Re: [IRCA] My sad HD story continues! (sorry for the OT)

[Michael Hawkins <downsized99@xxxxxxxxx>]

I hadn't paid attention to this thread because I thought HD=high definition, not hard drive.  I've heard enough about high def.  My two cents worth here is that RAID arrays will save your butt.  I had hard drives in multiple computers that would clink and kachunk for no good reasons, and didn't know what to save where because I could never find out who the noisemakers were.  I said "to hell with the whole thing" and bought a Buffalo Terastation.  Its 1 terabyte raw and 700 GB in RAID5 configuration.  Since I bought that one, they came out with new models, so they are available from about $450-500 at a minimum price.  They use a IP address, and you can access them as mapped local drives from computers once you create the map.  I've heard arguments from people who say that's too much money, but they are more than willing to pay more for repeated replacements of USB drives that die.

They are worth their weight in gold.

Mike Hawkins

Rick Kunath <k9ao@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Walter Salmaniw wrote:
>  I can't wait for the day that there'll only be
terrabyte flash drives out there and we totally do away with rotating
hard drives. He gave me the number of a
> forensic data recovery service. Someone had scratched on the
photocopy, $390 per hour or something like that. This is really so very
x$%&@*****!!!! Now what the heck am I supposed to do. I did nothing to
this HD to cause it to do this. It was sitting
> quietly on my desk and when I came home one day....no light. Wonder
> if
I should do the deep freeze again. Sure did absolutely nothing for
Alex's HD, and the tech says not to....condensation issues, etc.  Now 
what on earth should I do?  Suggestions
> please!!!!............Walt.

Well, it's dead anyway... unless you are sending it off for forensic 
recovery, not much to lose. Freezing it isn't going to fix a dead 
onboard controller.

Even terrabyte flash will have data loss issues.

The simple answer today is that once you get this resolved, setup a RAID 
array of at *least* 2 drives, preferably 3. Select the correct RAID 
level, get some advice if you need to on just what is the right industry 
standard RAID level for you and not proprietary, don't fall for the junk 
software RAID usually foisted off as RAID on some motherboards today, 
buy *good* commercial quality hard drives not the consumer stuff that 
just can't cut it, and then don't worry.

If another drive fails, just replace it and the RAID array will take 
care of the rest. No data loss, no loss in operation. The array will 
restore itself.

I wouldn't have a machine without hardware RAID these days. And most 
folks have at least 2 drives already. Drives are cheap. Data isn't. With 
the right motherboard and hardware RAID, this (data loss) isn't really 
an issue any more.

If you want to keep a consumer grade PC on the desk, you could just 
setup a network server as a file server and use a RAID array in that. 
Then it (the network file server) would be available for any machine on 
your network. Store your precious data on the network file server with 
the RAID hard drive array, and keep just the OS on any clients. That way 
you won't have any critical data on client PCs and can restore them 
easily from the OS DVD. As far as the user experience, the network 
server with the RAID array looks just like another mapped hard drive (or 
network drive, depending on the OS). Seamlessly integrates into the 
(any) OS.

And stay away from USB hard drives. USB is no way shape or form designed 
to handle either hard drive data or network data.

What's the manufacturer of the actual hard drive itself?

Rick Kunath
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