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xo Site Admin
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Joined: 09 Feb 2002 Posts: 466 Location: Los Angeles [comcast]
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 9:43 am Post subject: I'm bummin' |
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So I lost my hard drive yesterday. I'm having a string of bad luck and this the 4th hard drive I've lost over the past month or so. The 1st 3 were non-essential (2 new systems, 1 backup drive), but this one was my primary workstation drive at home.
20-30 GB media gone, the usual stuff in a holding pattern waiting to be burned. I don't even know fully what I've lost yet, but I know some of it goes back a ways.
Anyway, I bring this up so that if you see me making a request in the near future, you might have some pity on me .
Oh, and I'm without a computer/net access for the moment so if I'm tardy in responding or what not, this will be why.
GAAAHHHH!
-xo |
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Kai-Jinn
Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 68
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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What kind / how old was it?
Do you know what you lost? |
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(inc)
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Joined: 18 Feb 2002 Posts: 356 Location: San Diego
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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I know what you're feeling xo. My anime *transition* drive went last Demember and I'm still discovering things that I thought I had that were actually lost. Let me know if I can help you refill...
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Melchior
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Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 190 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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While my posting abilities these days are pretty restricted, if I've got a handful of discs' worth of videos that you lost, send me an email and I'll snail-mail you something (discs are cheap, postage on CDs is cheap).
My mostly-up-to-date list is available here: http://www.japanese-animation.net/temp/melchior_list.xls
From an email I sent off not long ago, here's a list of mostly-uncatalogued stuff (I'm current with whatever eps have been posted in the last month):
SERIES NAME (HIGHEST EPISODE NUMBER AVAILABLE)
Agent Aika (4, complete)
Animatrix (3)
Asagiri no Miko (18)
Cat's Eye (45)
Combustible Campus Guardress (4, complete)
Dragon Drive (36)
Farscape (live-action sci-fi; S2x14, I'm enjoying this series)
Flames of Recca (18)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (14)
Hajime no Ippo (57, a damn good series)
Hikaru no Go (71, a damn good series)
Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu Deluxe (4)
Kaze no Yojimbo (14, this series very quickly hit my favourites list)
Lupin III (S1x09, S2x06)
Sexy Commando Masaru (24)
Slam Dunk (87)
Tenshi na Konamaiki (21)
Whistle (31)
Wolf's Rain (11)
Yuyu Hakusho (32) |
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Gorunova
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Joined: 10 Feb 2002 Posts: 318 Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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My condolences on your loss.
Could it be that you have bad power conditioning in your area? It's remarkable to have such a streak of drive failures. I wouldn't be surprised if it's something about your environment - electrical or otherwise - that is killing them. |
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Guest
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Posted: Wed May 07, 2003 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the offers of help - I may hit you guys up some time. Something that was always on the back of my mind was "I should crontab something that dumps a list of my files regularly". 5 second task that I never got around to, and now I can't remember exactly what I've lost. Newer series I'll be reminded of as episodes come out. Older stuff? Probably when I want to go watch them...
The drive was a 40GB IBM Deskstar, I've had it for about 16 months and had been happy with it until Monday.
Like I said, this was the 4th bad drive for me in a month. The first two were on two servers I was setting up at work. Close to being DOA, no big deal. 3rd drive was a 10GB I stored backups of my (small) documents, that went bad about 2 weeks ago, I dug up a 4GB unit to replace it and had just gotten around to setting up my nightly backups about a week ago.
All machines - the servers at work and my home box- are attached to UPSs, so I'm inclined to think electrical problems aren't at fault here, although I agree at first glance that seemed suspicious. Most of the time, I'm inclined to believe some kinda of personal aura is playing havoc, and have become quite paranoid.
I'm mostly set up with a new drive now (WD800), a little bigger, but I'm nervous now. I think RAID 1 is in my future.
To be honest - most of my really important documents (ie my personal documents) I had backed up, so I can't say the loss was devastating. Still, while I won't die from lack of anime or music (and I certainly have more than I "consume" for years), I hate that it happened.
What do you guys do about backups/defending against these scenarios? With consumer drives having long outstripped consumer backup solutions, I'm kinda stumped (other than the RAID 1 thought).
-xo |
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snoopynme
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Joined: 14 May 2002 Posts: 39 Location: ~ IRC ~
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 8:11 am Post subject: |
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When my drives go bad, it's usually bad sector(s). That usually affects only one or two files, so it was never too difficult to recover/replace, while I copy over all of the good files onto another drive leaving the bad file(s) alone as those end up choking the system if I even attempt to access it.
Burn burn burn often... when desperate, just mix and match. When preferred groups are extra slow in releasing, burn the releases of the other groups first and worry about cdr comsumption later. >.>;;; |
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Melchior
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Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 190 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 10:58 am Post subject: |
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With my drives, I usually swap them out after a year or so of service-- sure, it's a bit more expensive than keeping the drive until it fails, but it's less-likely that I'll find myself stuck with a dying drive. Either that, or I swap it out into a less-critical computer at the first sign of bearing trouble-- the moment a drive starts whining, it's out of my main machine, and I do a mega-burn of all the unburned anime.
