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On the bright side, I now have enough spare multi-TB drives that I've started using them in a RAID-10 setup for my VM host.
I'm amazed that still doesn't even come close, in terms of performance, to a single SSD, but not all my VMs need that kind of speed.
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Download TestDisk it's free and will recover your files from drives windows does not like.
It's a DOS program with a horrible interface but oh man it has saved our behinds more than a couple of times.
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For the future. Do not buy drives from the same batch (close manufacture date), rather rotate them with skips of 6-12 month. Drives used in same environment have the same life span and will fail at the same time...
I also advise to use hardware RAID with 3 disk in it (at least) it will not only save backup time, but save offline time too.
Swap out drive at the defined point-in-time even not faulty...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Don't scrap it, scrub it, wipe-it, re-interleave it, etc.
Take it out of the case, and try it in something like this[^] (or in a spare slot in a PC, if you've got one).
Of the five external drives that have failed on me, three of them were the case, not the drive.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Take it out of the case
Although this is not the case here, it's still worth a reminder: A lot of USB enclosures nowadays will do their own on-the-fly encryption - the standard SATA drive gets hooked up to a small PCB that does the encryption, and the connector on the other end of the PCB is what provides the external power/USB interface. So if you take the drive out of the enclosure, the drive is unreadable.
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So just label pop it in the disc bay thingy with a label inscribed "Imperialist Targets", then set it within view of your PC or laptop camera, and the nice people in the government will decrypt it for you.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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dandy72 wrote: I'm the guy who buys drives in sets of 4...one live, one offline backup sitting next to the computer, another backup at the office (I swap drives once a month), and one more spare blank drive ready to go the moment one of the other ones fails. That's for my important stuff.
What do you have against using a RAID?
Jeremy Falcon
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I'm not anti-RAID, but I'm a firm believer that keeping duplicates of everything is a waste of time and space.
I keep everything personal and important in specific directories, that are backed up in a perhaps complicated, but easy to set up, pattern.
Storing multiple copies of an operating system and program files seems like a total waste, to me.
The files that are important to me will open on any operating system, and in any number of programs, so why dedicate 200x more space than they require to storing OS and {PF} stuff that is transient?
If I want to move my important files to a new machine, it takes a couple of minutes (and only a few seconds to add a back-up routine to the mesh of back-up routines that already exist).
Sorting out what to retain from a full system copy can take days.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: I'm not anti-RAID, but I'm a firm believer that keeping duplicates of everything is a waste of time and space.
I keep everything personal and important in specific directories, that are backed up in a perhaps complicated, but easy to set up, pattern.
Storing multiple copies of an operating system and program files seems like a total waste, to me.
You don't have to have a RAID for your system volume. You can always create a volume that's specific for storage that's backed by a RAID.
That being said, there is a valid use case for backing up the system volume, you'd like to recover in the event of a failure sooner than later. Some people would like to get back to work rather than go through the pain of reinstalling everything, and updating patches, etc. again. To each their own, but it's a valid use case.
Anyway, RAID was designed to handle what you're doing. If you have 4 drives laying around, you could always have one for the system and 3 for the storage as a RAID 5. All your installed OSes will still have access to the volume just so long as it's a hardware RAID you're using.
Mark_Wallace wrote: Sorting out what to retain from a full system copy can take days.
Guess that all depends on how you organize your files bro.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: To each their own, but it's a valid use case
Granted, but for me, installing a new system happens much more often than having to reinstall a previous system because of failure (i.e. the latter has never happened, in over thirty years of intensive computer usage), so storing a system via raid is a complete waste of everything.
That's what shadow copies and images are for, if you're really paranoid -- but just ensuring the safety of the comparatively few files that are actually of value to you is way more important (and leads to fewer compatibility problems).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Well yeah sure, but restoring from a shadow copy of a backup isn't as *pure* as the exact state before the crash that you'd get with RAID. Anyway, to each their own. If system files ain't no important to you, then don't back them up. Just don't tell MS, they may cry. I mean, at least backup notepad. It's such a useful app.
Jeremy Falcon
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I'm really glad we had this discussion, because it's reminded me to amend my registry-chunk-extractor script for my win tablet.
I'd have been severely cheesed off if the drive had failed, or something, and I'd been unable to restore my program settings.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Glad I could help, yay for CP.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: What do you have against using a RAID?
I'm not really after redundancy here, or looking at improving performance, so RAID doesn't offer me much in this context. I'm not going to make the mistake assuming that RAID == backup.
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dandy72 wrote: I'm not going to make the mistake assuming that RAID == backup
But neither does keeping a spare drive around in case one crashes. Again, tomato vs tomahto. But this problem has already been solved.
Jeremy Falcon
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There's some intrinsic beauty to you're plan.
I don't know what it is but I know it's there.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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It's genius madness?! 
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We decided at work today that an ideal password is "case-insensitive".
If you l33t it a bit, it will meet any stupid requirements.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I vote for "Case-Sensitive". It's like "case-insensitive", but all the cool kids are using it.
Jeremy Falcon
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I don't mix with the cool kids; they're just followers.
But you make a good point, so I'll go with "case-desensitised".
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I always thought of people making up password rules as insensitive in any case 
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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This is one of the many reasons I wrote the article :
Destroy All Passwords: Never Memorize A Password Again[^]
Why not draw your password?
I agree with you about never remembering the password again and just requesting a new one each time.
The most secure password is known by no one.
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