I use SyncToy. I don't use the automatic mode, because I like my backup devices to be disconnected except when used by the program. This way, if there is a power surge, it only impacts connected devices and the disconnected backups stay intact.
RDKirk wrote:
In 27 years, the only thing I've ever had fail in a desktop computer have been Maxtor drives.
I presume this is not because you only buy Maxtors?
I've had drives from pretty much every manufacturer fail (except IBM, which i never bought). Anectodally, i'd say the most reliable seem to be Quantum Fireball drives in the 6 to 40Gb size range. They just go on forever.
15Bit wrote:
I presume this is not because you only buy Maxtors?
I've had drives from pretty much every manufacturer fail (except IBM, which i never bought). Anectodally, i'd say the most reliable seem to be Quantum Fireball drives in the 6 to 40Gb size range. They just go on forever.
I've never had any other drive make to fail, at least not in a desktop, and I had four of those in a fileserver fail in rapid succession. I've had a Hitachi and a Fujitsu fail in laptops. Otherwise, I've owned at least one Seagate since my first hard drive in '86, though most of my drives have been WD.
Maybe it's just me, but except for those Maxtors, component failure is not something that's been a problem for me. I'm more likely to screw something up myself (which is why I still have a firm back-up philosophy).
If you make a living in Photography, then a tape backup is sometimes worth more than new glass. There are good backup tape systems and easy to use software. The 400-800 gig tape is about $45 each, the unit is about $2K or so.
My experience is similar to RDKirk. The two Maxtor drives that failed on me apparently overheated and I did not pay attention to it. If I kept the drive temperature within optimal limits, perhaps the drives would be still here. Besides the Maxtors, all drives I had survived until replacement by bigger and faster ones.
I recommend this article to everyone who wants to keep their HDs in a good condition:
tach18k wrote:
If you make a living in Photography, then a tape backup is sometimes worth more than new glass. There are good backup tape systems and easy to use software. The 400-800 gig tape is about $45 each, the unit is about $2K or so.
Well, except a 400-800 gig external HD is about $45 each as well (with no $2K device to purchase). Tape is notorious for being difficult to verify and migrate.
No, if you really have $2K laying around you should upgrade your network connection and pay for off-site storage. The poor verifiability and need to routinely physically off-site tape (something rarely done frequently enough) don't make it a good modern solution considering the superior alternatives for the same cost.
Tape is notorious for being difficult to verify and migrate.
I think there is confusion between backup and archiving. Tapes are good for backup, but what I need for my photography more or less falls into the category of archiving. Hard drives are probably the easiest solution for archiving, they are cheap, fast, easy to migrate, can be easily combined into high availability configurations etc.
