[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar HDDs last the longest if they're used constantly and last the shortest if they're either frequently turned on and off or are left off for long periods of time.

Arrrrgggghhhhhhh

Please explain! I thought they would live forever if properly stored.I mean, the bearings are well isolated to keep the vacuum.
To me my music collection is worth more than anything else I own.
I desperately need terabyte crystals with indestructable housing.

 

[v_1matst]

I back my music up to DLT. Each tape holds roughly 80GB compressed and 40GB uncompressed. Granted this method is a little expensive (the drives aren't cheap and neither are the tapes really), however if your music is that important to you then this is the most reliable way to go. Just remember to backup often.

If money is no object, you could go with some of the newer SDLT drives which offer 600GB capacity on their tapes

 

[tiberian]

i put my music and other files in an external hard drive, once i can get a nice dual layer burner they will be in a bunch of DVDs.

 

[halcyon]

Just a word of caution to first movers: DL burning is currently quite horrendous in quality and will likely remain unreliable for some time. You have been warned.

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by v_1matst If money is no object, you could go with some of the newer SDLT drives which offer 600GB capacity on their tapes

Mmmm.... 600GB....

Geez, I don't even have that much space on my hard drives...

 

[v_1matst]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcachola Mmmm.... 600GB.... Geez, I don't even have that much space on my hard drives...

I forgot to mention that the 600GB is the uncompressed storage capacity. 1.2TB fit on an SDLT when you opt for compression. These drives have also gotten a lot faster so you don't have to wait forever for a backup/restore. They run about $8,000.00 and each tape is around $100 but you can't beat it for reliability and storage capacity. Plus, if a tape breaks you are only out a tape (you did make two backups right

) instead of an expensive device (like a HDD).

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by v_1matst I forgot to mention that the 600GB is the uncompressed storage capacity. 1.2TB fit on an SDLT when you opt for compression. These drives have also gotten a lot faster so you don't have to wait forever for a backup/restore. They run about $8,000.00 and each tape is around $100 but you can't beat it for reliability and storage capacity. Plus, if a tape breaks you are only out a tape (you did make two backups right ) instead of an expensive device (like a HDD).

600GB uncompressed!

Faster tape backups/restores are a good thing.

Our DLT autoloader at work takes FOREVER to restore, especially when a backup spans several tapes. Yes, I do make two backups of my regular data - though my MP3 collection is still on its first tape backup, but I've got two hard drive copies of it, so I'd have to lose two drives on two different computers plus several DATs to lose all my MP3s. Working on getting more tapes for a second MP3 tape backup.

One thing I do love about tapes, though, is that I don't have to swap media as much when restoring.

 

[Stephonovich]

Currently, a CDR backup of most of my CDs (ran out of blanks... must get more), as well as a FLAC --v rip (ripped with EAC in secure w/ offsets corrected, mind you) on a 120GB HD. I don't have much music; only around 50 albums right now. I also have around 3GB of various MP3s and single FLAC rips from friends, that isn't backed up. Shame on me, I know, but we're getting a DVD burner soon. DVD-RAM is a wonderful thing.

Once I'm independantly wealthy, I plan on getting a petabyte ramdrive connected over fibre channel

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmopragma Arrrrgggghhhhhhh Please explain! I thought they would live forever if properly stored.I mean, the bearings are well isolated to keep the vacuum. To me my music collection is worth more than anything else I own. I desperately need terabyte crystals with indestructable housing.

The motors in HDDs that spin the platters have lubricant in them and if the lubricant will gel up over time rendering the motor unable to spin (at all or fast enough to read/write). And turning stuff on and off is almost never good for it.

 

[sygyzy]

Some cool responses. How exactly are you guys doing backups though?

My setup is strange.

For documents, images, etc, I use something called Second Copy. What it does is, literally, make a second copy of files to a specified location. Since most of my documents/images are on C:. it copies them to D: or E:

It also keeps revision history. So if a file changed, it'll keep the last 2-3 (you can specify as many as you want) revisions in a folder I specified (\archive).

