A different type of SSD

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelyman My perspective is the home environment, much smaller and less complicated. But for planning/future needs, reading about options and best practices is appreciated.

I'm in the home environment also, nothing fancy about my setup. I have a relatively fast desktop computer with an external backup hard drive. I do have a simple wired home network, mostly for streaming video from my computer or Netflix.

I do work from home but the only work related equipment to my setup is a second printer. I could easily get by without it, but it's nice to have forms ready to go in that printer without having to manually feed paper each time.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat The Network Gear, Switches, Routers, Modems and the NAS systems are in a Storage Room in the Basement.... I rarely even see it or Putz with it. The other is my Den where I have a Powerful Small Lenovo Desktop and Monitor ---Latest i7 Skylake Processor... 32 Gig of memory. 256G SSD Drive. At 7 inches square, it doesn't take up much space. Fastest Computer I have ever owned.

Awe... That's a cute little computer... Mine is a full (mid?) size desktop tower computer. It sits on the shelf beneath my desk along with my UPS, cable modem, router, and USB backup drive. I have a few other bits and pieces hidden behind my desk (VOIP telephone adapter, Insteon interface, etc.). The only other computer item is an ethernet switch located in our crawlspace (it was easier to run one cable from the office to the switch, than to run multiple cables from the office).

Your computer is probably faster than mine. I built it about four years ago with an i7-4790K and 16GB RAM. I have a 256GB SSD for my system boot drive, a new 2TB SSD for my personal data drive, and a 1TB SSD I use for video work (recording TV shows with an internal tuner card, editing home movies, etc.). I also have an external 3TB USB drive I use for backups.

I also have a Brother HL5250DN laser printer with a second paper tray, a Xerox Phasar 6022 color laser printer, an Epson V500 flatbed scanner (photos, negatives, artwork, etc.), and a Snapscan IX500 (bank statements, etc.) All of the accessories take up more room than the actual computer.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerry1 I agree. We should start a thread on backup practices. I want to do better than I currently am, so this has gotten interesting.

I backup nightly to an external USB hard drive using Macrium Reflect to create full image backups. This gives me protection against my own stupid mistakes. For instance, if I accidentally delete a file or folder, I can recover them quickly from my backup drive.

Of course, having the backup drive connected to the computer means it is vulnerable to the same threats as my main drive (computer viruses, power surges, fire, theft, floods, tornadoes, etc.). My backup drive could also fail at any time, rendering it useless if my main drive fails.

So about once a month I swap my backup drive with a second identical drive I keep in the safe deposit box at the bank. Even if my house were to burn down and take the computer and backup drive out, I still have the one at the bank I can recover critical data from.

Just for added protection, I also burn some of my more critical data to BluRay data discs. Things such as financial documents, photos, home movies, etc. In theory, if I were to accidentally delete something from my hard drive without realizing it (or if a virus corrupted files), those missing or corrupted files would also be duplicated on my backup drives. But I know anything I burn to the blu-ray disc is not going to change with time.

The key is to have multiple backups, stored in multiple locations, on a variety of media.

[steelyman]

My current backup strategy at home is also pretty simple but evolving.

Contributing to that is a move between states a few years ago. Prior to that I had no backup strategy at all except the occasional copy to a USB stick for individual files. This was on a PC running Windows Vista (!).

Before the move, I was concerned about physical damage to the PC and data so I bought a WD MyBook and ran full backups using WD’s software, which worked well. The moving company moved all the PC stuff but the MyBook rode in the car with me, just to be sure.

I bought an iMac after moving, which is now my main computer. I’d tried to be clever about formatting the MyBook so that it could be used by both the Windows and Mac systems, but didn’t succeed due to something related to the master boot record on the drive. However, the Mac could read (read only) the existing Windows data on the MyBook so I had/have access to that and I’m slowly going through that, picking out files I want to have on the iMac.

The iMac has 1 TB of SSD storage. That’s what gets backed up.

I recently bought a second, larger, MyBook dedicated to the Mac. That and the earlier backup drive will both be under control of MacOS’ Time Machine, which I believe can alternate backups between two drives (basic redundancy).

