Storage and Backup
Jul 2, 2014 10:38:23 #
jerryc41 wrote:
I'm referring to the model designations, like Green, Blue, Black, Red.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=760
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=760
Jerry, is there a reference as to what the colors mean? I assume they would have something to do with speed or features. I have a red 2TB internal drive that I use in an external dock (cheaper than buying a cased external drive). I always wondered what "red" meant.
Jul 2, 2014 12:03:06 #
romanticf16
Loc: Commerce Twp, MI
Bob Yankle wrote:
That's the one I bought - it's black.
Not the color of the enclosure- the quality of the drive in it: Brown line or Black line. Doubt if it is Black line
Jul 2, 2014 14:06:49 #
jerryc41 wrote:
We get lots of questions about external backup and... (show quote)
:thumbup: I've gone the same route with 500gb, then 1 tb, then 2 tb, etc. My time is too valuable to waste going over all that data to weed out the junk. If I ever want anything, it's there, if I don't, hard drives are now cheap enough.
Jul 2, 2014 16:37:52 #
Billbobboy42 wrote:
Jerry, is there a reference as to what the colors mean? I assume they would have something to do with speed or features. I have a red 2TB internal drive that I use in an external dock (cheaper than buying a cased external drive). I always wondered what "red" meant.
Black is their top desktop unit, and Red is recommended for NAS. I think Blue is for the price-conscious. Green for the environmentalists? :D
I'm avoiding buying a 4TB drive, at least temporarily, by going through my pictures and eliminating many. Lots of duplicates. Then I'll start on word processing files.
Jul 2, 2014 22:11:03 #
Billbobboy42 wrote:
The WD 'RED' drives are designed for use in a multi-drive RAID configured NAS. They have firmware mods designed to identify block write errors more quickly and lock out bad sectors before they can cause problems with RAID-5 reliability. They are also supposed to be more reliable when running 24/7 - - but who knows. Jerry, is there a reference as to what the colors mean? I have a red 2TB internal drive that I use in an external dock (cheaper than buying a cased external drive). I always wondered what "red" meant.
Here is an answer I posted in 2011 to the storage question:
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Run - Don't Walk - to Amazon, ZipZoomFly, NewEgg, etc and buy a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box that will hold 4 HDD. Then get 4 of your favorite HDDs (2 - 4 TB each IF the box will handle drives that size - BE CAREFUL here - only a few will handle larger than 2TB drives), install them in the box, and configure them as RAID-5 !! Press the Format and Build 'buttons' and come back in 2 days. You will now have a drive array available on your home network (if you don't have one - you can connect via USB or eSATA) that will tolerate ANY SINGLE DRIVE FAILURE - - and I don't care WHOSE drives you're in love with - - sooner or later THEY ALL have a significant probability of failure - just a matter of time!
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I would ALSO recommend powering your drive array with a UPS - so when the power glitches - your drive array is unaffected.
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I have been impressed by the favorable comments regarding the QNAP TS-410 4-Bay Desktop Network Attached Storage - - although I am not sure if it will handle a 3TB drive - it WILL handle a 2TB drive. Installing 4 x 2TB drives will give me 6TB of fault tolerant storage. If a drive fails, I remove the dead one, replace it with a NEW drive, and the Array will REBUILD ITSELF, preserving ALL THE DATA!!
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I will wait until I am certain I can install 3TB drives - and will use the above process to create 9TB of NAS.
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OBTW: current price tag for the above 6TB array will run about $1K - $350 for the box and about $150 each for the drives. I'm hoping that drive prices will come back down out of the stratosphere once Japan recovers from the Tsunami / Flood / Earthquake and Godzilla.
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What I actually did:
Got a QNAP TS-459 Pro-II (newer models have replaced now)
Installed 4 x 3TB Seagate drives in RAID-5
The NAS has undergone several firmware revisions, including the ability for me to securely hit it from anywhere on the internet. It can also serve up videos to my smart TV.
Last week, one of the seagate drives died.
I replaced it with a 4TB WD Red
As time and finances permit, I will replace the other 3, one at a time (the Rebuild takes 14 hours)
Once all 4 have been replaced, I will "EXPAND" the system and will have 12TB of RAID-5 storage instead of the 9 I now have. Remember - - with RAID-5, you use ONE drive worth of storage for backup - so FOUR x 4TB drive will produce 12TB of fault-tolerant storage space.
Jul 2, 2014 22:17:10 #
Jul 3, 2014 01:53:24 #
I use a Seagate 500gig external drive and still have a lot of room on it. I guess I'm not as prolific as some others.
