Backup Options - Two part question
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Pics and videos are usually the high ticket items when it comes to space. If you have a Google account you can store unlimited pics & videos on Google Photos. Pretty sure Amazon and a few others do the same.
But then: What is the cost of disks nowadays in cents per hour of video? Depending on your quality requirements, MPEG-4 video requires from less than 1 GByte/hour up to 3 GB/h. So a 6 TB disk can hold two to six thousand hours of video, and you can find those diske for 200 USD. That is a low price to pay for protecting your privacy, and for avoiding the time it takes to transfer gigabyte by gigabyte across the network connection. Not everyone has fiber to the home.
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But then: What is the cost of disks nowadays in cents per hour of video? Depending on your quality requirements, MPEG-4 video requires from less than 1 GByte/hour up to 3 GB/h. So a 6 TB disk can hold two to six thousand hours of video, and you can find those diske for 200 USD. That is a low price to pay for protecting your privacy, and for avoiding the time it takes to transfer gigabyte by gigabyte across the network connection. Not everyone has fiber to the home.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
- Loads of suggestions from others, but first of all try the drive in a different enclosure (or mount it in a PC) - it may just be the USB electronics that are failing. 2) Get a NAS which will connect to the Cloud. All (reputable) NAS's have backup software that will "pull" data from other computers and carry out full/incremential backups which can then be synchronised with a Cloud service (I use Amazon CloudDrive @ 70€/yr, if you have Prime you already get unlimited photo storage and 5GB for other files). Remember if you have a fire, flood or burglary you may lose all your data at home, so off-site storage is a must for anything you value. If you don't trust the Cloud then back up you NAS to a USB drive (which too can be automatic at the press of a button) and keep the drive with friends/family.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
I am redoing this for a client because GOOGLE DRIVE speeds suck and they are changing it. But he backs up to an internal hard drive. Then it syncs those files to google drive (soon to be amazon s3). One client had a morning ritual at the office of swapping the backup hard drive with the one from his car. He was too cheap to buy an offsite service. And you do NOT have a backup if you have never restored and confirmed it!
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I am redoing this for a client because GOOGLE DRIVE speeds suck and they are changing it. But he backs up to an internal hard drive. Then it syncs those files to google drive (soon to be amazon s3). One client had a morning ritual at the office of swapping the backup hard drive with the one from his car. He was too cheap to buy an offsite service. And you do NOT have a backup if you have never restored and confirmed it!
There are loads of recovery services out there for when the drive doesn't spin any more. Question is, are your files important enough to warrant the expenditure. Then again, if they were that important the money would have been better spent on cloud backup. Got to be honest, i have lost usb hard drives due to motor failure and usb keys have died suddenly. These days I no longer trust anything and all my serious stuff is in drop box.
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
For options for backup you might be interested in my software: AJC Active Backup archives your files every time you save giving you unlimited undo back to any version of the file. The archives created are very compact because it only stores the changes each time. This is very useful for developers even if you have version control because you can get back to any edit you made to a file while you are working on it. The build in diff can show you what changed in a file and you can even restore just one edit rather than the whole file. Very useful also to protect you from mistakes and file corruption. See: AJC Active Backup[^] AJC Sync allows you to sync/backup to different locations, network, drives, FTP, cloud etc. If you are worried about the cloud then you can use the transform facility which lets you add an encrypt step before the file is sent to the cloud so if the cloud is hacked your files are useless to them. You can even encrypt the file/folder names. You can also turn on optional archiving to get back to any version of a file and a built in diff with code syntax highlighting is included. See: AJC Sync[^]
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Option 2 here was mentioned already but it's worth repeating. If you don't want to go the cloud route, you got two options.... 1) Get a cheap web host that offers FTP and unlimited space. Use that space. 2) Pony up the dough for a RAID over a NAS. Now, if you're looking to save money, stay away from SSD. You won't get much size from them, and you don't need speed for this more than you need size. However, it's worth saying that SSDs are a bit more fault tolerant due to no mechanical parts... which is usually what breaks down the most when a HDD goes kaput but since you're in a RAID configuration you at least lesson the chances of both drives crapping out. Pro tip: If you go the RAID route, think about a RAID 6 or 10 (1+0) instead of just a RAID 1. It'll cost a bit more in the fact you need more drives. But they are way more likely to cover your bacon in the event of two drives failing... which can happen.
