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?

[Mr. Wizard]

To hell with it, this old man is headed for the cloud. I have been in the same job for 31 years, tweaked my job about 15 years ago due to burnout and been happy since. EXCEPT they are always asking us to learn something new. Nothing new in teaching, either you can teach or you cant. Well now Im gonna learn something new dammit.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

To hell with it, this old man is headed for the cloud. I have been in the same job for 31 years, tweaked my job about 15 years ago due to burnout and been happy since. EXCEPT they are always asking us to learn something new. Nothing new in teaching, either you can teach or you cant. Well now Im gonna learn something new dammit.

https://www.dropbox.com/individual?c...98d9384c4bcb4L

You can thank me later.

[Fat Elvis]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

If you get a subscription to office 365 it gives you a 1TB One Drive Account. It acts like a file on your computer but is stored in the cloud.

On the farm we use dropbox because we had dropbox before one drive existed.

That's where it's at my man.

One of the inventors of Dropbox used to be a ChiefsPlanet regular....then he became a billionaire and doesn't have time for us anymore.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

PLEASE post a link! My job teaching over 100 kids in a huge welding shop with CNC capabilities is hard as hell on technology.

I have used a few Lacie drives and really like them.

https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-...02&sr=8-4&th=1

But there's tons of them out there, just look for "shock proof external HDD".

This one has almost 5000 positive reviews.

https://www.amazon.com/ADATA-Waterpr...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by frozenchief

I backup via Time Machine and I have my data in a RAID. As I understand it, a RAID means that there are 2 drives that appear as one and when the computer saves to the RAID, it saves to both drives at the same time. I have them encrypted and use a VPN.

Sounds good, but .... a friend of mine had his office burn down and he said he had no off-site backup. I think about that every 6 months and resolve to do something about that but then forget about it for another 6 months or so.

Depends on the type of RAID. RAID 1 is indeed 2 drives replicated one to the other.

Keep in mind that RAID is for uptime in case a drive fails. It's not really for backup. If your RAID controller fails or something similar, you will have a hard time recovering your data because the individual disks are RAID and not in a readily-readable format.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by cdcox

I sent a mechanical hard drive off for data restoration many years ago and got it all back. A few drips of coffee shorted the hard drive. Non-heroic means we’re ineffective in recovering the data.

Drops of coffee is a bit different than the armature scratching the platter, which is what he described.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by BlackOp

Dont like Time-machine as you cant get back up and running immediately.

Not true.

You can restore from an external Time Machine drive in a few minutes, depending on the amount of data, just like you can with Carbon Copy Cloner and other imaging software.

In addition, you can boot from a Time Machine backup in a pinch.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Otter

https://www.dropbox.com/individual?c...98d9384c4bcb4L

You can thank me later.

Dropbox is not a backup solution.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

To hell with it, this old man is headed for the cloud. I have been in the same job for 31 years, tweaked my job about 15 years ago due to burnout and been happy since. EXCEPT they are always asking us to learn something new. Nothing new in teaching, either you can teach or you cant. Well now Im gonna learn something new dammit.

If you go cloud, you might still want a portable drive. The cloud is great for sharing files and storing backups offsite but it's not always accessible and available in a pinch.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Dropbox is not a backup solution.

Why? [/donger]

[BlackOp]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Not true.

You can restore from an external Time Machine drive in a few minutes, depending on the amount of data, just like you can with Carbon Copy Cloner and other imaging software.

In addition, you can boot from a Time Machine backup in a pinch.

It takes 3 hours+ to clone my 2 TB boot drive. With a Carbon Cloned boot...its as fast as turning your computer off/on...just plug in your copied drive. That's key to me..no time lost. Once it's cloned...it just updates the new files since the previous time. I think it's a great method.

Does Time Machine clone your OS too...in case of total drive failure? If you have total drive failure...you would still have to replace the drive first. A 2nd cloned drive is plug and play...and allows you to work while finding a new drive.

I had to time machine a laptop for a friend...this was a few years back...and remember thinking this method sucks.

I buy a new drive...clone my computer...then put it back in the box in the closet.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by BlackOp

It takes 3 hours+ to clone my 2 TB boot drive. With a Carbon Cloned boot...its as fast as turning your computer off/on...just plug in your copied drive. That's key to me..no time lost.

Does Time Machine clone your OS too...in case of total drive failure?

Yeah, Time Machine is a disk image. You can restore to a completely new drive, just like you can with Carbon or Acronis.

And no, you can't swap drive like that, although that's something you could do with Disk Utility if you really wanted to.

The benefit of Time Machine is that it's a differential backup, file history, and a disk image. And it's built in the MacOS and just works.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Otter

Why? [/donger]

It's really only for backing up or sharing files.

It doesn't do version updating/history or anything that a true backup solution does.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Dropbox is not a backup solution.

Originally Posted by htismaqe

It's really only for backing up or sharing files.

OK

[BlackOp]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Yeah, Time Machine is a disk image. You can restore to a completely new drive, just like you can with Carbon or Acronis.

And no, you can't swap drive like that, although that's something you could do with Disk Utility if you really wanted to.

The benefit of Time Machine is that it's a differential backup, file history, and a disk image. And it's built in the MacOS and just works.

Like I was a saying...you cant run your computer FROM Time Machine. It's a good safety net...but you will be out of commission for an afternoon. That's
the benefit of having a bootable clone...probably a wise decision to do both.