro.
Thanks so much-Kerry
External Drives
Hi Kerry,
I've found most external drives are reasonably reliable,but the drive cases can fail. The drives themselves can mostly be recovered. the best way to safeguard data is to have your drives set up as a raid array both internaly and externaly If you cant burn to DVD. If you google "raid arrays" You will find heaps of info on the subject. Have fun!
Regards,
Torph.
Raid and multiple hard drive information
Thanks Torph,
I looked up several articles but really need Raid For Dummies! I found it sounded quite complicated and maybe not something a muddled old woman like me could manage. I gather you need a card that controls the system and several internal hard drives? Would it be simpler for me to just get a couple of extra hard drives and transfer my DVD data to them and then just copy new data to the new harddrives if and when I need to? I really only need reliable storage as I don't have much that needs backing up nowadays anyway.
Can I install a 2nd or third hard drive myself and could I try a new operating system such as Linux on one of them. Again I have read several articles on multiple hard drives but just don't understand the jargon.I have this article below but it's the actual hardware installation I need to know.Does a second hard drive just slot in somewhere or is more involved?
http://blog.kevindonahue.com/archives/2004/04/03/how_to_install_addition...
Thanks again,Torph. Kerry
Hi again Kerry, If you can
Hi again Kerry,
If you can wield a screwdriver,adding a second drive is easy. There are heaps of illustrated tutorials online. To add to the article you linked to, Disc management is located under administrative tools in control panel. There are heaps of achived P C World forum answers to research that will help as your question is asked quite often.
Regards,
Torph
Simple Solution for Kerry
Kerry, i found tape drives the most efficient and secure way to save my important data... A raid simply has multiple hard drives built in, however it will still need to be backed-up, as it is still a hard drive... all hard disk drives can fail and contract viruses much like a pc hard drive, whereas the tape drive can isolate files upon recovery, so your not reloading the same problems. You can then take the tape away and store it safely off site, so if something does happen to the office or the pc's, you can always get the data back.
They are very simple to use, i found Peridata to be very very helpful with my data back-up and recovery needs, plus they service Australia wide... below is their website, i had Steven help me, maybe give them a try.
www.peridata.com.au
Backup
Don't even think of a tape drive. The backups take forever and you won't do them often. (They are also very expensive.) One large SATA or USB backup drive that duplicates your main disk is really all you need. Get two *different* such drives (not the same manufacturer / model number) if you want to be extra safe. Even with one backup drive your data will exist in two places (the computer main drive and the backup). With this method backups will be fast and retrievals easy. As soon as one drive goes bad clone it to a new one and continue. The chance of different types of drives' going bad within a short time of each other are small. (The drives you had that went bad might have been suffering from an erratic motherboard component. So maybe one of your backup drives should be another internal hard drive. The advantage of that is that in some cases you may be able to boot from the backup drive if the main drive goes bad-- it can be a bit tricky but it can be done if you make the backup drive by copying the original bit-for-bit either with forensic backup software or a partition- or disk-copying utility. And of course, that will be harder on Vista or Windows 7.)
Backup
Anyone who suggests using hard drives as a backup medium has no idea and obviously no experience be it personal or professional. If you want good, reliable backups then a tape drive is a very good option. OK, using another HD is an inexpensive method but not reliable enough. RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is a way of mirroring drives yes but not for non-server Operating Systems. Most desktop RAID systems are there for the performance/game speed improvements, speeding up disk access and not mirroring drives. Should the RAID array fail, there goes your data too.
You say nothing of budget. A 90GB Native SONY AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape) will cost you anything between AU$1100 and AU$1600 depending on the capacity of the drive and the tapes around $60 each. Plus you will need software to drive it. I found Backup Assist very good and it's competitively priced as well. Professional backup software is quite expensive and really prohibitive for the home user. Tapes are not as quick as backing up to a hard-drive but they're not exactly snails either depending on the amount of data you have.
There are cheaper drives out there, (yes, they are slower than the AIT's etc) at around AU$400 to AU$600 so shop around. Remember, if you are going to backup to tape, always verify the data after. Basically the backup program compares your backup with the original to ensure the backup is good.
You have a whole lot of conflicting views here which will probably confuse you a little. Ask any Systems engineer what they would prefer to backup to and the answer will be the same every time - Tape.
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