Lost 10+years of work, Need advice on next back up plan

SnapsbyPoteat wrote in post #10175999
OK Can a SATA be used on a laptop? I just got mine in the mail and realized I should have done a little bit more research on how this works before I bought it. I guess I assumed it could be plugged in like an external harddrive.

if it does work on laptops, what are the other accessories (besides cables) I need for this to work? thanks.

Most new laptops today use SATA connection for the hard drive. From the above post, I assume you bought a internal 3.5" SATA drive and not the 2.5" for your laptop?

If you had bought a 2.5" drive, you can just open up your laptop and pull out the old drive and replace it with the new drive. Assuming your laptop uses SATA.

If you bought the 3.5":
1. You will need an external HD case for you to place the HD into it and hook it up via USB/eSATA/Firewire (depending on what kind of connections your laptop can support.)
2. You can get one of those hard drive docks. Here is one.. http://www.buy.com …/q/loc/101/2109​06351.html

A bit more involvement than that - she'd likely have to format the new drive and install the operating system on it if she was replacing the main drive. It can get quite involved.

fibrepunk wrote in post #10176058
..........If you had bought a 2.5" drive, you can just open up your laptop and pull out the old drive and replace it with the new drive. Assuming your laptop uses SATA.......

Give us a link to the exact product you purchased - we can then advise you accordingly. You might be able to just plug it in, but we're not really sure what you bought.

SnapsbyPoteat wrote in post #10175999
OK Can a SATA be used on a laptop? I just got mine in the mail and realized I should have done a little bit more research on how this works before I bought it. I guess I assumed it could be plugged in like an external harddrive.

if it does work on laptops, what are the other accessories (besides cables) I need for this to work? thanks.

The issue for me is what to do when the primary and backup drives get full. I have 2x 750GB drives internally for videos and photos, both of which are almost full. Then I have a 1.5TB external that is also getting close to full.

Do you guys just keep adding more hard drives, or do you replace them with larger capacity drives? I don't want to ditch the 750GB drives, but I hate the idea of needing several different drives to store my photos and backups.

Backup work on DVD's
Put them on the shelf, safe, or bank safe.

OR Backup to online storage

Simple and cheap....

ecub wrote in post #10179925
Backup work on DVD's
Put them on the shelf, safe, or bank safe.

OR Backup to online storage

Simple and cheap....

Yeah, but when you have over a TB of data, backing up to 218 DVD's can be a bit of a pain.

geoff5093 wrote in post #10179341
The issue for me is what to do when the primary and backup drives get full. I have 2x 750GB drives internally for videos and photos, both of which are almost full. Then I have a 1.5TB external that is also getting close to full.

Do you guys just keep adding more hard drives, or do you replace them with larger capacity drives? I don't want to ditch the 750GB drives, but I hate the idea of needing several different drives to store my photos and backups.

As those 750GB consumer-grade drives get older, their failure rate is going to increase.

Drive mounting bays inside normal-size desktops is usually fairly limited, and I strongly advise keeping your data off the boot drive.

Decide what you do and don't need to back up. Photos=probably, pr0n+epz=probably not. Replace those 750GB disks with 2TB disks, and get external 2TB units as needed for backup , using dual-disk enclosures (NOT striped!) if desired. After you have everything transferred and backed up, wait a couple of months in case of early mortality, then donate the 750's to a local organization -- there are ones all over who set up systems for low-income families etc. and deduct their value on your taxes. Sure, you paid good money for those 750's a few years ago, but you've had good use from them, and for me at least, there's value in not having a zillion separate pieces of hardware to trip over and manage.

You sound like a perfect candidate for a better class of connection. If you ever use it for work, either expense the cost, or deduct it on your taxes as an Unreimbursed Business Expense.

geoff5093 wrote in post #10180248
Yeah, but when you have over a TB of data, backing up to 218 DVD's can be a bit of a pain.

Exactly -- and the cost compared to a disk is roughly equal after the first set.

Hard drives are entirely viable options for offline backup at today's prices. One can get something like an IcyDock or such and treat $125 2TB disks like reeeeeeally big floppies. Handle them carefully and store safely away from electricity, toddlers, etc.

I don't know if it was mentioned before, this thread is too long, but there are companies that specialize in restoring harddrives. You can restore hard drives that were completely burned in a fire, so just a drive crash shouldn't pose much problem in theory.

anthony11 wrote in post #10180431
As those 750GB consumer-grade drives get older, their failure rate is going to increase.

Drive mounting bays inside normal-size desktops is usually fairly limited, and I strongly advise keeping your data off the boot drive.