The newer, larger external drive failed drive tests within a few months and I got a warranty replacement. Never had a failure like that but I’m more motivated to run drive self-tests on a regular basis. I use the Mac version of WD Utilities which gives three levels of tests from basic to thorough (the latter takes a couple of days to finish...)

This move and switch between two very different machines is helpful in asking myself, “What data do I really NEED to have backed up in the most reliable way?”. The easy answer right now is “all of it!”, but I do think about it as I clean/discard old PC data.

I have no current strategy for offsite storage except for what Google Apps provides (my large retirement planning spreadsheet is in there, it would be a big problem if I lost that!).

The future of the old PC is Linux, with which I’m very familiar, and it’ll be used mostly for digitization of analog audio. I probably will not have an automated backup for that, if I back up at all.

[ADDED] The MyBook drives are connected directly to the Mac by USB. The only Ethernet cable in my home is a really short one that goes from the cable modem to the router (dual band Netgear Nighthawk). I have a plug-in extender (also Netgear) that I’d used to provide a port for the old PC, but I don’t use right now while the PC is boxed up and off my office desk.

[Cut-Throat]

On my Synology NAS, there is a Backup Application Called 'Hyper Backup'.... I have this Back up files every night at 3 am... It is an incremental Backup system, so it usually only takes about 2 minutes, unless I make a lot of changes. The first backup Backed up everything and Took quite a while, as I backing up about 1.6 TB


I actually have 2 NAS Systems and I use one of them for strictly Backup... Each Quarter, I backup externally to a USB Drive and Store Offsite.. I am thinking of Changing this to Monthly...


And since the NAS system has RAID Protection, if I have a Disk Drive Fail, I never need to use the Backups. I can merely Hot Swap out the failed Drive and Plug in a new one, and the NAS system rebuilds everything automatically... Drive Failure used to be my Main Reason for ever using Backups.


I actually had a Drive develop Sector Errors a few weeks ago, and replacing the Drive took me 2 minutes, with no tools other than my hands. Never even had to power down the NAS. The NAS Rebuild took about 15 hours however, but did not interrupt any processing whatsoever.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat And since the NAS system has RAID Protection, if I have a Disk Drive Fail, I never need to use the Backups. I can merely Hot Swap out the failed Drive and Plug in a new one, and the NAS system rebuilds everything automatically... Drive Failure used to be my Main Reason for ever using Backups. I actually had a Drive develop Sector Errors a few weeks ago, and replacing the Drive took me 2 minutes, with no tools other than my hands. Never even had to power down the NAS. The NAS Rebuild took about 15 hours however, but did not interrupt any processing whatsoever.

One thing I thought was cool was that my former employer's enterprise-level SSDs had RAID built inside the individual drives. Instead of striping the data across drives, it striped data across NAND chips. So you could have an entire NAND chip go bad on the drive and it could discover the failure and do the automatic RAID rebuild in the background without losing a bit (literally) of data. The rebuild did take a long time in the drive as well.

[Cut-Throat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecondCor521 One thing I thought was cool was that my former employer's enterprise-level SSDs had RAID built inside the individual drives. Instead of striping the data across drives, it striped data across NAND chips. So you could have an entire NAND chip go bad on the drive and it could discover the failure and do the automatic RAID rebuild in the background without losing a bit (literally) of data. The rebuild did take a long time in the drive as well.

Very Cool ! --- And one of the Major Benefits of separating your Computer from your Storage.... The 'Storage O/S' is concerned with the Functionality of Protecting and Distributing your Data.... Not so much with the Computer O/S....

[SilentWalker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat On my Synology NAS, there is a Backup Application Called 'Hyper Backup'.... I have this Back up files every night at 3 am... It is an incremental Backup system, so it usually only takes about 2 minutes, unless I make a lot of changes. The first backup Backed up everything and Took quite a while, as I backing up about 1.6 TB

Can you use Hyper Backup to copy all the desktop and laptop drives around the house to the Synology NAS, or does it only work for backing up the data already on Synology to a third external backup drive?

[Cut-Throat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentWalker Can you use Hyper Backup to copy all the desktop and laptop drives around the house to the Synology NAS, or does it only work for backing up the data already on Synology to a third external backup drive?

