Backup, backup and backup

noisewreck

noisewreck

New member
Yesterday I had a first hand experience with how having a good backup will save your ass.

My wife and I went to our wedding photographer's studio to go over what pictures were going to end up in our wedding album. Everything was good, until we realized that a whole set of pictures were missing from his computer. I helped him to a quick search on the computer. Nothing. He said "No problem, I always make copies of these sets on individual CDs"... went to look for the CD... same thing, the same files were missing. He got a bit nervous, "OK, maybe they're on the raw pile"... Same thing... "OK, one last chance he said more nervously", went to one of the closets in the studio and came out with a rather well labled USB hard drive. Plugged it in, and... success! Found the pictures.

Prime example that you can never have enough backups and how backing things up in more than one way and more than one media will save your ass like it did with our photographer, who is a true professional in any sense of the word.
 
I'm going straight home to back up all my porn. :p

Good reminder, we need one every once in a while. These days there's just no good reason to risk losing data.
 
I'm too lazy to back everything up. Really important stuff (my shitty recordings don't fall under that category) usually go to my e-mail, another computer on the network, and also a couple of my FTP servers, but that's it.

I have real bad luck with DVDs. :(
 
How long will a typical USB memory stick last before it loses data? Those have little batteries in them don't they? Or do they write data to a chip that doesn't need a battery?
 
Essential components
There are typically four parts to a flash drive:

Male type-A USB connector — provides an interface to the host computer.
USB mass storage controller — implements the USB host controller and provides a linear interface to block-oriented serial flash devices while hiding the complexities of block-orientation, block erasure, and wear levelling, or wear balancing. The controller contains a small RISC microprocessor and a small amount of on-chip ROM and RAM.
NAND flash memory chip — stores data. NAND flash is typically also used in digital cameras.
Crystal oscillator — produces the device's main 12 MHz clock signal and controls the device's data output through a phase-locked loop.

There you have it - no battery, just a chip. Technically, if protected from the elements and electromagnetism, it could last forever.
 
SonicAlbert said:
How long will a typical USB memory stick last before it loses data? Those have little batteries in them don't they? Or do they write data to a chip that doesn't need a battery?
Click to expand...

no i dont think they do have battereis....simular to a hard drive which when disconnected from a PC should hold the data indefinately....i believe they use a form of flash memory which i hear is more reliable than other types of memory ......

Cheers
 
which goes to a question I've been wondering ....... for safest archiving .... flash or a bunch of CD's?
 
Both! I think multiple formats is always a good thing, and the formats should be as standard and lowest common denominator as possible.

I like the USB stick for backup I'm going to look into that myself. It's a lot more expensive than backing up to CD or DVD though.
 
ez_willis said:
Why not?
Click to expand...
Because they use a derivative of cyanine dye which is not as stable as phthalocyanine, but allows for faster burning. Also, Because DVDs are burnt at a faster rate, they also tend to have higher error rates.

In general, I've seen way too many corrupted archives on DVDs to not recommend them for backups and archives.
 
noisewreck said:
Also, Because DVDs are burnt at a faster rate, they also tend to have higher error rates..
Click to expand...

But you would know that immediately, correct? If it didn't burn correctly, you would have to re-burn it, but once it's on there it should be on there, no?

I'm asking so I know, I'm not challenging your advice. I've been backing up to DVD.
 
ez - The DVDs that didn't have errors on them have lasted for about 5 years now with no problems. It just sucked having to burn, then test the DVD for errors afterwards.

I'm definitely planning on getting an external hard drive when I have the money.
 
SonicAlbert said:
How long will a typical USB memory stick last before it loses data? Those have little batteries in them don't they? Or do they write data to a chip that doesn't need a battery?
Click to expand...

Nope just a chip (any power comes from the usb bus)


Greg_L said:
I have a 500 gig external USB harddrive. 100 bucks @ wal-mart.com.
Click to expand...

dunno if that will last too long, be safe back up to another $100 HD from wall mart as well:D

EDIT: didn't see mistrals post
 
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