Don't be me with your computer files

[Mr. Wizard]

I just lost all of my computer data dating back 20 years. Long story short I had it BACKED UP on a 2tb portable hard drive which I dropped. It's trashed. 2 different sysops looked at it. I can send it to the company and pray but that bill starts at $1000.00 They took it apart and its running but the arm is scratching back and forth across the disk. No light comes on and it is not recognized by any computer I plug it into. 20 years of taxes, personal files, small business files and lesson plans and lessons from my 30 years of teaching welding - gone.

Truthfully I had it backed up on my computer c drive which had to be re-imaged.
My though was, it gets re-imaged, I copy everything back, now I still have two copies. BAM god punished me.

Don't be me, back that stuff up twice. I would do it on "the cloud" but know little about it. Mr. Wizard is wrong again!

PS is the cloud a good idea for an old dog like me?

[Fish]

Another option for comparison...

Box.com gives you 100GB of cloud storage for $5/month: https://www.box.com/pricing

They also offer Cloud backup of whatever data you want: https://www.box.com/cloud-backup

And also offer file versioning for an additional fee if you need that: https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/art...ersion-History

I have accounts with Dropbox, Box.com, OneDrive, and GoogleDrive. I probably use Box.com the most because I have an unlimited quota with them via work and can use that from any location or device. But their throughput is kinda lousy sometimes. Especially with large files. Dropbox is probably the best in terms of performance from all devices, but they are the most expensive for storage, and I only have a free account. GoogleDrive has crazy good performance for me, but mostly because I have Gigabit GoogleFiber at home. Which includes a free TB of online storage which is crazy fast for everthing, but only available to GoogleFiber customers. Without GF it wouldn't be worth the price. MS OneDrive is meh.

[BlackOp]

Originally Posted by Fish

Another option for comparison...

Box.com gives you 100GB of cloud storage for $5/month: https://www.box.com/pricing

They also offer Cloud backup of whatever data you want: https://www.box.com/cloud-backup

And also offer file versioning for an additional fee if you need that: https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/art...ersion-History

I have accounts with Dropbox, Box.com, OneDrive, and GoogleDrive. I probably use Box.com the most because I have an unlimited quota with them via work and can use that from any location or device. But their throughput is kinda lousy sometimes. Especially with large files. Dropbox is probably the best in terms of performance from all devices, but they are the most expensive for storage, and I only have a free account. GoogleDrive has crazy good performance for me, but mostly because I have Gigabit GoogleFiber at home. Which includes a free TB of online storage which is crazy fast for everthing, but only available to GoogleFiber customers. Without GF it wouldn't be worth the price. MS OneDrive is meh.

Always remember...nothing is free.

[ChiefsFanatic]

I don't know if anyone said this yet, but redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

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[cooper barrett]

Has anyone insulted/er, consulted Clay on this. He spoke of reclaiming data off a customer's HDD

[BlackOp]

Originally Posted by cooper barrett

Has anyone insulted/er, consulted Clay on this. He spoke of reclaiming data off a customer's HDD

That's another benefit of having a bootable external...you can use it to wipe your internal drive in case of it needing repairs.

At this point you can get a Seagate portable for $50 bucks..and a Carbon Cloner trial is free...duplicate your drive and put it on the shelf...set a calendar alert to update.

[L.A. Chieffan]

What do you guys need all that crap for? 20 years? WTH

[MeaTy The Pimp]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

I hate to disagree but flash drives are bulletproof. External hard drives are NOT.
They can't take any punishment at all. I dropped this one 6" and its done????
I know my job requires alot of moving around from computer to computer but Never again.

And flash drives are crazy cheap, so you can just keep multiple copies.

I have a quick local copy that I keep on hand here at the house and a copy that I keep in my Credit Union safety deposit box (mine is Free for having an account with them(yours may differ)) with some papers that I don't have digital copies of. (Original copy of my Will, DNR, etc...)

Monthly, when I update my local copy of my flash drive, I take it to the credit union and swap it with the one in the safety deposit box.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by MeaTy The Pimp

And flash drives are crazy cheap, so you can just keep multiple copies.

I have a quick local copy that I keep on hand here at the house and a copy that I keep in my Credit Union safety deposit box (mine is Free for having an account with them(yours may differ)) with some papers that I don't have digital copies of. (Original copy of my Will, DNR, etc...)

Monthly, when I update my local copy of my flash drive, I take it to the credit union and swap it with the one in the safety deposit box.

External hard drives are actually cheaper than flash drives.

You can get a 4TB name-brand external HDD for $100.

A high-end 512GB USB3 flash drive will cost you $75 easy and it is:

1. not as fast as a HDD
2. not as reliable as a HDD
3. not as efficient as a HDD

For all of you using USB flash drives to backup important material - the USB connector is PHYSICALLY attached to the flash chip.

Simply inserting it into a USB port can break the drive and destroy your data forever.

