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Ok, my tribute to this thread is...

 

Make backup´s _every_ day... I just lost 2 month´s of work ... :angry:

 

:ph34r:

I planned a backup, and then it rained on my backup server, just after I deleted around 10 years of work :P I have recovered 10 tracks out of well, around .... fuck it, too damn many! :(
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What was it, a hard-drive failure?

 

I buy a new hardrive every couple of years anyway - and a good one not some cheap crap. But if some boot sector gets messed up or windows messes up I'm smart enough to be able to fix it.

 

As for some tips:

 

Use multiple partitions people! At least a 100 Mb partition with a small linux on board with some basic hard drive tools like a partitioner and a cd/dvd burner. It will save your life (and your data) ;)

Either that or just a stripped down version of winxp (tinyxp) on another partition. Also keep an empty partition of several gigabyte's where you can quickly copy data to in case something really bad messes up and you need to reformat the partition where your data is on. Also make sure you have a Bootable CD or DVD (or USB, or floppy, or whatever :)) of linux. I think there's a live version of Ubuntu aswell as any other major linux distro out there. Look it up on google.

 

You should also burn all of your project files onto a DVD or a CD (or a USB, they've become pretty large in space size over the years) every month or so. Well it depends on just how active you are, but it's really handy if everything else fails. Remember there's only one thing worse then loosing 1 month work of production - A years work of production.

 

As for hard drive failures that's a whole 'nother story, but I believe even they can be recovered. There's companies that can do that for you, altho for a pretty large ammount of money (last time I check was years ago so I might be wrong).

 

Another tip:

 

Save your projects often. Use either your own version numbering or auto-saving features of your DAW (Several major daws support this - saving your projects by versioning every x ammount of seconds/minutes, really handy). Don't overwrite the same file all the time because in the worst case scenario (say a power outage) you're file may end up corrupted. With no recent backups you could loose hours of work. I've literally got a couple of dozen different version of my every project, of course you might say that I don't need any other version then the latest but I can allways use these old versions to retrace my steps and see if I missed anything out.

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What was it, a hard-drive failure?

 

I buy a new hardrive every couple of years anyway - and a good one not some cheap crap. But if some boot sector gets messed up or windows messes up I'm smart enough to be able to fix it.

 

As for some tips:

 

Use multiple partitions people! At least a 100 Mb partition with a small linux on board with some basic hard drive tools like a partitioner and a cd/dvd burner. It will save your life (and your data) ;)

Either that or just a stripped down version of winxp (tinyxp) on another partition. Also keep an empty partition of several gigabyte's where you can quickly copy data to in case something really bad messes up and you need to reformat the partition where your data is on. Also make sure you have a Bootable CD or DVD (or USB, or floppy, or whatever :)) of linux. I think there's a live version of Ubuntu aswell as any other major linux distro out there. Look it up on google.

 

You should also burn all of your project files onto a DVD or a CD (or a USB, they've become pretty large in space size over the years) every month or so. Well it depends on just how active you are, but it's really handy if everything else fails. Remember there's only one thing worse then loosing 1 month work of production - A years work of production.

 

As for hard drive failures that's a whole 'nother story, but I believe even they can be recovered. There's companies that can do that for you, altho for a pretty large ammount of money (last time I check was years ago so I might be wrong).

 

Another tip:

 

Save your projects often. Use either your own version numbering or auto-saving features of your DAW (Several major daws support this - saving your projects by versioning every x ammount of seconds/minutes, really handy). Don't overwrite the same file all the time because in the worst case scenario (say a power outage) you're file may end up corrupted. With no recent backups you could loose hours of work. I've literally got a couple of dozen different version of my every project, of course you might say that I don't need any other version then the latest but I can allways use these old versions to retrace my steps and see if I missed anything out.

