10 replies to this topic

[astrl]

My hard drive crashed before I could burn my latest pics! WAH!! I am in the process of recovering whatever I can but my heart practically stopped when the computer wouldn't boot.

astrl

[Arnon_Ayal]

Hard drive crashed without a backup is the perfect way for a heart attack.

One point I notice, Few times I burned data on a CD and after a wile some of the data I couldn't restore to my computer, Since then I burn anything important at list twice and put any set of copies in different places.

What is more frightening it’s that I read an artical that said that most CDs will lose their data after few years.

[Cybergoldfish]

You should have at least 2 hard drives - One on which to work, and at least one on which to store files.

[craig]

Keeping copies on two different drives is the fastest, cheapest way to deal with the problem. Tapes are too slow and expensive. CD are OK as long as you don't have too much data.

CD's won't lose their data after a few years. That's a tall tale designed to get you to buy more stuff. A USB or firewire hard drive is the way to go if you don't have multiple computers.

[Arnon_Ayal]

CD's won't lose their data after a few years. That's a tall tale designed to get you to buy more stuff.

I don't know if it fairy tales or not but I sow more then once how data that was on CD lost and couldn’t be restore.

About the 2 HD, its sure adds some insurance, but still the problem is that they are on the same computer/location, it’s quit rare but computers were stolen/burned/flooded and so on.
Maybe because I work in the computers industry I take them with suspicion. B)

[craig]

How do CD's protect you in case of fire or flood? Do you store off-site? If so, you could do that more effectively with a portable hard drive. I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of off-site storage and limit themselves to CD's as media, but people do the strangest things.

There is the occasional CD failure like anything else, but their effectiveness for long-term archival storage is easily as good as hard drive or tape or anything else for that matter. If anyone believes that they can write and forget critical information and have it accessable in 20-30 years they are foolish. Any such plan requires regularly scheduled verification of backups.

BTW, I develop enterprise storage products for a living and have been a firmware developer for storage and RAID products for 15 years.

[Simon K.]

BTW, I develop enterprise storage products for a living and have been a firmware developer for storage and RAID products for 15 years.

You shouldn't have said that .... You just got filed in my "People to ask if you really don't know who to ask anymore" directory ;-)

Simon

[craig]

But in a fast moving industry you become so quickly out of date.

[Arnon_Ayal]

BTW, I develop enterprise storage products for a living and have been a firmware developer for storage and RAID products for 15 years.

Now I know who to blame, in one of my previous works we had a crash of entire RAID at once, I had to work 3 nights to restore the system after that.

I have 2 sets of backup CDs, one in home (soon it will be in safety box) and one at work.
Of course I don't expect them to store my data for 30 years from now (as I don't expect it from any device) I just pointing that its not 100% guarantee, I know too many people that think that after they backup their data to CD they thinks it safe for ever, and I know too many times when that data was corrupted.

[craig]

BTW, I develop enterprise storage products for a living and have been a firmware developer for storage and RAID products for 15 years.

Now I know who to blame, in one of my previous works we had a crash of entire RAID at once, I had to work 3 nights to restore the system after that.

I have 2 sets of backup CDs, one in home (soon it will be in safety box) and one at work.
Of course I don't expect them to store my data for 30 years from now (as I don't expect it from any device) I just pointing that its not 100% guarantee, I know too many people that think that after they backup their data to CD they thinks it safe for ever, and I know too many times when that data was corrupted.

Must have been a Mylex RAID product!

I think you and I are arguing the same side definitely.

[Reefkeep]

Easy solution- You just need to keep a copy your photos on your Mirrored OS drives, and a copy on your Raid 5 data array. Do nightly backups to a firewire 200 gig external drive. If you loose data in this configuration you need to think about attending church on a regular basis.

CDs should not be expected to last 20 years. Depending on the brand I have some I don't trust 2 years.