I'm not trying to be a dick but I simply cannot stress enough not to use USB flash drives for backup. They're for convenience and portability but I've seen too many people burned using USB flash drives. USB flash drives always seem like a good idea until the first time you plug them in and they're not recognized because they broke.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

What do you guys need all that crap for? 20 years? WTH

You don't have family pictures and movies that you want to keep forever?

You don't have documents that you might need to keep for many years, like resumes, wills, and other legal documents?

You should be keeping copies of any financial documents for 7 years.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic

I don't know if anyone said this yet, but redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

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Backup, image, archive. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.

It's the 3-2-1 strategy or whatever people want to call it.

[Saulbadguy]

Cloud is certainly the way to go.

[ChiefsFanatic]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Backup, image, archive. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.



It's the 3-2-1 strategy or whatever people want to call it.

Last year my company lost 18 months worth of data, and I lost almost 90 days worth of reporting that had to be redone because it had not yet been sent to the clients for various reasons.

Why? Well, because 1, the connection between the server and the physical backup didn't get plugged back in after the server was moved when the offices were cleaned, and 2, because during a nightly cloud backup, one file was somehow corrupted, and the cloud server rejected every backup file, every night for 18 months, and that rejection NEVER triggered a warning dialog box or an error report.

So, now we have a direct backup from the server nightly, just like before, and that physical backup uses different software that generates a report at the end of every single backup. And then we have a secondary physical backup that creates the backup on two separate swappable drives, that are each taken home by the owners every night. We have 4 swappable drives in total, so there is always two drives in the backup at all times. The dual backups are for redundancy, and they are taken home by separate mangers to prevent data loss in case of a fire at the office, or some other disaster at the office or damage to one of the drives the owners take home.

And to top it off, we still have an off site cloud backup each night, with the same report generated at the end of each backup.

In my industry, data loss is an absolute no-no. We are required to keep 7 years of reporting, but because there is nothing in the requirements that state hard copies must kept, we started keeping just the initial data collection on hard copies, and the finished reports in digital format. We have saved a ton of paper, and storage space by keeping the reports in digital format.

And to just go back and explain how devastating the data loss was for my company, but especially for me, it had been 14 months since the server crash, and I am just now only 2 months behind, instead of the initial 3 months behind.

TL;DR - Server crashed, data was lost. Now we have 4 separate backups each night.

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[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic

Last year my company lost 18 months worth of data, and I lost almost 90 days worth of reporting that had to be redone because it had not yet been sent to the clients for various reasons.

Why? Well, because 1, the connection between the server and the physical backup didn't get plugged back in after the server was moved when the offices were cleaned, and 2, because during a nightly cloud backup, one file was somehow corrupted, and the cloud server rejected every backup file, every night for 18 months, and that rejection NEVER triggered a warning dialog box or an error report.

So, now we have a direct backup from the server nightly, just like before, and that physical backup uses different software that generates a report at the end of every single backup. And then we have a secondary physical backup that creates the backup on two separate swappable drives, that are each taken home by the owners every night. We have 4 swappable drives in total, so there is always two drives in the backup at all times. The dual backups are for redundancy, and they are taken home by separate mangers to prevent data loss in case of a fire at the office, or some other disaster at the office or damage to one of the drives the owners take home.

And to top it off, we still have an off site cloud backup each night, with the same report generated at the end of each backup.

In my industry, data loss is an absolute no-no. We are required to keep 7 years of reporting, but because there is nothing in the requirements that state hard copies must kept, we started keeping just the initial data collection on hard copies, and the finished reports in digital format. We have saved a ton of paper, and storage space by keeping the reports in digital format.

And to just go back and explain how devastating the data loss was for my company, but especially for me, it had been 14 months since the server crash, and I am just now only 2 months behind, instead of the initial 3 months behind.

TL;DR - Server crashed, data was lost. Now we have 4 separate backups each night.

Sent from my GM1915 using Tapatalk

I have so many horror stories from work. Just so you know, I work in IT operations now (used to be an engineer and then an architect).

In EVERY industry, data loss is a no-no. The amount of data-related regulations is staggering. Data retention and backup is not only a requirement, it's a separate practice in most companies now. It's simply too important.

[Saulbadguy]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

I have so many horror stories from work. Just so you know, I work in IT operations now (used to be an engineer and then an architect).

In EVERY industry, data loss is a no-no. The amount of data-related regulations is staggering. Data retention and backup is not only a requirement, it's a separate practice in most companies now. It's simply too important.

Yeah, that is why the must junior of the IT guys is always assigned to the role of "backup bitch"

[RedRaider56]

I have/had redundant external drives hooked to my PC to back everything up to and damn glad I do. One is a 1TB, the second is a 2TB

About a month ago, the hard disk in my desktop gave up the ghost, but it didn't bother me at all as all of my photos etc are backed up on the 2 external disks. I probably paid $300 total for the two of them.