Thanks for the info. - much appreciated - I'll put it back on the shelf.

Cheers,
Chris

You're correct - I wasn't grading it for sale - just describing the general condition. In fairness, most of what you're seeing are the indentations for the lens cap rather than scratches, and some bits of styrofoam from the packaging, but if I do put it up for sale, I would grade it as "9"

Just cleaning up my dark room and discovered this lens that I had apparently "archived" many years ago. It's new, in perfect condition, in the original plastic case. Does it have any current use/value?

I have read it several times, and though "several" 3TB and a 4TB drive are mentioned as well as a 3TB external, I don't see anywhere in the post that the total amount of data to be backed up is specified. Perhaps the OP can help us out with the actual current size of the data set to be backed up. If all of the mentioned drives are attached, active AND full ( which seems unlikely, but possible ), then a full backup is going to require a RAID system, tape, or take forever to "seed" into the cloud.

I wouldn't suggest SSDs as an an archival backup either - just agreeing that SSDs are more reliable than spinning disk. My suggestion would be to use SSDs as primary storage with backup to the cloud as the most robust and highest performance solution at a reasonable price with maximum availability and minimum administration.

How do you arrive at 13TB based on the original post?

Exactly. I :thumbup:

I still have a B&W and color darkroom which I occasionally use. If you're planning to start developing/printing again, you might get a copy of Kodak's "how to build a home darkroom". It's a great reference with plans and examples from converting a bathroom to building from scratch. Amazon has it for $6.00. One of our local photo stores has an assortment of "wet" darkroom equipment at great prices now that it's not so popular, and If you have access to a local store, you may find some bargains in equipment as well. Good luck - the smell of a real darkroom and watching a print appear in the developer tray is something you can't get from Photoshop 😈

I absolutely get where you're coming from, but I have to respectfully take exception on the security issue. I've sold storage for the largest storage companies in existence for 30 years (IBM, Netapp, EMC, Oracle...), and I've seen it all including cloud companies going "belly-up" like Nirvanix. I have seen cloud data lost and one company taken down by poor security practices, but that was a very small company (who will remain nameless). I've seen the most redundant systems available (N+4) fail for all sorts of reasons including A/C failures, floods, human errors, and of course a multitude of backup-restore and multiple drive failures, so I have zero trust in long-term hard drive reliability, especially the $100 variety (you get what you pay for in disk drives). I'm by no means endorsing any cloud storage (and I no longer sell storage or have any financial interest in any storage or cloud vendor), BUT consider the following: If you choose a major vendor like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc., the chances of them going belly-up without warning or being taken down by a security breach are exceedingly small, and if that's a concern, then the answer is to use 2 different services and write your data to both (sort of a RAID 1 for cloud). Also consider that all of the above store your data in 3-5 geographically separate sites - much better DR than you can possibly construct on your own. They're hosted in hardened data centers with excellent security, backup power and professional administration, and you can access your data from anywhere that you have an Internet connection. It's very, very difficult to achieve that level of reliability and data availability on your own. I, like you, keep multiple copies of my important data on separate systems which I control, but I also keep a copy in the cloud, and within the last year, following a break-in and theft, my cloud backup allowed me to seamlessly recover all my data quickly. At 99 cents per month for 50GB (Apple ICloud as an example), there's no way I could achieve that level of security or reliability/availability for anywhere near that price. IMHO, the cloud, despite it's limitations and your valid concerns, has an indisputable place in modern data storage and security. In the end, all the photographic equipment we discuss on this forum has only one purpose - to generate and edit data in the form of imagery. Keeping that data safe and secure should be our highest priority, and cloud storage is a very effective way of accomplishing that.

No dductable with USAA in North Carolina. Came on-site and replaced with OEM windshield which I requested ($1,600) at zero cost. Love USAA!

The leaders in cloud storage are Amazon (ACS), Google, Microsoft Azure and Apple ICloud. All of these services are likely to be around for a long time and typically store your data at multiple sites for DR purposes. Costs have dropped dramatically over the last few years and now average 2-3 cents per GB per month. Depending on the provider, there may also be a transaction charge for reading/writing data. Your network speed to your ISP (upload and download) will determine the speed at which you an access your data in the cloud.

If reliability is your key concern, there are a number of studies of SSD reliability available on Google, and Samsung 850 pros are at or near the top of most, Personally, I use Intel SSDs in everything despite the higher cost, and after many, many years, have never experienced a failure of any Intel device - processor, SSD or memory. Having done business with one of their foundries, I can tell you that their QC is 2nd to none.

Enter Ctrl Alt Del, then task manager, then "more details". That will bring up tabs to allow you to see what processes, apps that are running, memory usage, disk usage etc. That should provide the info. You need to diagnose the issue.

Good luck,
Chris

You can regenerate/reactivate silica gel desiccant packs by heating in a conventional oven at 250 degrees F. Microwaving them is supposedly effective also, but I haven't personally tried that method.

Another vote for the EF 24-105 f4L IS, which stays on my 7D most of the time