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Hi Michael.S.G.,
Monday, December 15, 2003, 8:47:31 PM, you wrote:
MSG> Hello Ron,
MSG> This sounds like a resonable plan, Except the backing up to external USB
MSG> drive.
MSG> To put it simply - Hard Drives are still fragile things, And having one
MSG> Eternal to your
MSG> computer is ok as a Transit device, But not a backup device.
MSG> External
MSG> HD is not safe for Backup's!
Oh gosh I disagree. The odds of both the internal and external going
down at the same time have to be pretty small I would think. Not
impossible, but pretty small. And at the price of drives, if I
worried about that very much, I'd just get a third and have two
backup sets. This is with the caveat that I don't keep the external
on line all the time, only turning it on for backups. When it's off,
it's disconnected completely from the system, so it is electrically
separate.
MSG> You would be worth popping in a CD-Burner (Cheap now) if you havn't
MSG> already got
MSG> one, And Backing up to CD. Even more so now that CD-R is so darn
MSG> inexpensive.
I don't know about you, but for me, a CD is *way* too small and much
too slow. I do a "flash" backup (to my USB drive) every night (not
including partition images which are done only once a week). This
clones certain directories and hierarchies to the USB using a program
called XXCOPY, and just consists of data, my AB files, e-mail, and My
Documents, and other things I just don't want to risk losing. Takes
only minutes. But it's 7.5 gigs, and it constantly grows. I'd be
burning CDs all night. CDROM is *not* for backup. The capacity is a
joke.
MSG> Tape backup is generaly too expensive AND IMHO not particualy
MSG> reliable.
MSG> I have had Data backed up on DAT, only to loose it when I tried to
MSG> restore - And
MSG> the Dat drive ate my tape :-(
It's not the way to go. We agree there; however DAT is incredibly
reliable. But it's slow, and the capacities needed to backup today's
larger drives are quite expensive. Did I say slow? ^_-
MSG> Currently, I Backup to a fileserver running RAID array. So if one of the
MSG> HD's crash Burn - I Just pull it out Pop a new one in - The
MSG> data is rebuild on the
MSG> new drive. There is a cost of course - You need x4 HD's to make the
MSG> RAID
MSG> and you loose the space of 1 drive. ie 480gb ends up 360gb.
Now in my opinion, this is NOT as reliable as the offline USB
external. Why? Because all your drives are on line, all the time,
in the same system. Any electrical problem you might have that would
take out one drive would be likely to take them all out. I think you
are taking more risk than I am if you don't ALSO have external
backup. Some destructive virus (yeah, I don't think they can get me
either, but you never know) could take out the entire set, too. In
any case, a lightning strike has the potential to fry your system
from top to bottom. My USB will be unplugged and completely off line.
It will live. (And if it dies on me some day, I'll buy another one
immediately. I think the odds of the internal and external dying on
the same day are very slim and zero.)
MSG> Anyway - I would not recommend using an External drive as a backup
MSG> system.
MSG> By the sounds of your setup - You would be better burning to
MSG> CD.
Yuck. ^^_^^
MSG> Also, Definatly leave that 1.6 gig free on your C: drive. As Graham said,
MSG> temp files and the like need space to work in, Also - You never know what
MSG> you might copy to
MSG> the desktop..........
Storage today is measured in the dozens of GB. I can't imagine a
system with less than about 50 gigs of total storage, and even that
would leave me feeling really cramped. As many have said about data,
I will say about your system: spend the money, upgrade and get
*cavernous* space (I realized years ago you need about 4x the space
you *think* you might need to be comfortable for any reasonable
length of time. If you can't afford it, you are probably
undercapitalized anyway for trading. If you want this to be a
business, you have to have the tools, and worrying about the last 1.6
gigs on an internal HD is not having the right tools.
Yuki
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