Luckily software is getting smarter at doing that for us. Or I would never complete the task on some of my music.
When you backup data, what format do you prefer for the backed up data? Is it a single large file containing entire directory trees of files or the directory tree and files themselves? In the case of a single large file, what format you use?
For backup, I use fsarchiver to backup an entire partition. I can also use dd to copy an entire partition without compression. Such a file can be mounted and files read from it directly. Fsarchiver also allows the extraction of individual directories.
For backup, I use fsarchiver to backup an entire partition. I can also use dd to copy an entire partition without compression. Such a file can be mounted and files read from it directly. Fsarchiver also allows the extraction of individual directories.
A couple of TB, about 25% of that is just music in FLAC format, the rest is software, licenses for said software. Most of my design files - some now in formats I can no longer read.
I have a mix of portable 1TB drives, a WD cloud server, and a bunch of smaller memory sticks. Stuff is backed up all over the place and frankly I am not doing that great a job.
Most of my storage media except for the cloud server and a portable 1TB drive is solid state.
My oldest hard drives are all failing now, whatever was on them I'll never know, but likely not much. The big problem would be if the WD cloud server fails - it's a couple of years old and will be replaced before it's 5 to make sure.
The music, software, and design files are mostly all I care about. Pictures; I take so many and miss so few I would never know. The best are all compressed and on FB..
I have a mix of portable 1TB drives, a WD cloud server, and a bunch of smaller memory sticks. Stuff is backed up all over the place and frankly I am not doing that great a job.
Most of my storage media except for the cloud server and a portable 1TB drive is solid state.
My oldest hard drives are all failing now, whatever was on them I'll never know, but likely not much. The big problem would be if the WD cloud server fails - it's a couple of years old and will be replaced before it's 5 to make sure.
The music, software, and design files are mostly all I care about. Pictures; I take so many and miss so few I would never know. The best are all compressed and on FB..
I copy one entire directory, /data/ It has everything in it that needs backing up.
I avoid dd like the plague, one wrong keystroke and it's all over.
I have a 2TB NAS which is only about 1/3 full.
Unfortunately it died three days ago during a power outage. I am hoping the drives are still good since my last backup was in Feb.
I probably deleted more cleaning up since the last backup than I added to it. No big loss.
If the drives are toast, I may switch to SSD for the NAS since I could get by with 1TB drives.
Unfortunately it died three days ago during a power outage. I am hoping the drives are still good since my last backup was in Feb.
I probably deleted more cleaning up since the last backup than I added to it. No big loss.
If the drives are toast, I may switch to SSD for the NAS since I could get by with 1TB drives.
dd takes time to execute especially on hundreds of megabytes. If one accidentally runs dd improperly damaging a file system or a disk header like a 128kB in a GPT formatted disk, it can be killed during execution. A GPT formatted disk has two headers at each end. So, if one is damaged the other copy can be used to restore it. Besides, there are file recovery programs which can attempt data recovery.cowanaudio said:
The golden rule with dd is to make sure several times the "of=" parameter points to what you want to write to.
I think I still have a copy of the GEM GUI somewhere that I had running on an old 286 (What happened to GEM? - The Silicon Underground). Not to mention copies of Win 3.11, DOS etc. Not that I'll realistically ever use them for anything.
I had a painful (but liberating) incident involving FDisk...
I remember putting the following on the bottom of my Graphics Environment Manager (GEM) presentations at Motorola which was all Apple (beige box Mac) at the time. I had a genuine IBM PC / XT on my desk.
In a time before Excel I used Lotus 123, before that, Visicalc on an Apple II. Haven't run any of that stuff in years, but I do still have a working XP machine, and a "Vista Ultimate" box, which is not connected up. I may put W7 or Linux on it.
"No Apples were harmed, or even used, in the making of this document."
The plant was full of young engineers at the time who did not even know that GEM existed.
In a time before Excel I used Lotus 123, before that, Visicalc on an Apple II. Haven't run any of that stuff in years, but I do still have a working XP machine, and a "Vista Ultimate" box, which is not connected up. I may put W7 or Linux on it.
"No Apples were harmed, or even used, in the making of this document."
The plant was full of young engineers at the time who did not even know that GEM existed.
These were the times...
I remember how blown away I was in front of a Mac classic „running“ the flying-toaster screen saver.
I then got myself a powerbook 140, and tried to do grafix with photoshop 2.0—on a monochrome screen [emoji1787], then got zapped by HyperCard...
Yes.
I have a total of 25TB of active storage drives, which are about half full with a little bit of redundancy. This is all connected to a fileserver for immediate access.
These are then backed up to two offline servers, one with 19TB and the other with 13TB of space. This last server has drives running to capacity, and I don't plan on retaining it long-term.
I can trace all of this back to a singular even that wiped out my entire music collection in a heartbeat and took me three years to put back together. I still am missing some CDs from then, having lost them when moving cities and my only copies were wiped out in one hard disk crash in 2000.
Since then, I've always had a backup, initially on optical media and later disks. I can't say I'm addicted to data but I am petrified of losing it.
I am the proud owner of two silk ties featuring After Dark screensaver graphics. One is of the once-ubiquitous flying toasters. The other has the flying toilets - for those "special" occasions.
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