Please don't make that mistake. Raid, 1, 5, 50 or any raid is an availability solution NOT a backup solution
Why do we have so many issues with software programs
- Thread starter Spectric
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Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
I should have said part of my backup solution, the RAID1 gives me two copys and this data is backed up.
Backed up where? Half of the value proposition of cloud backups is that the data exists somewhere other than the source location. If some thieving scrote nicks all your kit, or a fire renders it into a toxic mess of metal and plastic then a copy in the cloud will suddenly look like very good value.
I use four external drives that are incrementally backed up during the week, another drive that is backed up weekly and one copy of data is kept off the property. I also use a pen drive to back up work in progress and I have full control over all the data and where it is stored, I just do not trust a cloud (someone elses server) . I looked at the WD mycloud as a means of syncing data with my laptops but not a good device and now will look at own cloud.
RogerS
Established Member
I'd broaden this discussion to include online support. So many of them seem to be staffed by two-year olds with an attention span measured in the first few words of ones carefully crafted, accurate and detailed email explaining a problem. They simply don't bother to read it all the way through before hitting the keyboard to send some totally fatuous reply that answers what they think you wrote rather than what you actually wrote. 
RogerS
Established Member
Very timely reminder, thank you. Must update my offsite backup !
And I wonder how many of you take one of those backups and regularly check that you can actually either boot up from them or recover your data ?
thetyreman
Established Member
I now use libre office and have found once you really dig into it, you can do almost everything that can be done in microsoft's equivalent, so I can highly recommend it.
Agent_zed
Established Member
Yeah I worked at a charity and the head of IT was a ...... well anyway he failed to test if the backups could be recovered after an issue. So after the first ransomware attack when he plugged in the second backup and had that also infected before he realised, we had another ransom attack later in the year and this time he tried to get the files back but the file paths were too long and most files refused to be reinstated losing over 6mnths of the entire places work. He then had the nerve to stand up in front us and refuse to take questions and explained it was all our fault for using filepaths that were too long. I guess we should all have known the limitations of the server backup system none of us had access too???!!!Very timely reminder, thank you. Must update my offsite backup !
And I wonder how many of you take one of those backups and regularly check that you can actually either boot up from them or recover your data ?
That was not quite as fun as when I worked for a secondary school as the Senior IT tech. When I got there I asked the IT support what was in place having seen the issue mentioned above and was told we had onsite backup and a backup in the cloud. What he didn't say was the onsite was the data and the cloud was the servers. So a few months later when some hacker out of russian IP got into our servers and encrypted the main data (but no ask for money etc for it to be unencrypted) and deleted the backup it caused a slight problem when it was realised that all 10years worth of data including all current students exam work was destroyed.
'Thankfully' a global pandemic came along and saved the exams officer a whole lot of work trying to get exemptions for the entire school year.
Jarno
Established Member
Late to the discussion, but do we actually have issues with software? I think most modern sw is actually a lot more stable than in the early days. I use a lot of different software programs, and they all work pretty good.
Dymo (labelprinter)
Brother (vinyl cutter)
Cura (3d printer)
Office
Teams
Mindjet mindmanager (mindmapping)
Adobe Illustrator
Creo (mechanical 3d cad)
Eagle (cad E, sadly ceased to be since autodesk bought it)
Lightburn (lasercutter)
It all works without a hitch really.
Will say that backups are a worry, a good backup solution, or retrieving data when lost, was always a headache, but these days, at least myself, put my faith in cloud services, dropbox (private) one drive (business), and usb sticks, so yeah. Then again, how often do you really need something which is more than a few months old?
Dymo (labelprinter)
Brother (vinyl cutter)
Cura (3d printer)
Office
Teams
Mindjet mindmanager (mindmapping)
Adobe Illustrator
Creo (mechanical 3d cad)
Eagle (cad E, sadly ceased to be since autodesk bought it)
Lightburn (lasercutter)
It all works without a hitch really.
Will say that backups are a worry, a good backup solution, or retrieving data when lost, was always a headache, but these days, at least myself, put my faith in cloud services, dropbox (private) one drive (business), and usb sticks, so yeah. Then again, how often do you really need something which is more than a few months old?
So this is good, and better than most manage. A couple of additional thoughts:
- Looking after storage is a PITA. Bit rot will often set in and the first you know of it is when the filesystem becomes corrupted. This is especially true for the large format SATA disks of a few years ago. Worth ensuring your filesystem regularly validates checksums and can read the data correctly. ZFS is a good option for the Linux folks, but it's not foolproof. Copying from A to B to C will demonstrate data on A and B is good, but are you ever really certain about C? Trying to recover from backup only to find the backup is corrupt is not a good experience.
- How much data loss can you tolerate? Your offsite copy may be the only copy you have if your home kit goes missing. If you only send a copy offsite every month you could be facing up to a month's worth of data loss. This is sometimes known as the RPO (recovery point objective); the point which you can recover to.
- Cloud storage providers (MS, AWS, Google) spent a lot of time and money on their platforms to attract enterprise customers. Services such as S3, Azure Blob, Glacier, et al are well engineered and offer redundancy, security, easy access, are hosted in massively secure datacentres, are regularly audited (look for Type2 SOC reports) They're really not interested in your data (unlike Facebook) and it's bad for business for them to access it. If you encrypt your data *before* it hits the cloud you're protected against any privacy concerns.
