Why even bother!!

[oliver5528]

I bought a WD mybook external hard drive to keep biz data on. I have all artwork, clipart and quikbooks loaded on this. two nights ago started making a clicking noise, so i started backing up onto disks. I got all artwork and some clipart then the drive stopped working. i cannot get my quikbooks info from it. why even bother spending the time to store on external drives in case of computer failure, when external drive crashes first? Lesson learned backup as many places as possible!

 

[msrobere]

I am curious, was it a 500gb, because I just had one do the same thing, not the clicking but it wouldn't show up on my computer no matter what computer i plugged it into. Western Digital sent me a new one but i know the feeling. I use the external as a weekly backup and setup a raid on the server. I used mozy.com a backup service to back up the financial information.
Michael

 

[choucove]

Multiple redundant backups is one of the biggest reasons we are installing file servers capable of doing RAID 10, as well as additional backups either to external drive to be taken off premise, or directly to off premise backups. Quickbooks itself has an option to do automatic off premise backups actually, as it is something our shop has been doing for the past couple years. However, I'm not sure how to go about signing up for it and setting it up.

Having a hard drive crash, especially a new hard drive, is one of the most frustrating things that can happen with your computer. I'm rather surprised to hear a WD hard drive dieing so quickly as they and Seagate are known for being the two best quality out there really. Unfortunately if it really is the actual hard drive that died and not just power connectors or anything, then it can be incredibly expensive to try and retrieve data from it. Still, if it is absolutely dire for your business, look around and see if you can find a computer repair place that at least may know where to send a dead hard drive off to have information recovered.

 

[Jeremy092288]

Solid State Disks!

These fit in your wallet and can't crash...

unless you break it

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...51&storeId=10151&productId=11035418&langId=-1

 

[grafixemporium]

This is definitely a topic that everyone here should spend some time thinking about. I worked in the IT industry on computer hardware for many years and know how devistating it can be to a business when all their data is lost. It happens. The only thing you can do is be prepared... redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

I think portable external hard drives are a bad idea for the general public. Most people don't understand the intricacies of a mechanical hard drive -- as opposed to a flash drive with no moving parts -- and how sensitive they really are. They sell these things now in what appear to be industrial strength cases with rubber bumpers, etc... but no matter how much rubber is around it, drop it once and your data could very well be toast. A hard drive is not something that should be tossed into your backpack or briefcase. There are very delicate moving parts inside that casing. It's a great, fast and very cost-effective backup solution for a small business... but just be careful with it.

Oh... and I've been out of the computer hardware business for nearly 5 years now, but Western Digital was crap then and it's probably crap now. I keep my client and business files as far away from WD and Fujitsu as possible.

Tape drives are a great solution because your data can easily be taken offsite and stored for safe keeping. The problem with putting all your trust in a RAID solution or even an external hard drive is that the data is left onsite and subject to theft, fire, water or surge damage. Who wants to lug a big external hard drive around with them once a week when you want to backup your data.

An even more popular solution these days is online backups. These can be setup to run nightly, so they won't interfere with your day to day grind and you'll always have a safe backup of all your important data stored somewhere offsite. I assure you, whoever is hosting the backup has plenty of redundancy to keep your data safe.

At any rate, Oliver, you are luckier than you think. You had redundancy. Your data is still safe and that's all that matters. Since that backup drive died, hurry up and get a replacement up and running so you can at least have that level of redundancy. Imagine how you'd be feeling right now if that was your business PC's hard drive that started clicking... and you didn't have a backup drive!

Something to think about.

 

[grafixemporium]

Oh... sorry, I think I misunderstood. The external USB hard drive was your only data storage?!? Man, I hope everyone reading this learns from your experience. You might as well stick everything on floppies if that's how you're going to store your data!!

At the very least, keep the original copy of all your data on your PC's hard drive... and backup regularly to your external hard drive.

Preferably, you should have a stand alone file server with 2 drives in a RAID configuration that keeps all your data mirrored on two hard drives (redundancy) and then run a regularly scheduled backup on some external media (more redundancy) like a hard drive, tape drive, DVD, online backup, etc.

In a small business, that file server doesn't have to be anything fancy at all. It doesn't have to be the latest and greatest. It just needs to have a couple of big, high quality hard drives.

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy...

 

[Cadmn]

back in the day I worked on DOD drawings & every file I had was backed up on five 3.5's a day 1 went in safe 1 went home 1 was in my desk & 1 in the bosses desk Over kill I know but at one point a fellow in another division lost his Hd & a fellow employee put as speaker on his desk & on the bosses desk luckily the boss had copied his & put in safe I had waay to many drawings to loose.

