Disk Failure, Backups and Dropbox. Lessons Learned
May 15, 2017 22:10:14 #
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into a drive checking loop, stuck at 64% at boot this morning. It happened to be the HD with all my photographs, 8 years worth of work.
Fortunately, I had everything backed up into the cloud with Dropbox. After installing a new Western Digital Black 4Tb drive, I let Dropbox do its thing, and am now about 50% restored. By the morning, everything will be in the correct place, and I can get back to work again.
Benjamin Franklin was right, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Fortunately, I had everything backed up into the cloud with Dropbox. After installing a new Western Digital Black 4Tb drive, I let Dropbox do its thing, and am now about 50% restored. By the morning, everything will be in the correct place, and I can get back to work again.
Benjamin Franklin was right, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
May 15, 2017 22:21:13 #
May 15, 2017 22:26:43 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
Congrats, we all need to exercise caution, I'm addressing Windows 10 Creators upgrade issues at this moment. Nothing at risk, but tedious.
May 15, 2017 22:37:11 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
You go! Glad it all worked out.
May 16, 2017 00:02:26 #
Peterff wrote:
Congrats, we all need to exercise caution, I'm addressing Windows 10 Creators upgrade issues at this moment. Nothing at risk, but tedious.
That is a very l-o-n-g update, to be sure.
May 16, 2017 03:14:32 #
May 16, 2017 07:29:25 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
That's a lot to have in Dropbox, and they are all in their original format? No reduction in size?
It's having feeling that warm, secure feeling that comes from knowing your important stuff is backed up. I have several computers, but this is the only one I backup because it has all my "important" files. Nothing is backed up online, though - just hard drives.
May 16, 2017 08:46:22 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
And you will never, ever, ever buy cheap hard drives anymore, right? You probably should have purchased a second drive for local daily backup and ease with restoration if and when disaster strikes.
May 16, 2017 08:54:58 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
Is the replacement WD Black 4TB an external drive or a drive that you placed in a drive enclosure?
May 16, 2017 09:02:39 #
Good for you! I've had people make fun of me, because I keep 3 external hard drives as back up, one is always kept at my work office, and also back up to my Amazon Cloud drive.
A few years ago, I was one of those who mocked the people who looked at backing up as a religion, I'm now a Cardinal in that church. I hope others learn from your experience, and don't lose years of important photos/memories.
A few years ago, I was one of those who mocked the people who looked at backing up as a religion, I'm now a Cardinal in that church. I hope others learn from your experience, and don't lose years of important photos/memories.
May 16, 2017 09:11:44 #
peterg
Loc: Santa Rosa, CA
I backup to (Mac) Time Machine, a photo-dedicated external hard drive and a cloud storage service. I'm a great fan and user of Dropbox. I've had only one Dropbox problem, which was with a shared Dropbox folder. The other shared user had a copy of our shared folder on his company's computer. His company was hit by ransomware. Dropbox worked as advertised. It also encrypted the files in the same shared folder on my computer. Fortunately, the encrypted files were backed up elsewhere. Y'all be careful!
May 16, 2017 09:22:19 #
I have two catalogs (Folders/Directories) of images -- one pre-digital images (scans) and the second digital images -- each about the same size... 100,000 images. I keep copies on three external hard drives. A couple days ago, I had one fail. It took a little over twenty-five hours to copy one folder to the new, replacement HD.
A year ago, I was intrigued with the "Cloud" storage thing and tried to upload the images. The first Folder gave a "time to completion" of nine days. I let it run for 24 hours and came to the same conclusion. That was just too long for me to essentially tie up the computer -- for instance, a reboot would be ill-advised... as would a crash of any kind. (BTW, a reboot would be automatic with Microsoft's new update procedure.)
Anyway, I am still at the triple-copy local storage stage and would welcome an easy. peasy off-site solution. (FWIW, I use http://www.bauerapps.com/compare-folders-windows-compare-advance/ to keep the three copies in sync.)
A year ago, I was intrigued with the "Cloud" storage thing and tried to upload the images. The first Folder gave a "time to completion" of nine days. I let it run for 24 hours and came to the same conclusion. That was just too long for me to essentially tie up the computer -- for instance, a reboot would be ill-advised... as would a crash of any kind. (BTW, a reboot would be automatic with Microsoft's new update procedure.)
Anyway, I am still at the triple-copy local storage stage and would welcome an easy. peasy off-site solution. (FWIW, I use http://www.bauerapps.com/compare-folders-windows-compare-advance/ to keep the three copies in sync.)
May 16, 2017 10:40:06 #
Garyminor
Loc: Raleigh, NC
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
I had a hard drive fail today, my system went into... (show quote)
Even though the drive won't boot, you may be able to read the data from it. Once you have a bootable system, you can attach the bad drive as a second drive and use Windows Explorer to try to access your photos and other data. That would be faster than download from the cloud.
May 16, 2017 11:41:17 #
Gene51 wrote:
And you will never, ever, ever buy cheap hard drives anymore, right? You probably should have purchased a second drive for local daily backup and ease with restoration if and when disaster strikes.
Mindreader. I am looking for a dual drive Drobo to connect to a USB3 port for this very application. Set it up for RAID mirroring and have a local and cloud backup.
May 16, 2017 11:42:13 #
Kmgw9v wrote:
Is the replacement WD Black 4TB an external drive or a drive that you placed in a drive enclosure?
It replaces the internal HD that failed. Part 2 will be an external RAID mirrored enclosure.
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