I have about 150 gb of data stored on three IDE disks. I want to back it up, but CD burning would quite some time and I can’t afford newer options like that iomega peerless drive (isn’t that based on IDE anyway tho?) or dvd-r. I’ve read that warranties are being slowly reduced on new drives because they fail more frequently. What’s a reasonable time to keep my data where it is and not have to worry?
would take quite some time
IDE drives are fairly reliable and usually take longer to fail than the life of the PC it is used in (look for Mean ime Between Failure [MTBF] stats…IIRC they are something like 50,000 hours). However, that doesn’t mean one can’t fail at anytime. If you have data you don’t want to lose then you need to back it up. Instead of backing up all 150gb of data backup just the data that is REALLY important to you. In most cases just a small fraction of your total data is data you can’t live without.
However, if all 150GB is important (or a large fraction of that) then you need to consider a tape backup. For that much data you’d likely want a 40/80GB DLT drive. They are expensive though and the tapes are likewise expensive. You’d also need a SCSI card to run the tape drive and backup software to make use of the drive.
Your other option is to setup an IDE RAID. Some motherboards today have the option built in. If your’s doesn’t you’d need either a new motherboard or an IDE RAID controller. In either case you need a second hard drive. You’d set the system up as a RAID-1 configuration (also known as a mirror). One drive then essentially mirrors everything on your main drive. If your main drive pukes you switch over to the mirrored drive and all is good again. In this way you spread your risk. Any one drive may die at anytime but the chances of both drives failing within days of one another are pretty slim (could still happen though…nothing is 100% bullet proof).
Check your HD manufacturor’s site for the following spec:
Meantime Between Failures
This is kind a like a half life, it tells you the expected life span of the average drive. This spec will vary by model & manufacturor
That said - if you are worried about losing your data, you should back it up, regardless of the time or cost. Period. From the business side of IT, here is a little cost equation that might help you justify the money: What will it cost you to lose the data? Include the time it will take to replace it. If this figure is more than the cost of the backup media, you have an answer to that question.
You might want to check into a tape drive if other options are not price palatable. Not that a decent tape drive & tapes are cheap either…
Another possible backup medium would be a big hard drive or two. Copy the data over then remove them from the system. Hard disks normally fail from usage or mishandling (dropping, etc.) so if you store them away your data should be safe for a good long time.
If you look at drive failures over the life of the drive, you’ll see a pattern like this: new drives have a lower Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) rate than moderately new drives [these are mostly manufacturing defects], and as the drives age the MTBF starts to go back up [wear and tear].
But really, there is no reasonable time when you are “safe.” For the past three years I’ve been responsible for a data center with about 1800 drives [granted most of these are high RPM SCSI drives, and you said IDE, but in the end a spinning platter, is a spinning platter], and drives will fail at any time.
I was also the backup operator for that data center for some time, and I’ll spare you my “Backup your data for the love of your deity” speech, but I will say that you should seriously consider backing up some of your data. 150 GB is a lot to back up without a tape drive, but you could probably reduce that if you just looked at the stuff that was critical.
If this data was important to me, i’d consider going out and purchasing two 200 gig drives and a removable IDE subsystem (example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2080102314). Then alternating backups on the two drives as often as your backup needs dictate. In this type of setup, the chances that you’ll lose data are very slim.
IDE Raid mirroring is another option, and you’ll ensure that your data is always up to date, i.e. you won’t lose the data between your last backup and your failure. However, in this setup your two drives are always online and always spun-up (wear and tear) and you don’t have the benefit of an offline backup.
Tape backups are too much of a pain to deal with, considerably slower, and can be expensive solutions, especially with the amount of data you’re talking about.
All this talk of failure AT ANY TIME is freaking me out, man.
After the holidays when prices have dropped and I have some money saved up I’m probally going to go the DVD-R route.
I recently learned that computers in general are very unreliable… When I purchased a new PC from Best Buy a few months ago, the friendly sales guy said it had a 42% failure rate, and that it was imperative of me to purchase an extended warranty[sup]a[/sup].
[sup]a[/sup] [sub]True story.[/sub]
What a load of crap. Not your story Crafter_Man but what the Best Buy guy was telling you. If he said that to me I’d ask him what kind of shit they consider it acceptable to sell at BB!
Technically every computer has a 100% failure rate. Sooner or later it will break. The real question is when (or how soon) will it break? The BB computer almost certainly comes with a warranty. You’d have to read it and see what is covered and for how long. Understand that there IS a difference between a $400 bargained price PC and a $1000 PC that has the same or very similar specifications. Part of that price difference will include quality of manufacture. Still…I bought my in-laws a $300 Microcenter cheapo PC three years ago and it’s still working fine.
Understand that stores do not lose money on extended warranties. They make certain that they collect more than they pay out for that warranty. It amounts to an insurance policy for you and you have to decide if it is worth it. If it never breaks you are out the cash…if it breaks 2 days after the manufacturere warranty expires you make out like a bandit.
That’s an understatement If I ever heard one. I used to work at CompUSA, “push the warrantees” was practically the corporate mantra.
Whack-a-Mole: There’s an “I Hate Best Buy” thread in AP where I give the whole story, but yes, the sales jerk really said that.
Needless to say, I told him where he could put his “extended warranty.”
I will never shop at Best Buy Again.