Of note is that whenever I replace a drive, I keep all the old data on it until I get rid of the drive-- it may be a month or a year until I sell or donate the drive to somebody, and at that point I format it. |
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Gorunova
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Joined: 10 Feb 2002 Posts: 318 Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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The IBM Deathstar drives have a bad reputation. The older batch, anyway.
I've never lost a drive. My first hard drive (now 10 years old, but only in service for about 6 or 7 years) suffered a physical head crash and lost a bunch of sectors, but still works today. None of my other dozen or so drives has ever burped even once, and some of them have been running almost 24/7 for three years now without any special power conditioning.
I heavily favor Maxtor drives, but Quantum is also very good. Seagate and IBM drives are OK, but I wouldn't pay money for one. I would never buy a Fujitsu or Western Digital drive.
My backup strategy is to keep everything mirrored somewhere. Everything I have is stored in two places - typically one online and one offline. Important personal data is also backed up at a friend's place (encrypted of course).
I used to use floppies for backups. When I got to around a thousand 1.44MB disks, I switched to CDRs. Now that I'm getting near a thousand of those, I'm considering moving to hard drives or DVDRs.
For downloads, I have a hard disk set aside as a buffer for things to burn.
I have a subdirectory for each category of disk (anime, cartoons, software, personal files, music etc), and when I've downloaded enough
into one of those buffers to burn a CDR, I do so immediately.
The only things I don't back up are anime and cartoons. I don't have enough storage to keep them online, and backing up would be too expensive and too much effort. Besides, I'll be getting the DVDs of the good series one day anyway. |
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Kai-Jinn
Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 68
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2003 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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Most people are wary of Maxtor and favor Western Digital instead, I am surprised to see a thread that favored Maxtor =P I bought one a while back though, mainly because its cheap storage and WD prices for the same drive were insane. |
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(inc)
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Joined: 18 Feb 2002 Posts: 356 Location: San Diego
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 8:59 am Post subject: |
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I really think that 24/7 is the key -- most HD crashes I've seen have occurred on startup, unless there are heat related problems.
And, yup, I'm still running a 75G Deskstar GXP75, purchased when they first came out, as one of my drives...
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snoopynme
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Joined: 14 May 2002 Posts: 39 Location: ~ IRC ~
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 10:57 am Post subject: |
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I thought I've seen more complain about WD drives failing on them. But that was a while ago, at least not since the JB series (not sure about the BB ones).
I bought mainly Maxtor because they send you the replacement drive first before you send your bad one back. And I still do buy them unless I want a 3 yr warranty, in which case, I'd have to pay a little more and get the WD JB series.
I've really been using up my warranties... So happy that I got a 60 gig Hitachi out of the 45 gig IBM Deskstar that I had to RMA due to a bad sector (the usual). Upgrades at the cost of shipping and one or two bad files--I don't mind that kind of a trade at all. *knock on wood*
Maxtor also gave me "upgrades" before when I needed replacements.
Sometimes you just need to lose a little in order to gain a little more ![Razz](images/smiles/icon_razz.gif) |
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Neuralblastoma
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Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 109 Location: Ottawa Ontario Canada
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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I'm also sorry for your loss xo. However, I'm here to defend Western Digital.
Gorunova wrote: | I would never buy a Fujitsu or Western Digital drive.
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You're putting Fujitsu and Western Digital in the same league?! That's beyond unfair.
I've had a 15GB WD for 2.5 years and recently bought an 80GB WD with an 8MB cache. I've had no problems with either.
I understand WD had a bad reputation a few years ago, but I imagine it was a few years ago when they deserved it.
Whenever my 15GB drive needs replacing, or I decide I need a third hard-drive, it will be a WD. |
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Gorunova
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Joined: 10 Feb 2002 Posts: 318 Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada
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Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I'm glad to hear WD is pulling their socks up. I have a nice stack of dead WD drives that other people have given me for parts. They all died of the same cause - some kind of malfunction in the control logic that causes the heads to repeatedly bash against the stop.
Needless to say I wasn't impressed with WD. But that was back in the pre-500MB days, so I guess it's possible they have improved since then.
I mean, look at what happened to Goldstar! The name used to mean "Avoid at all costs" but now that they've retooled and renamed themselves to LG, they actually make high quality stuff. My LG CDR has way outlasted the HP drive I had before, and I have several friends who are happy with their LG monitors. |
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xo Site Admin
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Joined: 09 Feb 2002 Posts: 466 Location: Los Angeles [comcast]
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Posted: Sat May 10, 2003 10:40 am Post subject: |
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I've become somewhat agnostic about HD manufacturers. The first drive I ever had die was a WD, a few years ago (ca 1999?) and till recently, I swore off of them for that reason only - in >10 years of computers with hard drives, they were the first to fail me (well, except for the Miniscribe in my Mac SE way back when, but it was really old I had stopped using it any way).
WD also had a spottier reputation then as some of you have noted. I think it's become better now.
The 4 drives over the last month were 2 Maxtors, a Quantum, and the Deskstar. When I went to pick up the replacement, I chose the WD because frankly, it was the cheapest, and my current opinion is that all drives nowadays suck because they manufacturers are in an arms race to make huge drives and move as many units as possible, both factors at odds with reliability. So it doesn't matter too much and I have to take my own measures. Sounds like some of you have already come to this conclusion anyway.
-xo |
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