I believe that you're right. And if you think about it, Synology would only want you to store your data on their NAS (which I do), not to store it on other computers.


And as far as backing up up Apps, programs and the O/S ... There are many other programs for that. And, I don't bother as I rarely need to restore my O/S and programs anymore. -- Most Computers come with recovery type partitions and or the ability to make a Recovery Drive. And Programs are so easy to download these days with fast internet. (I have Gigabit Internet speed)

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat Most Computers come with recovery type partitions and or the ability to make a Recovery Drive. And Programs are so easy to download these days with fast internet.

Most recovery partitions exist on the same physical drive as your main partition. If the drive fails you lose your data AND the recovery partition. Even if the recovery partition is on a separate drive, it's still vulnerable to a power surge, computer virus, fire, theft, etc.

Yeah, you can always reinstall programs but that takes time. One program is no big deal, but having to reinstall 20-40 programs or more from scratch could literally take hours. Then you would have to reconfigure all the settings for each program as well as any customizing you have done in Windows. Believe me, I have had to reinstall Windows and all of my programs on more than one occasion and it's not fun.

A full image backup of your hard drive is so much simpler. You know everything on the drive is protected and you can easily restore your programs, personal data, and settings. I just restored over 800GB of data to my new drive a couple days ago. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to set up the restore then I walked away while my computer spent the next 90+ minutes restoring my data to it's original state.

[Cut-Throat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainsoft I just restored over 800GB of data to my new drive a couple days ago. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to set up the restore then I walked away while my computer spent the next 90+ minutes restoring my data to it's original state.

Yup, And if you had a NAS, you would not have to do this..... I have restored plenty of Windows O/S in the Past and it did take time... I have not had to do this in years... Times have changed.....
Separating your Data from the Computer is a Big step Forward.


So, if you got all kinds of Apps on your Computer, Back them up with a program... There are all types of programs to do this... But why have to restore 800 GB of Data... Totally unnecessary....

[bevette]

I clicked on this thread because I thought “SSD” was short for “social security distribution.” Ha!

[catii]

Jyst be very careful that your OS doesn't try to defragment your new SSD! SSDs do NOT require defragging, & it will greatly cut down on its useful life.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catii Jyst be very careful that your OS doesn't try to defragment your new SSD! SSDs do NOT require defragging, & it will greatly cut down on its useful life.

All recent commercial operating systems automatically detect SSD's and won't defrag them.

[catii]

Wish that was always true, but I've seen Win 10 X64 Pro defragging a number of my clients' machines, so I think due diligence points to double-checking your system. My company is a Microsoft beta-site, BTW.

[mountainsoft]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catii Jyst be very careful that your OS doesn't try to defragment your new SSD! SSDs do NOT require defragging, & it will greatly cut down on its useful life.

Nope, I disabled the OS defragment years ago. I was using PerfectDisk to defragment my remaining hard drive, but now that all of my drives are SSD's I don't need that anymore either.

I suppose I may defragment my external backup hard drive occasionally.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catii Wish that was always true, but I've seen Win 10 X64 Pro defragging a number of my clients' machines, so I think due diligence points to double-checking your system. My company is a Microsoft beta-site, BTW.

Hmm. Well if those clients have SSD's, then I would say that's either a bug in the SSD or the OS.

[onthe8ball]

A bug in the Windows OS? Inconceivable!

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by onthe8ball A bug in the Windows OS? Inconceivable!

A bug in many different OS kinda was an important part of my career. It was scary seeing how easy it was to bring millions dollars of hardware useless because of one instruction.

One of the best statements I ever heard about an OS bug was... "The system is not down, it is waiting ~144 years before seeing if there's work queued for task dispatcher".

The gentleman who made the statement was later appointed an IBM "Fellow". He was a very intelligent man.

[onthe8ball]

So, that sounds like my current situation. When I do a shutdown (power off) with my Win10 system, then power up again, it boots in about 45 seconds. But if I then do a warm restart (without running anything else), it takes over 25 minutes. Waiting on something, for sure. I wonder what it wants, and why only on a restart?