Hard Drive replacements

[Grey Fox]

Nice program Grumbler.

Apparently both my HDD are powered on way too often.

Blah.

[DGuller]

Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though?  The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning.  If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.

RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.

What does that mean?

[Alatriste]

Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though?  The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning.  If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.

RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.

What does that mean?

That RAID was designed to ensure no data are lost if one HD in the array buys the farm (that's what 'system integrity' means), not to make backups. In the 80s we were so used to make regular backups that it was second nature to us IT people, no one would have bothered to conceive something like RAID just to get automatic back ups.

A very, very simplified example (and remember, in the real world we wouldn't use decimal numbers): we have to store the number '11302'. That would use five digits, plus one to ensure integrity. How? We add 1+1+3+0+2 = 7. We write '7' in our 'security' digit and should any other digit die, for example the third, we would be left with '11X02' but thanks to the '7' we stored it's childish to deduct that the lost digit was a '3', i.e. we can recover any data lost. 

[Cerr]

Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though?  The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning.  If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.

RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.

What does that mean?

That RAID was designed to ensure no data are lost if one HD in the array buys the farm (that's what 'system integrity' means), not to make backups. In the 80s we were so used to make regular backups that it was second nature to us IT people, no one would have bothered to conceive something like RAID just to get automatic back ups.

A very, very simplified example (and remember, in the real world we wouldn't use decimal numbers): we have to store the number '11302'. That would use five digits, plus one to ensure integrity. How? We add 1+1+3+0+2 = 7. We write '7' in our 'security' digit and should any other digit die, for example the third, we would be left with '11X02' but thanks to the '7' we stored it's childish to deduct that the lost digit was a '3', i.e. we can recover any data lost.

What would you have done if more than 1 digit died?

[Alatriste]

What would you have done if more than 1 digit died?

Ah, but the key is, each digit in our example would have been written in a different hard disk. Having two disks die at the same time is a bit... extreme, shall we say (although RAID 6 supposedly can use four or more disks together and protect data against the failure of two disks)

[KRonn]

What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.

I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.

Any incremental backup system will have that issue, unless you have large amounts of backup storage space to allow you to roll back far enough.

You are right, though, in that RAID does nothing for non-hardware failures, such as damage caused by crackers or viruses.  As mentioned already, it only protects against drive failures.

[Darth Wagtaros]

What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.

I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.

Make a Ghost image every now and then, or even the Windows Backup utility for a full backup.  For the save game files and all that, you could get a USB hard drive, some of them now come with software that will autobackup whatever you tell it to. 

Alternatviely you could burn them onto a DVD-RW once a month, or week.  Get a mirrored RAID going, use off site backup, there are several services that will offer that soon. Storage in a server farm.

[KRonn]

What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.

I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.

Make a Ghost image every now and then, or even the Windows Backup utility for a full backup.  For the save game files and all that, you could get a USB hard drive, some of them now come with software that will autobackup whatever you tell it to. 

Alternatviely you could burn them onto a DVD-RW once a month, or week.  Get a mirrored RAID going, use off site backup, there are several services that will offer that soon. Storage in a server farm.

Yeah, I'll have to look into an external drive, which is probably the best idea to keep my entire hard drive for restore in case I need to. I do backup files and such to USB drives.

[Alatriste]

I had 5000 gp in diamonds at hand and decided to use 'Raise Dead' in this thread - it's has been dead only 9 days after all - to tell you I just bought an external SATA USB 'dock'. Cheap, easier than changing external HDDs, allows hot swapping, and so far seems to work OK...

[grumbler]

And from 11 days dead, yet another resurrection!

The WD drive that I got as a replacement for the RMA'ed WD drive seems to be fine.

Now, though, my 21" CRT monitor is going bad! 






Thank Hod!

[Tonitrus]

I don't think I've had a HDD failure in at least 6 years.  Probably closer to 8.

[grumbler]

I don't think I've had a HDD failure in at least 6 years.  Probably closer to 8.

If you keep an eye on drive performance and reliability so as to replace drives before they fail, you can avoid all but catastrophic failure.  I haven't had a hard drive failure on a home computer ever.

[Caliga]

If you keep an eye on drive performance and reliability so as to replace drives before they fail, you can avoid all but catastrophic failure.  I haven't had a hard drive failure on a home computer ever.

Same.

[DontSayBanana]

The last time I had a hard drive failure was my old 100MHz Pentium system, which I had inherited from my grandmother.  That was still far enough back, though, that we replaced the 1.2GB WD Caviar with a 40GB Seagate.