Jul 3, 2014 04:03:26 #
amehta wrote:
The operating system does not have to search the drive for a file, it simply has to search the "file access table", and that is quite efficient.
The File Allocation Table comes from the 1970s and is only found now on floppies, flash drives and thumb sticks snd the like. It is however still supported in its later versions such as FAT32 for compatibility.
Windows does not use FAT as there are much better file systems available these days such as NTFS, but either way amehta is correct in that the disk does not have to be searched to find a particular file - just the index.
Jul 3, 2014 07:24:16 #
Nikonista wrote:
The File Allocation Table comes from the 1970s and is only found now on floppies, flash drives and thumb sticks snd the like. It is however still supported in its later versions such as FAT32 for compatibility.
Windows does not use FAT as there are much better file systems available these days such as NTFS, but either way amehta is correct in that the disk does not have to be searched to find a particular file - just the index.
Windows does not use FAT as there are much better file systems available these days such as NTFS, but either way amehta is correct in that the disk does not have to be searched to find a particular file - just the index.
I wonder if it's more than a coincidence that computers went from FAT to FAT32, as the size of the average person has been increasing. :D
Jul 3, 2014 08:09:43 #
If you go to Newegg and search for this model: N82E16822236626 you will see that one of the reviewers opened his drive and installed the HDD as a bare drive. He states that his was a "Green" drive.
Greens are named that for their 'energy efficiency', they stop rotating after some minutes of inactivity. The first time you access it in the morning there is a delay as it starts. MY 2TB drive takes maybe 10 or so seconds.
In response to one of your other comments, as I have gotten older I have definitely become a "FAT32" or in my case a FAT66. :-)
Greens are named that for their 'energy efficiency', they stop rotating after some minutes of inactivity. The first time you access it in the morning there is a delay as it starts. MY 2TB drive takes maybe 10 or so seconds.
In response to one of your other comments, as I have gotten older I have definitely become a "FAT32" or in my case a FAT66. :-)
Jul 3, 2014 23:55:05 #
Most NAS (Network Attached Storage) manufacturers will caution against "green" drives - because they stop on their own and may miss delayed write information that the NAS Raid-5 system caches for more efficient read-write operations. Most NAS will have a power-down setting that performs a proper controlled shut-down after a predetermined period of inactivity (like 2 hours - whatever) - then will restart if accessed from the network.
Oct 7, 2014 06:55:14 #
You can restore your data backup by saving your data in online backup plan. I suggest you to backup all your accounts by Free CloudBacko. Once you store your data than it can be easily accessed from any machine. You dont need to install CloudBacko, you have to only login from your favourite social media account. You will be surprised with the security features of the CloudBacko. Data you can save is 100 TB free cloud storage of charge.
Oct 7, 2014 08:55:54 #
vollmy041 wrote:
You can restore your data backup by saving your data in online backup plan. I suggest you to backup all your accounts by Free CloudBacko. Once you store your data than it can be easily accessed from any machine. You dont need to install CloudBacko, you have to only login from your favourite social media account. You will be surprised with the security features of the CloudBacko. Data you can save is 100 TB free cloud storage of charge.
It appears that CloudBacko is only a backup manager, not a storage site itself. From what I'm seeing, in order to actually store data you must first have cloud storage space available on Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, or any of the other cloud drives or combinations thereof, then CloudBacko will encrypt the data and direct the backup process to these drives as necessary. But it does not provide storage space itself.
Oct 7, 2014 09:21:50 #
Nikonista wrote:
The File Allocation Table comes from the 1970s and is only found now on floppies, flash drives and thumb sticks snd the like. It is however still supported in its later versions such as FAT32 for compatibility.
Windows does not use FAT as there are much better file systems available these days such as NTFS, but either way amehta is correct in that the disk does not have to be searched to find a particular file - just the index.
Windows does not use FAT as there are much better file systems available these days such as NTFS, but either way amehta is correct in that the disk does not have to be searched to find a particular file - just the index.
Back in the 80's on some (if not all) UNIX machines there was a "Sanity Track." This was before automatic head parking. If the head dropped, it hit the ST. If the ST was sufficiently damaged, the machine could not boot up. But it did give you the following friendly notification:
Sanity Failure
Oct 7, 2014 09:23:03 #
dsmeltz wrote:
Back in the 80's on some (if not all) UNIX machines there was a "Sanity Track." This was before automatic head parking. If the head dropped, it hit the ST. If the ST was sufficiently damaged, the machine could not boot up. But it did give you the following friendly notification:
Sanity Failure
Sanity Failure
Good terminology.
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