Computer problems & advice FAQ

[jonny72]

(250GB: that made me smile i tell you.)

Just over 10 years ago I worked on the storage systems at a large credit card company, I ran a project which reduced our disk storage usage by 100Gb. You might laugh now but back then 100Gb of enterprise storage had a list price of about $500k (if I remember correctly and the articles I just checked are correct).

[Dazzza]

Just the job that Si and cheers all. 

I've always been hap-hazard with data despite seeing the perils all to often of not backing stuff up.  I think fate owes me a dead hard drive.

[Simon Pieman]

The other option if your pc will do it is to add another drive to it which is the same as the other one and then setup RAID. This means you have a perfect mirror of the other drive should it fail. Would be the cheapest option but only if your pc supports it.

[Talk Talk]

If you keep two backups now, where do you keep them? If you've got them both in the same house as your computer that is a massive fail - one of them should be kept elsewhere and updated once a week or so.

Fucking hell. What, for home data?

Either you are amassing the world's definitive porn collection or you are keeping the books up to date for the mob...

[Peter Venkman]

Fucking hell. What, for home data?

Either you are amassing the world's definitive porn collection or you are keeping the books up to date for the mob...

I have to agree Alan, all I backup is my music and documents and pictures....which with 10,000 music tracks still only comes to 200gb, all I do is periodically store it on my spare pair of 320gb (£30 each) drives, say once a month.....hard drives are so bloody cheap and most PC's can have 4 or even up to 8 sata disk drives.

[Samdy Gray]

I too have never backed up a HDD *touches wood*.

I've been thinking of getting a NAS for a while so that I can stream stuff to my laptop, desktop and PS3.

[Barry Scott]

If you keep two backups now, where do you keep them? If you've got them both in the same house as your computer that is a massive fail - one of them should be kept elsewhere and updated once a week or so.

Come one Jonny, that's seriously paranoid! There are 2 drives in the NAS, which is mirrored RAID, so 2 copies there. Sure, that could go tits up, explode or my house could burn down, but i think losing my data will be the least of my worries should something of life ruining proportions destroy my data.

And no it's not porn. There's porn in there, of course, but very little. It's mainly high quality audio and video, which as anyone knows who deals with those formats, 250GB (although my backups are actually nearly 350GB now) is fuck all. I'm lucky i never got into downloading mp3s or movies, so my need to backup is often monthly or after i know something major has changed.

[jonny72]

It's not paranoid, just sensible and if you read my previous post you'll see I used to do this for a living which explains it in part as well. It all depends on the level of protection you want, if you could cope with losing all of your data then keeping a backup outside your home isn't necessary - but you should give some thought to all the data you'd be losing and whether you really could cope without it.

At minimum you should keep backups in a different room to your computer, which gives a bit of extra protection for practically zero effort. The ideal solution is having a drive in another location connected over the internet that you can copy an extra backup to, unfortunately upload speeds are so slow still this is normally not practical.

I actually don't back up any of my porn as its easy to replace / recreate, except for the home movies of course which are kept in triplicate. But other data I just couldn't live without, I don't keep any paperwork for example (I scan everything and then bin it) so it's all on my computer and I'd be screwed without it.

[Barry Scott]

It's not paranoid, just sensible and if you read my previous post you'll see I used to do this for a living which explains it in part as well. It all depends on the level of protection you want, if you could cope with losing all of your data then keeping a backup outside your home isn't necessary - but you should give some thought to all the data you'd be losing and whether you really could cope without it.

At minimum you should keep backups in a different room to your computer, which gives a bit of extra protection for practically zero effort. The ideal solution is having a drive in another location connected over the internet that you can copy an extra backup to, unfortunately upload speeds are so slow still this is normally not practical.

I actually don't back up any of my porn as its easy to replace / recreate, except for the home movies of course which are kept in triplicate. But other data I just couldn't live without, I don't keep any paperwork for example (I scan everything and then bin it) so it's all on my computer and I'd be screwed without it.

When i lost all my info previously i was properly distraught, but it's kinda good sometimes, an enforced clean slate if you like. I enjoy a bit of challenge and losing shit i feel i can't lose, is certainly that, but i coped last time and i'll do it again!

Being completely honest though, the only things that really, really matter i have backed up to several DVDs, so i'd never be completely lost. I think.

[Only Me]

It's not paranoid, just sensible and if you read my previous post you'll see I used to do this for a living which explains it in part as well. It all depends on the level of protection you want, if you could cope with losing all of your data then keeping a backup outside your home isn't necessary - but you should give some thought to all the data you'd be losing and whether you really could cope without it.

At minimum you should keep backups in a different room to your computer, which gives a bit of extra protection for practically zero effort. The ideal solution is having a drive in another location connected over the internet that you can copy an extra backup to, unfortunately upload speeds are so slow still this is normally not practical.

I actually don't back up any of my porn as its easy to replace / recreate, except for the home movies of course which are kept in triplicate. But other data I just couldn't live without, I don't keep any paperwork for example (I scan everything and then bin it) so it's all on my computer and I'd be screwed without it.

I know what you are saying, but I still think that is well OTT.  But, hey, it's your choice.

[Bogus Dave]

Not a problem as such, but I had an issue with my laptop earlier. I put the wrong end of my phone cable into the USB port, and the laptop just stopped. Switch off completely. No shit down, just went black and stopped. ANd then it wouldn't turn on for a good 5 minutes.

It works fine now, but i'm a bit perplexed as to why it happened. Reckon i might have short circuited something??

[jayohaitchenn]

short circuit??

Dog! Hound! MUTT! Beeeeaaasssssssley...

[Doore]

. No shit down, just went black and stopped.

You have more of a problem if your computer usually shits down.

[Talk Talk]

Not a problem as such, but I had an issue with my laptop earlier. I put the wrong end of my phone cable into the USB port, and the laptop just stopped. Switch off completely. No shit down, just went black and stopped. ANd then it wouldn't turn on for a good 5 minutes.

It works fine now, but i'm a bit perplexed as to why it happened. Reckon i might have short circuited something??

The IT equivalent of someone poking a finger in your eye.

It hurts for a few minutes and then goes away.

[flammableBen]

Hey yeovil babe, can't you unsticky this now there appears to be some computer forum?

It looks messy and my forum ocd is crying.