Comments on: When was the last time you used backups?

By: Gamma Goblin

Gamma Goblin — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:37:28 +0000

I didnt mean it to sound as if I expected you to view my post, but thanks for the link anyway

By: Donncha O Caoimh

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:57:00 +0000

I eventually bought a “My Book Pro” which has a firewire interface as well as USB. I have a PCI Firewire card which I might be able to use in the docking station of the new laptop. The drives won’t ever be moved so hopefully I’ll have better luck with them. I’ll still make DVD backups of course!

By: Donncha O Caoimh

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:54:44 +0000

Gamma – after you formatted the drive did the error go away? I’d be suspicious of it! I know what you mean about DVD and CD backups. My oldest backups are probably 2 years old at this stage. I need to reburn them again, with the burn date written on the media this time.

I wish Sony and Philips and whoever else would get their finger out and standardize on one of the new bigger capacity DVD formats so we’ll see burners and media at reasonable prices. I can’t believe the same thing happens every time a new generation is developed – it’s good because the best should survive, but in the confusion we’re left high and dry.

Sorry, I hadn’t read your post yet. I’m really behind on my blog reading. Bloglines says I have 3240 unread posts!

By: damon

damon — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 23:42:07 +0000

I am currently in the process of trying to rescue my 110GB music library from a very flakey failing external HDD.

I am always at my colleagues/friends/family to do regular backups of all their important stuff, but failed to take my own advice this time. I could make all sorts of excuses – not having a separate HDD big enough for the backup, or running out of DVD media, or DVD media being too small – but at the end of the day, every HDD will eventually fail and if you’re not prepared it’s you’re own silly fault.

My photos are a different story, they are backed-up all over the place!

By: Gamma Goblin

Gamma Goblin — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 23:04:21 +0000

Hmmm I read your post again… yay for WD external HD’s Buying 2x 500GB is far cheaper than the 1 TB option also, which is effectively just 2 500gb drives stuck in a big box.

By: Gamma Goblin

Gamma Goblin — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:57:56 +0000

lol did you post this just because I mentioned my 2 new 500gb MyBook’s? Youre a big meanie if you did When I connected both drives I found errors on one, so I did a clean sweep on both, just to be sure. I don’t trust external HD’s, probably never will. Even the most immobile units get dogs abuse over its life time. I just bought these because I’m sick of searching around for stuff on DVD’s, films and files and what not.

In general I keep 3-4 copies of everything, depending on how important they are. Theres the local copy thats just stored on one of the pcs’s drives, then there’s a DVD copy and a copy sent to an external drive. Finally god bless gmail. I keep password protected rar files of all my music, photographs, sribbles, videos etc. throughout a range of special gmail accounts.

I used to just backup to Taiyo Yuden dvd-r’s but to be honest, I wouldnt even trust their dyes past five years. I’ve already lost stuff on cd-r’s due to dye rot. Sometimes I think its best things get lost, its just another form of trinket materialism.

“Nothing lasts… but nothing is lost”