For MP3's, movies, music videos, I used to back them up to CDR. I would name them (volume) MP3CD01, MP3CD02, or Movies01. Then I scan them into a database using WhereIsIt? That way I can do a quick search and see that Metallica - One.mp3 is on MP3CD66.

Now I moved to DVD-R's. They are named MP3DVD01, 02, etc.

Once in a while (whenever I remember really), I backup the backups. I have two external hard drives and I copy my backups of images/documents over.

The problem I have found with backups is 1) time consuming. Takes a while to do and the less you do it, the more you lose when backing up. 2) Nothing is 100% reliable.

I expect my recordable disc media to fail eventually. But what solution is there? I don't want to backup backups of backups. It'd never end.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar HDDs last the longest if they're used constantly and last the shortest if they're either frequently turned on and off or are left off for long periods of time.

Could you point me to some evidence that HDD's last longer if used constantly than if left off? I've stored unused hard drives for years and had no problems after plugging them in. In fact I've seen 10 meg HDD's from the late 80's and such that still worked fine after sitting for a decade.

Afaik, MTBF figures take into account actual operation (in number of hours), not storage and off-time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sygyzy The problem I have found with backups is 1) time consuming. Takes a while to do and the less you do it, the more you lose when backing up. 2) Nothing is 100% reliable.

For #1, my secondary computer does automated backups of my main machine through Retrospect for Windows to its hard drive every day and a weekly tape backup for all my data. This secondary computer also serves as an MP3 server for my iTunes lists and Audiotron. I've got both a tape backup of it and an external hard drive copy, which I keep at work. My main machine has all of my data and newer music including MP3 downloads from eMusic and any CDs I've purchased since January of this year. I have to keep track of when to purge the old backups on the hard drive since it does fill up, but I only have to do this maybe once a week - it takes nearly two months to fill up. Sometimes longer depending on how much music I obtain.

For #2, I have multiple backups - two sets of tapes and a hard drive backup. It's not 100%, but I'm not depending on a single backup, which reduces the chances I'll lose everything. Also, I keep one tape backup set off site in a safety deposit box and my external hard drive at work. I do validate the tapes every now and then to make sure the data can be accessed.

Yes, it's obsessive, but you know, at least I've got peace of mind.

 

[dsavitsk]

Bringing back this thread ...

I have a 1/2 TB RAID 5 array which is backed up nightly to an external HDD using Dantz Retrospect.* I also run Norton GoBack to recover short term deletions/damage. Only problem is that the RAID array is loud, so it sits on a file server in the office while my HTPC, which actually plays the files, reads them via a wireless network.

This is only for music, for files that matter (source code, my dissertation), in addition to the above, I back them up in a copy of MS Sourcesafe on a remote server several states away which is itself on a RAID 5 array which is backed up nightly to another RAID 5 array which is backed up weekly to an external HDD which is placed in a fireproof safe offsite. I hate losing files.

*retrospect only backs up changes and keeps a record of them, thus allowing recovery to any date in the past, so a nightly backup only works on things that changed.

-d

 

[Distroyed]

With harddrives being as cheap as they are (and with awesome 5-year warranties), it's most economic to have a raid setup going on. The life of optical media is still in debate. The chances of 2 harddrives failing simulatenously, however, is quite low, so when one dies, just replace it with another and you're back in business. It would really suck to have verified that data on your dvd's at the time of burn, and come back to them a few years later, only to find they had unreadable errors in them from some unforeseen medium decay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar The motors in HDDs that spin the platters have lubricant in them and if the lubricant will gel up over time rendering the motor unable to spin (at all or fast enough to read/write). And turning stuff on and off is almost never good for it.

Got any links for more info on that?

 

[KenW]

Backups with an external HD via USB2. Archive using CD and DVD.