Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: nesredep egrob <Long. -31,48.21 Lat. 115,47.40>
- Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:34:25 +0800
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:18:55 -0400, John John <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
nesredep egrob wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:01:02 -0400, John John <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
nesredep egrob wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:06:40 -0400, John John <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
See in-line replies.
Devalzadvok8 wrote:
My problem is somewhat similar to Norm's. I have two hard drives, the first
,currently, an 80 Gig IDE 'C' drive that also has 'D' and 'E' partitions.
All my system software, Windows, etc. is on my 'C' drive. All my data files
are on my 'D' partition. All my application programs are on my 'E'
partition.
There is practically no advantage to having the applications on a
separate partition.
Oh dear me - should not have written that.
There is a massive improvement if you are clever enough to use Acronis for
backups.
I do use Acronis and what massive improvements does having the programs
on a separate drive make? What does this have to do with anything?
Installing programs on a different drive makes absolutely no difference
whatsoever in performance, none, zero, zilch! What massive improvements
are you talking about? Do you mean that when you do a backup or create
an image it will take about four minutes more time to do a larger OS
image? And what about the programs drive? Don't you have to image that
too? So now instead of having everything on one image you have to
create two different images every time you want to back things up and if
you want to restore you have to restore two images, I can't see what
good that does.
John
Most people have an idea where the fault in the disk lies. Just like a TV, even
my apprentices would not start messing with the linetimebase if the sound was
missing and the picture was OK.
Likewise if some program is missing but the system seems to work I would be sad
to have to troll through the whole computer and reset the lot.
Remember even after a couple of days your backup is that much behind present
time and having system and programs together makes for the whole lot being a
given time behind what the computer was like today.
Each to his own of course but should my system go, I would prefer not to have to
also have the programs set back to the last time I did the backup.
Programs are often changed or updated for a better one - system is often left
just as it was when installed, therefore why have the lot bundled together.
Excuse me but I beg to differ. First of all we are talking about an
18GB SCSI drive, not a big 300+ GB drive. As for the system not being
changed often, or left just as it was when installed then I suppose you
never tweak the operating system to your likings, not to mention that
you don't do any security updates, even if only a few times a year.
As for the programs changing often, then by the very nature of modern
applications all but the smallest of them write to many different places
in the registry so if you change these often and do a restore of an old
OS image then much of your programs are going to be missing registry
entries and they won't work properly. If the programs develop errors
and you then think that you can fix them by restoring an image of the
"Programs" partition only then you are not restoring any registry
entries associated with the programs, because, as we all know, there are
no registry files in the programs folder, the registry files are in the
System32 folder. You also forget that some programs put some dll's and
other support files in some of the Operating System's folders.
If a single program fails then one of the most common and easy fix is to
reinstall the application, that restores the program files and the
associated registry entries. If all your programs fail then the problem
is deeper and you may have to reinstall or restore the Operating System.
Restoring the programs folder without restoring the associated
registry entries fixes nothing and restoring an old OS image that
doesn't contain up to date registry information for the applications
won't fix anything either. In short, the Operating System files, the
Registry and the Applications need to be sync together.
People don't restore images all that often, for most problems it is
easier to find the problem and do a targeted fix. When thing really go
south then people pull out the images and start doing restores, doing
restores of "out of sync" components will leave you with a fine mess.
No one should expect to restore one or both of the operating system side
or the applications side of the system with files that are severely out
of date with each other and expect the restore to work properly. When
you back these up you have to back them up together and keep them
synchronized to each other if you want to have reliable backups. You
can't say: "I changed a lot of programs so I am going to backup only the
programs folder for disaster recovery", you have to back up the
Operating System along with the programs files if you want reliable
backups that can get you back up and running quickly.
The strategy that you propose requires users to create two images or
backups every time that they do their system backups, one for the
operating system and another one for the programs. It is difficult
enough to get some people to do one (System) backup on a regular basis,
let alone having them do two of them. In the event of a disaster
recovery your strategy also requires users to do two separate restore
operations, one for the operating system and one for the programs, thus
practically doubling the effort and time required to bring the system
back up, maybe not a big deal on a home computer but a hassle
nonetheless, in a corporate environment an absolute no-no, the quicker
the system can be brought back up to working state the better. Add
mismatched or severely out of date/out of sync system and programs
backup sets to the pressure of bringing downed systems back up and you
have nothing short of self inflicted misery!
As you say, "to each his own", but I cannot see the logic in the backup
method that you propose and it is definitely not one that I would use.
I maintain that there is little to no useful purpose to having the
operating system and the program files on separate partitions. The
backup scenario that you propose does not give weight to the argument in
favour of separate partitions, to the contrary it reinforces the reasons
to have them on a single partition.
John
You seem to have spent an awful long time proving me wrong despite the fact that
it was worked well now for more than 8 years - that was after the horrible
period of reinstalling the system whenever something went wrong.
The fact that the disk is only 18GB matters not. Eventually the need to replace
it will come as the user finds too little room to move - Then it is nice to know
how to create and maintain partitions the easy way.
If I now state that for safety, I have installed a raid consisting of 2x 750GB
WD and that they are there just to keep photos and video safe in addition to
some of the downloaded programs which incidentally are also on CD/DVD storage, I
am sure you will find something that I need to do to that.
I am a firm believer in not fixing something which works unless I can see an
upcoming disaster in the near future.
Borge in sunny Perth, Australia
.
- References:
- Hard Drive Replacement
- From: Norm Cook
- RE: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: Devalzadvok8
- Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: John John
- Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: nesredep egrob
- Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: John John
- Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: nesredep egrob
- Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- From: John John
- Hard Drive Replacement
- Prev by Date: Re: IE6 for w2k server
- Next by Date: Re: IE6 for w2k server
- Previous by thread: Re: Hard Drive Replacement
- Next by thread: Skipped Drive Letters / USB related
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
