Most reliable memory system, for backup, and best media?

[Santilli]

Well, it's that time of year.

SO decided to redo resume, stored, of couse :evil: , on a floppy.

I back her documents folder up every month, but, if it's not in the folder, it doesn't get backed up.

Never fails: deadline, either school, work, or job apps,and the floppy fails, unreadable, and the project goes to shit, right after you redo the entire thing.

She uses WordPerfect 8, and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to turn on the auto backup feature, providing it has one.

Any suggestions on a better media then floppies for portable backup?

What are the chances of memory stick failure?

Thanks

GS

 

[Mercutio]

I made everyone in my office switch to Thumb drives a while back. 1GB is not too expensive and easily portable. Get her one of those stretchy clip-things if she's forgetful (like what people use for their apartment keys) - she can attach one end to her purse or something.

I carry a 1GB Transcend thumb drive and a 2GB Sandisk. I sit on them, drop them (not on purpose), left them out in freezing cold or sweltering heat for a couple days at a time, spilled water on them... They're pretty rugged.

 

[P5-133XL]

May I suggest a USB 2.0 external notebook hard drive. The USB for hot-swapability. the 2.0 for speed. The notebook drive for reliability: External drives may get bumped around some. While flash drives are theoritically reliabile, I've found that notebook drives are better.

 

[sechs]

USB thumb drives are the new floppy. They seem to be just as reliable, if not moreso.

SanDisk has a titanium series that's pretty indestructible. I saw a demonstration video where they ran one over with a car, and were still able to use it.

 

[mubs]

She uses WordPerfect 8, and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to turn on the auto backup feature, providing it has one.

I don't remember which menu the Preferences or Settings option is. Once there, the Files option then the Document tab should have the option for automatic timed backup.

Get her OEM version 12 from here for $7 + tax + shipping.

 

[MaxBurn]

+1 on the thumb drive. They are irreplaceable these days, if not using them already you will wonder what you did before you had it. Of course anything important save it in more than one place in case you loose the little bugger.

 

[Adcadet]

How about backing up important documents to a Gmail account? Or at least emailing to a trusted colleague?

 

[Santilli]

She uses WordPerfect 8, and I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to turn on the auto backup feature, providing it has one.

I don't remember which menu the Preferences or Settings option is. Once there, the Files option then the Document tab should have the option for automatic timed backup.

Get her OEM version 12 from here for $7 + tax + shipping.

Well, you got me thinking, and I ordered the new version.
Also, went searching and found a service pack 6 for WordPerfect 8.0.
It works, backsup, which it wasn't doing before, even though the settings were correct to make it back up.

So far, seems better. I think I'm going to buy one of those 5 packs of
256 mb sticks, and hope she doesn't loose one, or, if she does, she has another. I've been using them for awhile, and I just put it in my wallet, and I'm fine.

Anyway, Folding @ Home seems to really screw up WP 8, by using the entire processor, and not giving it up. My fault on the settings. Set Folding @ higher then lowest priority, and that's what was creating the problems. I'm pretty sure that's what was pissing me off about this machine being a bit slow when Folding@Home was running.
Just reset to "lowest priority" and we'll see if that gets rid of the lag.

GS

 

[Mercutio]

Loose = opposite of tight.
Lose = opposite of win, present tense of "lost"

Man, why can't people keep that one straight?

 

[Santilli]

HNY!

 

[LOST6200]

Loose = opposite of tight.
Lose = opposite of win, present tense of "lost"

Man, why can't people keep that one straight?

Whya can;t anyone write of understand proper english? It is terribly difculut finding any competent workers. If I ssee they're, there and their used interchangebvley by the ignorant one more time I will scream!!

 

[Tannin]

I have trouble with that one. Only way I can remember loose and lose is to ask Tea. (She spellz "lose" with a "z", of course - "looze".)

The one that drives me absolutely stark, raving bonkers is people who can't pronounce "kilometre". Every time I hear it spoken as "kil-om-et-er" instead of the obviously and demonstrably correct "kill-o-meter" I want to strangle the dimwit. If they don't want to learn to talk properly, they should keep their traps shut.

 

[Santilli]

I just figure it's a typo, and move on.

I'm looking, AGAIN, at a removeable media drive for backups, in either SATA, Firewire, or USB.

It's driving my NUTS. Firewire I have, and barely use, on all three of the computers where this backup issue is a concern. Two of the three are running short on USB ports, and, only one has on board SATA, IIRC.

The firewire removeable drive solutions from GD are about 200 bucks, just for the external housing.

Firewire direct seems to be a bit cheaper, but, they look it.

If I buy an external firewire/usb2 housing, I then have to find Samsung drives, thanks to Tea.

It would be nice to have interchangeable drives, in an external housing, that's portable.

In the back of my mind, I'm wondering if going SATA might be the answer. If I could find a combo card, with SATA, Firewire, USB, that would be cool...

s

 

[P5-133XL]

I've never seen external SATA, though I've heard about it. Good luck. I think you are stuck getting some USB hubs.