Jeremy Falcon
I have had two Seagate NAS drives fail and become unreadable over the course of 2 years. Fortunately my primary storage on my PC was intact and I wasn't relying on the NAS for primary storage. If your time is worth anything at all in $$$ then reliable cloud backup is cheap.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
My thoughts on backups appear to be wider ranging. 1) What backup software? I use WinZip for backing up files. I schedule jobs to backup different folders at different times and frequencies -- some daily, weekly, or monthly. I use an option that adds the timestamp to the file name so I have numerous copies, limited by disk space. Since I have a second internal HD, I backup to that one, and periodically move the zips to external media. 2) Backup Options? A) Cloud. Cloud backup solutions work, but I will NOT place any sensitive data, such as financial information in the cloud. Expecially recently, it's obvious that any online provider can be hacked. The only way to guarantee no hacking is to not be online. Anyone who believes their cloud storage is 100% safe is deluding themselves. B) Multiple Tested Backups. Others have said it and it bears repeating. If the restore from a backup has not been tested, it's not a backup. An old employer did backups every night, rotating Friday and end-of-month backups. Had years worth of tapes. Never tested the restore. We had to retrieve a file, spent 8 hours working at it, couldn't get it to work. We had gone years without a backup. [Management replaced the backup solution a year later ... :sigh: ] NEVER have a single backup. Three is a good number. Keep at least one offsite to protect against catastropic loss. C) DVD. Burn copies to CD or DVD, or if you have large datasets, invest in a Blu-Ray burner. Why? C1) The media is good for years. It's not completely age proof but good quality disks are good for years. Burn sets of photos and/or video as you go. C2) Disks cannot be screwed by ransomware. Finalize the media and it can't be hurt by electronic means (to the best of my knowledge). Plus the disks are offline, so they can't be touched even if your main copy is. C3) Put copies in a safe deposit box, send to a sibling, a lawyer, etc. Cheap to create, easy to store. D) Flash Drives. WARNING: Flash drives are volatile so never use as a primary backup. That said, flash drives and SD cards are dirt cheap and you can get large ones at a decent price. Like DVDs they are easy to store, just make multiple copies AND have a fairly recent copy on other media. E) Internal HD. I have an extra HD in my PC. I run WinZip jobs daily, weekly, and monthly to zip different directories and store them on the second HD, appending the timestamp so I can have multiple files. Weekly or monthly
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
My HD failed recently (noisy clicks when PC turned on, it didn't boot). I cloned it with this hardware: Startech USB 3.0/eSATA 1:1 Duplicator Dock with UASP. Part # SDOCK2U33RE. It cloned the disc perfectly. It is somewhat slow: my 500 Gb HD was cloned in about 2 h.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
I used https://www.krollontrack.com a few years ago. It was expensive but they recovered 100% of my files and they were pretty quick about it. As some of the others have mentioned, if you need a service like this, you aren’t doing a good enough job of maintaining backups. I now make two copies of all my data every week onto separate hard drives that are not normally connected to my computer. They are offline except when making copies of the backups. I keep one of those copies off site. I learned (and paid for) my lesson last time.
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Last week my external HD died. We used it for backup. All our family pics, tax docs, project work, etc, is on there. I tried using [this](http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094\_4-10061631.html) to get everything back. it sees the and seems to find files & folders, but in the end says it can't find anything. 1) Anyone know of any other good HD recovery software? 2) What are my options for backup? I keep hearing everyone say "backup to the cloud", but I feel weary of it for some reason. What are my options, cloud included?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
I've had success many times with this method. I'm more of a Linux guy, but seriously you get a lot more control using Linux when trying to recover from a failing hard drive. The first thing you need to do is get an image from the drive, whatever data you can possibly read (or if you like, clone do a different good hard drive). I recommend ddrescue for this job because you can do multiple passes and much more. Just download a live copy of any popular linux distribution and boot from a USB or CD. You can install ddrescue and follow a tutorial for this step. Then you can move on to data recovery tools that have been mentioned, or others, on the image (or good drive). Otherwise the more you try to read from the bad drive, the more likely it is that it will get worse and worse until nothing is readable. It's counterintuitive. Recommended tools for recovery: - ddrescue (free) - an invaluable tool that doesn't really compare to anything else - TestDisk (free) - this is my go to application and it's never failed me, unless there's no data to work with from the image - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard (paid) Someone mentioned Spinrite - I've had success with this, but considering the process I would try it in this order: 1. ddrescue 2. ddrescue again, using different options 3. If any sectors could not be read, use spinrite on the failing disk (knowing that you could be doing more damage to the drive) 4. ddrescue yet again 5. data recovery software Good luck!