Re: Restore vs Backup

I agree with all that. I also have had a few HDD failures in the past, some
terminal :=). I am not so concerned about the failure happening anytime
soon due to hardware problems (this PC is only a month old) as I am that
something may happen caused by an OS failure or due to a screwup on my part
(I write custom Windows and non-Windows apps, database apps, and web
software, and sometimes I, uhmm, experiment shall we say). I know, I know:
not possible, you say; oh yeah watch this, says I.

I am not talking about hacking, just making an error, or installing some app
that does not behave itself (yes, that has been known to happen), or last, a
virus or hack somehow doing its thing to wreak havoc. Or a combination of a
power failure at the wrong time and something else. Whatever.

Anyway, one thing, I looked at the choices of software Mr. Zieglar wrote
about, abd I really do like that second suggestion, the Acronis products. I
may get that Image 9 package, as well as a couple of their other apps, they
seem to be the best I have seen. So my thanks to Mr. Ziegler, I had never
seen that company's products before. Like I said, my big problem with
imaging is simply what to use for the backup storage media, but I will think
of something, and those products do allow using DVDs.

I could even take my old PC, network it to this one, and use it for the
backup if necessary; it is just gathering dust but it is perfectly in order
otherwise, with about 60G of HDD space avilable, more or less; I could even
make a server out of it. But that would be a pain, perhaps, taking up
needed space.

Thanks to you both for the input and advice.

--
Pete B


"Kerry Brown" <kerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*a*m> wrote in message
news:esO3Q8dKGHA.532@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My experience is that as hard drives have become cheaper the failure rate
has gone up. This is only my experience. It could be that it's just due to
more hard drives being in use so the number of actual failures is higher
but the rate of failure is lower. In the end it comes down to one thing. A
hard drive has moving parts. Moving parts wear out. Eventually every hard
drive will fail. Your backup startegy should be based on this and how
critical your data is. As you say, if the data is not that important then
a backup isn't that important. Personally I've had several hard drives
fail and I replace failed drives for customers fairly regularly. Usually
digital pictures and emails are the things people are upset about losing.

Kerry

Pete B wrote:
Perhaps, but my previous PC went about 7 years with dual HDDs and
never had a drive failure. Finally it was replaced with my current
system because I needed more power. I know the possibility is always
there, though, hence the tinge of paranoia. I do not leave my PC
powered up when I am done at night, and I always power down when the
weather is bad to avoid power failures, yada yada. But of course
there is always the unforeseen....
Anyway, so long as I backup the data, it really will not matter
terribly, because if I have to, I can just reinstall all the app
software on a new HDD and then recover the data from my backups. We
are not talking mission-critical stuff here, just my own data for my
own business. Lot of work but what the heck......

So maybe I will try just using data backups to CDs or DVDs.


"Kerry Brown" <kerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*a*m> wrote in message
news:%23BlFMlbKGHA.2012@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pete B wrote:

<snipped>

I will probably never have a HDD failure anyway, so it is really
just a tinge of paranoia from my earlier days with less reliable
PCs.

<more snippage>

You will have a hard drive fail. It is only a matter of time.

Kerry





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: RAIDING different size drives
    ... partition 1, 250G ... doesnt get used much anymore for home system backup. ... hard drive failure etc or you prefer to continue to use the Win UI ... of the hard drives when deciding what has died etc. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: RAID newbie...can I have several partitions on a RAID 1 array?
    ... With current backup ... argument for raid in those cases goes beyond the protection mechanism. ... against any & every kind of failure or failing media. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: Im back
    ... said that implied he thought I could not rely on my Dell laptop and he ... any disk on any computer in any environment can fail at any ... before failure, giving you a chance to rescue data before it dies). ... so daily or every-N-days backup has to suffice. ...
    (uk.media.radio.archers)
  • Re: Why cant computers be simple?
    ... All backup systems have potential bugs that could result ... of design work due to storage failure. ... Mostly, though, you guard against media failures by doing more than one ... hardware failure by using more than one backup device. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.system)
  • Re: Whither RAID?
    ... it may be exactly this type of failure that the ... The problem sounds like a restore to the last good backup, ... been a few days back before the file corruptions started. ... Every few hours a disk or tape write would be corrupted, ...
    (comp.os.vms)
Loading