 

[Ken]

I have a 500GB external WD drive ( My Book..I think). Twice now the computer won't recognize it. After jumping thru hoops, I just disconneted the USB cable and the power cable ( while "hot") and reconnected them. Win XP found it immediately after the reconnect. Should I be worried?
Thanks...Ken

 

[OldPaint]

i have been doin backups for years. 1st 1.44 floppy, tape drives, iomega ZIP drives.....now REWRITABLE CD'S.
to me the fastest and most reliable.
i have an internal 2nd hard drive, for quick backup......but every couple months i take a REWRITABLE CD...and COPY ONLY THE FILES......to it for my artwork/fonts/graphics
for my QUICKEN...i still do the 1.44 disks....or a REWRITABLE CD.
you dont need to have all the programs on backup..............

 

[onesource]

USB drives work good for what they'll hold

 

[oliver5528]

Oh... sorry, I think I misunderstood. The external USB hard drive was your only data storage?!? Man, I hope everyone reading this learns from your experience. You might as well stick everything on floppies if that's how you're going to store your data

I Have my artwork burned on to dvd-r so i didnt loose all i just forgot my quikbooks file. thanks for the input

 

[The Sign Dude]

Scary! I have a WD book for back up also. maybe I should get a back up for my back up. hmmmm

 

[Mr Peabody]

I had that same problem with a Maxtor, sounded like it needed and oil change, valves started rapping. Had a friend hook it up to his system and there was no data on there. Gone! Burn data to DVD's, put them in a safe place.

 

[Urq]

I think everyone who reads this thread is going to do a back up!

 

[oliver5528]

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!! plugged drive in and it worked! Sure glad I walked away last night without throwing it agaist the wall. Got everything backed up twice today. Looking to online backup services.

 

[signage]

I will give a suggestion on Acronis imaging software for back ups. I you go and look at their site you will see it is very easy to use and gets you back up and running quickly should your main drive fail!

 

[SignsRus]

Raid 5 FTW

A drive fails, you lose no data. You get a nice message letting you know, so you can put in another hd to replace the failed one. Couldn't get any better.

With everyone having high speed internet access nowadays would be easy to setup everyday for your shop to backup to one pc/file server/external hd, and could even go a step further and have it upload that file to a offsite location when it finishes as well.

Also all this can be done without spending gobs of money. You rich mofos stop spending money on things you don't have to. Send a bit my way

 

[Rhino]

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!! plugged drive in and it worked! Sure glad I walked away last night without throwing it agaist the wall. Got everything backed up twice today. Looking to online backup services.

I've was in IT for awhile before coming back to making signs. I've seen a ton of hard drives crash and I agree with grafixemporium about WD being crap. I've just seen too many of them crash.

Here's a little trick that I've learned: If you hear a hard drive "Clicking", get as much info off as you can. If it stops working on you, unplug the HD, wrap it in some plastic (antistatic bag) and place it in the fridge. This will cool the drive down and give you a chance to cool down your self. Plug everything back in and see if you can get some more data. This trick doesn't work every time but it sure is worth the effort..

 

[choucove]

I've heard quite a few people here where I go to school (University of Kansas School of Engineering) that they've had problems with WD external hard drives. Mostly it is what has been stated here, hit and miss if the computer will recognize them when you plug them in. I have a very small notebook-size WD hard drive for backing up my laptop and haven't had these issues with it, but personally I just don't like the brand. I've always gone for Seagate. They have a longer manufacturer's warranty. They are trusted for high-end enterprise systems.

Today, for any business data redundancy is not just an option for some, but a must for everyone. And with the low cost of the technology available to do so, why not? For three hundred dollars you can get two good sized hard drives, one to put in your PC and set up a mirror RAID and one to use as an external drive to take your data off premise, or do an online backup. Three hundred dollars is really nothing when it means you can save everything from the past X years of your business records and your entire livelihood!

I was curious if any others our there also use online backup services. Do you pay "rent" for storage through another company's online file server, or do you own your own storage someplace off site to do your backups?

 

[jtrainor56]

For those of you that use USB flash drives and think they don't crash, they can and do! Keep pulling them out of your computer without shutting down and they will crash. Also, remember that tapes go bad, CD's can be unreadable and as you all know hard drives crash. Setting up backups in rotation can save you. Been in the IT field since 1981, still in it but am tired of it, but it pays the bills.... the place I work at now, we support alot of servers for different customers and all are backed up nightly, 7 days a week with two weeks worth before starting over. In addition all servers are backed up monthly, at 6 months and yearly and all tapes are kept in an off site facility. AND we still have backups that can't be recovered!