Decide what you do and don't need to back up. Photos=probably, pr0n+epz=probably not. Replace those 750GB disks with 2TB disks, and get external 2TB units as needed for backup , using dual-disk enclosures (NOT striped!) if desired. After you have everything transferred and backed up, wait a couple of months in case of early mortality, then donate the 750's to a local organization -- there are ones all over who set up systems for low-income families etc. and deduct their value on your taxes. Sure, you paid good money for those 750's a few years ago, but you've had good use from them, and for me at least, there's value in not having a zillion separate pieces of hardware to trip over and manage.

I have a WD 300GB 10,000K RPM drive for the OS and apps, I don't store any data on there. Which has already come in handy when I've had to reformat unexpectedly. I have a full-tower case, so I can fit up to 12x 3.5" drives if I really wanted to, I'm just limited to 8 SATA ports.

I actually have more faith in my backup solution then my primary hard drives, so I was going to setup both 750's in RAID 0 to be able to utilize as much free space as possible, and to gain a little speed. I will then have an external 1.5TB drive connected via USB as the data backup, along with a 500GB external to store images of the OS, a 1.5TB drive will be used as a NAS as a local secondary backup in addition to being the source for my network media since it's on 24/7. And thirdly I will have a 1.5TB drive stored off-site at my parents house the next town over, backed up weekly or bi-weekly.

These 1.5TB drives are going to fill up rather quickly, so to save money I'm going to use my existing drives until they are full, then add a second 1.5TB drive to my external, NAS, and off-site backups, as well as a larger drive internally. Then once those are full I will sell those and buy the largest size available, which hopefully will be well above 2TB.

I'm trying to avoid having multiple hard drives varying in size, so I'm trying to keep the capacities the same across all 3 backup solutions.

anthony11 wrote in post #10180471
Exactly -- and the cost compared to a disk is roughly equal after the first set.

Hard drives are entirely viable options for offline backup at today's prices. One can get something like an IcyDock or such and treat $125 2TB disks like reeeeeeally big floppies. Handle them carefully and store safely away from electricity, toddlers, etc.

Very true, even though it seems like a waste to use a hard drive as basically a large tape or floppy (depending how you want to think of it), for the price it's a great solution. You just need to find a way to keep it safe from potential drops, moisture, static shock, etc.

kuden wrote in post #10180491
I don't know if it was mentioned before, this thread is too long, but there are companies that specialize in restoring harddrives. You can restore hard drives that were completely burned in a fire, so just a drive crash shouldn't pose much problem in theory.

Yeah, it was mentioned a few times.

kuden wrote in post #10180491
I don't know if it was mentioned before, this thread is too long, but there are companies that specialize in restoring harddrives. You can restore hard drives that were completely burned in a fire, so just a drive crash shouldn't pose much problem in theory.

Sometimes one can restore in that situation, but I reeeeeeeeaally advise against counting on that, and the cost of having such a recovery for a single disk dwarfs the cost of prudent backups on the scale that most in this forum operate.

geoff5093 wrote in post #10180629
I have a WD 300GB 10,000K RPM drive for the OS and apps, I don't store any data on there. Which has already come in handy when I've had to reformat unexpectedly.

Wise, wise planning there, though for a modern OS that sounds really cramped. It's way too easy for an OS install/upgrade to inadvertently wipe other data

That's more capacious than most home users have (or want to cool/listen to). Of course you could always stick in another HBA for the remaining 4 bays.

anthony11 wrote in post #10180661
Wise, wise planning there, though for a modern OS that sounds really cramped. It's way too easy for an OS install/upgrade to inadvertently wipe other data

That's more capacious than most home users have (or want to cool/listen to). Of course you could always stick in another HBA for the remaining 4 bays.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "cramped". Storage wise I'm using less then half of the available space. I do know what you mean though about it being easy for the other drives to be erased, one wrong click during the OS install and you could overwrite your data drive(s) with the OS. I triple check to make sure I select the right drive before installing. If for some reason I installed the OS on the wrong drive, I always have my backups.

I don't mind noise, I have several high-CFM fans that can make my computer sound like a jet engine if I wanted them to.

Aren't those costs easily $1000 for recovery in some cases? I agree.... would not rely upon that avenue....

anthony11 wrote in post #10180635
Sometimes one can restore in that situation, but I reeeeeeeeaally advise against counting on that, and the cost of having such a recovery for a single disk dwarfs the cost of prudent backups on the scale that most in this forum operate.

sapearl wrote in post #10181313
Aren't those costs easily $1000 for recovery in some cases? I agree.... would not rely upon that avenue....

They are, although other times there is software that one could download that can recover some, if not all of the data. Most programs have trials that let you see if the data can be recovered, and if it can it's cheaper then sending it off to a recovery center.