 

[P5-133XL]

Now, there is external SCSI for those with deep pockets.

 

[Santilli]

This is supposed to be a heap backup, for large video files...


http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg38_firewireidehotswapdrive1394b.htm

Looks good, but, it's expensive, and can't use sata drives.

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg47_hot-swapdrivessystems.htm

Looks very cool, but would require new cards, in already crowded machines, except for one, which has it onboard.

Here's an external SATA setup:

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg57_sata-universalcasesys.htm

that looks pretty cool.

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg51_hot-swapinternalsystem.htm

This looks like by far the cheapest, and future oriented. 60 bucks and I can use SATA drives as they get cheaper. Also, card is only 50 bucks. I have a bay open, and, I think I might have one more PCI slot avaliable.
The Sonnett card is wasted in here, since it's ATA/USB2 port/Firewire2 port.


Can't make up my mind....

s

 

[P5-133XL]

Ahh, you mean SATA carriers.

I thought you meant a SATA card with an external port that you would plug into a external drive case containing one or more SATA drives.

 

[Santilli]

So far, can't find a combo card that has external SATA.

Startech makes one with 4 USB 2.0, 2 furwire, and, 2 SATA internal ports, for about 80 bucks.

https://www.firewiredirect.com/store/product.php?productid=232&cat=53&page=1

Appears to be an external box, with removeable drives, but, it doesn't say much about caddies, or, much period. Takes Sata drives for 10 dollars more then the 150 dollar price tag.



https://www.firewiredirect.com/store/product.php?productid=57&cat=35&page=1

This card gives you 3 external USB 2.0, one more then I have currently,
two Firewire 1394b, and one each internal, it appears.

Don't know how good Nitro is.

Have to search.

gs

 

[mubs]

Sheesh, Greg, you're going off the deep end again. Go with USB thumbdrives, they'd be the cheapest, easiest, quickest, most practical solution for the needs you have right now.

 

[Santilli]

Sheesh, Greg, you're going off the deep end again. Go with USB thumbdrives, they'd be the cheapest, easiest, quickest, most practical solution for the needs you have right now.

M:
I'm really not THAT far off the deepend. We have an extensive video library, since we don't watch TV, or have cable.

I've got a 5 drive SCA rack, but, it appears the only way I can get the LSI raid card to see the drives is to set them as "logical drives" in the bios.

If the card go's south, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to recover the data from the drives.

Should check LSI on the Megaraid cards for this. Have to give them a call.

So, I have large files, in the 6-10 gig range, school backup stuff, etc.
that need to be backed up out of the machines. SO's backup is now two DVD's, and growing.

I'm getting to the point where large volume, reliable storage would be very nice, and, an external box, with easily removeable trays would be a nice solution.

Also, I'm running out of USB ports on my server, becuase the onboard
cable they gave me won't reach the back of the computer, and I can't find a replacement.

For moving stuff from school to home, the USB flash drives are perfect, or, I can use the CD burner at school.

That brings up another problem. I've got a USB 2 DVD burner at school, external, but, the current card doesn't support 2.0, so it's pretty much worthless for burning DVD's.

That Startech card with SATA/USB2/Firewire is looking better all the time...

GS

 

[mubs]

This thread started out looking to back up WordPerfect docs, but seems to have morphed into a full-scale backup thread....I'll bow-out now.

 

[Santilli]

This thread started out looking to back up WordPerfect docs, but seems to have morphed into a full-scale backup thread....I'll bow-out now.

M, No worries. It's just I go through this every year about this time :wink: .

I'm going to go with throwing away the floppies, and going with the flash drives.

Problem with Startech is no reviews on products, and can't find history on the company...

GS

 

[CougTek]

Regarding the thumbdrives, the Corsair Flash Voyager gets my vote. It's reasonably fast (for both reading and writing : USB drives that can write at decent speed are rare). It's cheaper than the other fast thumbdrives like the Sandisk Titanium, Kingston DataTraveler Elite, Verbatim Store'N Go Pro and Lexar Lightning. It matches the SanDisk titanium for durability. Its shell is made of rubber so it bounces when dropped (or thrown) and it is water-proof.

The only drawback is that its cap is easy to lose, because it is a bit loose.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks CT.

Have to check Costco for the USB drives. Seems I saw a 5 pack, and didn't
jump on it, which is usually a mistake.

Anybody used StarTech's SATA/USB2.0/Firewire card, or ANY of their products?

Can't find any reviews, except the mac side, where they are being hailed as wonderful, since they don't seem to have the usual MacTax.

gs

 

[Santilli]

Update:

Went with a StarTech 6 port USB card for the school computer, 12 dollars, and a Combo for the workstation. I'll pull the Sonnett Trio
and use that instead.

Newegg had 250 gig Maxtors for 135 dollars, in an external drive enclosure.
Hopefully, using USB 2.0, that will give me a removeable backup for the other room, and the floppies are going to be copied over, and moved to memory sticks.

I'll wait for grabbing removeable SATA stuff for this machine, until, well, we'll see how quickly the 250 gig fills up.

Sincerely

Greg