R A I D . 5

 

U L T I M A T E L Y

 

R A I D . 1 0

 

I was JUST about to build my raid 10 and shove the data onto that before the rain. Forget about DVD and DL DVD. Unsafe like hell. Tape Backup or Raid 5/10 Devices with plenty of disks as Redun, is the only way to go.

 

R A I D people, R A I D!!!!! :)

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R A I D . 5

 

U L T I M A T E L Y

 

R A I D . 1 0

 

I was JUST about to build my raid 10 and shove the data onto that before the rain. Forget about DVD and DL DVD. Unsafe like hell. Tape Backup or Raid 5/10 Devices with plenty of disks as Redun, is the only way to go.

 

R A I D people, R A I D!!!!! :)

For data integrity, given the same number of drives (min of 2), I would trust backups on 2 (or more) single drives over a RAID configuration any day. However, RAID does give you additional performance, so it's all about deciding your own level of risk.

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For data integrity only, I would trust 2 or more backups on 2 or more single drives over RAID any day. However, RAID does give you additional performance, so it's all about deciding your own level of risk.

2 or more single drives?! You prefer 2 or more single drives over a raid 10? Over a Raid 5 with 3 redun disks?! You are c r a z y ;)
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2 or more single drives?! You prefer 2 or more single drives over a raid 10? Over a Raid 5 with 3 redun disks?! You are c r a z y ;)

If data integrity was my 100% only concern, and I had 4 disks, I would trust 4 copies of backups on 4 separate disks more than I would trust a single backup on a Raid 5 with 4 drives with redundancy.

 

The risk of RAID controller incompatibility if you had to switch raid controllers (if your drops dead for example, and you have to get a different one) is greater than the chance that all 4 of your single drives will die before you can get a single backup off one of the disks. Make sense?

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If data integrity was my 100% only concern, and I had 4 disks, I would trust 4 backups on 4 separate disks more than I would trust a single backup on a Raid 5 with 4 drives.

4 drives? I am talking about 4+4 Drives. Drives are cheap as fuck now. And for Raid 10 I would go 4+4x2. But of course, if you only have bullshit to save, then 4 single drive backups is just going to do the trick.... :lol:
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Given the same number of drives for either setup, the RAID controller has further risk as a point of failure than a regular IDE/SATA, because of controller incompatibilities. It's not necessarily common, but switching raid controllers can trash your array. I've had to restore arrays from backup because data migration to a new RAID controller went south. Not so much a deal when you are working with an IT department with a large budget & is well prepared before the migration. It's definitely a problem for a home user with a limited budget, and perhaps didn't backup their entire RAID array before migrating, or controller failure.

 

If you can ensure replacement with a 100% compatible RAID controller, then these problems I'm talking about are eliminated. So again, if your budget isn't capped, you'll most likely have no problems. If you are on a limited budget, I think your risks go up. Just my opinion.

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Given the same number of drives for either setup, the RAID controller has further risk as a point of failure than a regular IDE/SATA, because of controller incompatibilities. It's not necessarily common, but switching raid controllers can trash your array. I've had to restore arrays from backup because data migration to a new RAID controller went south. Not so much a deal when you are working with an IT department with a large budget & is well prepared before the migration. It's definitely a problem for a home user with a limited budget, and perhaps didn't backup their entire RAID array before migrating, or controller failure.

 

If you can ensure replacement with a 100% compatible RAID controller, then these problems I'm talking about are eliminated. So again, if your budget isn't capped, you'll most likely have no problems. If you are on a limited budget, I think your risks go up. Just my opinion.

edit: never mind, I do not have time for going around in circles. Listen to Dharma Labs, he knows his shit! :) I am wrong, he is right :)
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What's so wrong about DVD's? You just need to keep them safe in place. Fuck, I've got DVD's that I've burned over 5 years ago and they're still 100% operational. No errors or anything. If I want to, I just re-burn all the data to another DVD, and there I have it, another few years of safe data (If I keep it safe). Unless you put your DVD's under the rain like you put your computers, you should be safe.. Compare the price (and the ammount of space) of a dvd failing to a hard drive failing and I hope you'll see my point here.