Personally I use both AWS and MS for cloud storage at home. I like that my RPO can be as low as it takes to copy content to the cloud. I encrypt data before it leaves the home network and carefully manage encryption keys. And yes, this is also my day job
You can be if at the end of the week when you do the weekly backup you rotate the four drives used during the week, ie D1 becomes D2, D2 becomes D3, D3 becomes D4 and D4 becomes your D1 .
To many people either put too much trust in their IT or not enough value on their data, if you have spent days on writing software then it has a value in just your time if nothing else. I have worked in metrology where the end product is data and digital asset management was interwoven with everything.
I learn this the hard way back in the early 80’s. I worked for several weeks on a software package, a game actually. I did the final edits and went to the pub to celebrate. In the early 80’s most of the storage was floppy disk based. I had written all the data to a couple of floppy disks, yes I had a backup plan. My mistake was leaving them both sat on the coffee table. On my return from the pub I was confronted by a very please looking dog surrounded by a pile of shredded floppy disks.
It took me two weeks to recreate the code from older versions and retyping from print outs.
Molynoox
Established Member
I agree with many of the thoughts about MS office, but when it comes to data storage.... MS onedrive is a total no-brainer for me.
It works absolutely flawlessly, syncing my data (files and photos) instantly across every device I own including my phone, and takes care of backups too. I think I pay £2 per month for a terrabyte of storage. For the cost of a coffee I completely avoid the (significant) IT hassle of messing around with it myself.
Sorry to poop the party but I absolutely love MS one drive
Martin
It works absolutely flawlessly, syncing my data (files and photos) instantly across every device I own including my phone, and takes care of backups too. I think I pay £2 per month for a terrabyte of storage. For the cost of a coffee I completely avoid the (significant) IT hassle of messing around with it myself.
Sorry to poop the party but I absolutely love MS one drive
Martin
A question for the professionals among us please.
I have 3 or 4 terabytes of photographs that I want to secure long term.
I have little time to spare on photography right now but it's been a lifelong interest, so I want to ensure my albums are still there when I come back to them in one year or ten.
I don't intend to put this into cloud storage - please don't argue for it.
How many copies would you make and what routine would you recommend for periodically copying the data around these drives to ensure it remains good ?
I'm looking for a simple maintenance regime just like going through all my electronics every year and checking / charging / replacing batteries.
Oh - and hard disks or SSDs best for this application ?
Thanks !
I have 3 or 4 terabytes of photographs that I want to secure long term.
I have little time to spare on photography right now but it's been a lifelong interest, so I want to ensure my albums are still there when I come back to them in one year or ten.
I don't intend to put this into cloud storage - please don't argue for it.
How many copies would you make and what routine would you recommend for periodically copying the data around these drives to ensure it remains good ?
I'm looking for a simple maintenance regime just like going through all my electronics every year and checking / charging / replacing batteries.
Oh - and hard disks or SSDs best for this application ?
Thanks !
I would make two copies. If your copies are going to be unplugged and stored rather than online I would go for SSD rather than HD but either should have no issue.
I actually had to resort to a backup yesterday. Sat down at my computer to find it dead. Rebooted it and no WiFi. Did all the normal stuff but couldn’t get it back. Even went through deleting the WiFi plist, NVRAM reset and SVC reset. After the SVC reset the disk was unrecognised so something real funky had gone wrong. I did a recovery boot to reinstall the OS and the disk couldn’t be written to. I had to format the disk and install a fresh OS. I then recovered my files from the backup.
Not sure I would trust either disk type for long term archiving. This might be a better shout: Pioneer's New Blu-ray Discs Are Guaranteed to Last a Century
It's likely archiving companies will offer this in the UK soon.
It's likely archiving companies will offer this in the UK soon.
First question has to be, what format are these images currently in ? It is great to have a secure copy in ten years time but not much use if the format is no longer supported and you cannot open them. For me the open source Adobe raw format is probably a good format, not camera specific like NEF and it preserves all your image data from which you can produce photo's in your required output format. The other bonus is that having the data as raw can also allow you to take advantage of improvements in digital image processing software. There are some good books on digital asset management that are worth reading as well because any work you have done whether it is documentation, software or photographic is something of value and needs future proofing.
I understand where you're coming from Andy but I used to use a Samsung bluray to rip and stream my music and video on windows and apple os's. When I got the Lenovo and upgraded to win10, I found they didn't update the drivers so a perfectly usable storage device isn't any more.
In a field like IT, obsolescence affects even ordinary people.
For powered down storage, I think I'll spring for 3 enterprise hard drives and just make a date to rotate the data around the three of them every year or two. Prices are noticeably less than when bought my last bunch of disks.
In a field like IT, obsolescence affects even ordinary people.
For powered down storage, I think I'll spring for 3 enterprise hard drives and just make a date to rotate the data around the three of them every year or two. Prices are noticeably less than when bought my last bunch of disks.
Can't help wondering how Museums store actual photographs and negatives, and of course scan them as a digital archive?
Something else to be aware of is encryption, encrypted data can be even harder to recover and how many know that for windows 11 to run on a pc it must have a TPM chip ? This is aimed at hardware but who knows where it will go.
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