 

Even USB stick's should be safe enough for quick project backups.

 

I don't see the point of having 500 hard drives when all you do is waste power (increasing your electricity bill)?

 

Not everyone is rich or a tech freak nemo, for the rest of use we use alternatives like DVD's and usb memmory.

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What's so wrong about DVD's? You just need to keep them safe in place. Fuck, I've got DVD's that I've burned over 5 years ago and they're still 100% operational. No errors or anything. If I want to, I just re-burn all the data to another DVD, and there I have it, another few years of safe data (If I keep it safe). Unless you put your DVD's under the rain like you put your computers, you should be safe.. Compare the price (and the ammount of space) of a dvd failing to a hard drive failing and I hope you'll see my point here.

 

Even USB stick's should be safe enough for quick project backups.

 

I don't see the point of having 500 hard drives when all you do is waste power (increasing your electricity bill)?

 

Not everyone is rich or a tech freak nemo, for the rest of use we use alternatives like DVD's and usb memmory.

w h a t e v e r ; ) you have heard about burn failures right? They look right on your current setup, but wont be read in any other setup? You have heard about USB sticks that can not be read in any other computer than yours? You have heard about fuck ups, right? You do not have to be rich, nor a tech freak to run a safe raid? It all depends on how much data you want to back up, does it not? Are you talking about 100gb or about 5 tb? Heck if it is about 10gb here, I would get myself 2 usb sticks and thats that... If we are talking about 500GB plus, I would not even take the risk to put them on DVDS without getting a 2nd backup. 500gb/4.7gbx2? ;) C O M M O N... thats around 150 Euros in just dvds, and the amount of time it would take ya? 500GB of HDD costs around 30-40 euros at the moment, 500gb x 5 = 200 Euros.... which do you prefer?! :lol:

 

And how many USB sticks would that not take?

 

It all depends of what you want to back up and HOW MUCH it is. If I had 20 gb of music, or if I had 500GB of music that I have done, I would consider my options.

 

But hey, I am just a tech freak!

 

Edit: How precious is your data to you!? :D

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w h a t e v e r ; ) you have heard about burn failures right? They look right on your current setup, but wont be read in any other setup? You have heard about USB sticks that can not be read in any other computer than yours? You have heard about fuck ups, right? You do not have to be rich, nor a tech freak to run a safe raid? It all depends on how much data you want to back up, does it not? Are you talking about 100gb or about 5 tb? Heck if it is about 10gb here, I would get myself 2 usb sticks and thats that... If we are talking about 500GB plus, I would not even take the risk to put them on DVDS without getting a 2nd backup. 500gb/4.7gbx2? ;) C O M M O N... thats around 150 Euros in just dvds, and the amount of time it would take ya? 500GB of HDD costs around 30-40 euros at the moment, 500gb x 5 = 200 Euros.... which do you prefer?! :lol:

 

And how many USB sticks would that not take?

 

It all depends of what you want to back up and HOW MUCH it is. If I had 20 gb of music, or if I had 500GB of music that I have done, I would consider my options.

 

But hey, I am just a tech freak!

 

Edit: How precious is your data to you!? :D

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I have to admit that is one of the best picture satires ever made of me. :lol: kudos to you! Just TBOFH?! And yeah, people tend to make silly pictures to take away the attention of what is really the point of the topic :lol:

 

SSD for the win IMO! :)

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And yeah, people tend to make silly pictures to take away the attention of what is really the point of the topic :lol:

Tip of the day:

 

You can end any internet debate with just a grain of satire and some photoshop skillz. :lol:

 

It's closing time soon, my clock reads 21:00. Only a few hours left untill we announce the tip of the day for today. :P

 

K here's one:

 

If you have a cat in your appartment/house, then wear your slippers in RAID-10 mode. You don't want to walk barefoot to the toilet just because your cat has hidden your slippers under the couch. ;)

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