I'd like to hear opinions

[Amano]

antidrugue: calisse...

Linux is running like a DREAM now; all those problems were the hard drive's fault. I take back my criticisms about Linux being unpredictable (since they had nothing to do with Linux at all) and begin to actually form an opinion as of today now that I have a normal system.

[burntfuse]

Glad to hear it!

[bigtomrodney]

I'm fit to kill. Fingals mention of backups reminded me that I hadn't backed anything up in a month or so, so I turned on my external HD to create the usual tarballs. Nothing happened. I thought it must be plugged out as I bought a surge protector recently, but it wasn't that. I even had a spare adapter of the same voltage and polarity but no dice. So my disk is dead. It's a Freecom but I'm pretty sure that the internal disk was a Maxtor.

Sick I am.

[fingal]

I'm fit to kill. Fingals mention of backups reminded me that I hadn't backed anything up in a month or so, so I turned on my external HD to create the usual tarballs. Nothing happened. I thought it must be plugged out as I bought a surge protector recently, but it wasn't that. I even had a spare adapter of the same voltage and polarity but no dice. So my disk is dead. It's a Freecom but I'm pretty sure that the internal disk was a Maxtor.

Sick I am.

Oh no! :-*( I think it's time to start thinking about file servers. I think a dedicated machine with RAID and SSH access would be in order. I have no idea how to go ahead (problems with time and other resources) but sounds like a good idea.

I hope you get your data back ... somehow?

[bigtomrodney]

I hope you get your data back ... somehow?

My thoughts are that if I keep punching it and shouting it'll eventually talk

[fingal]

My thoughts are that if I keep punching it and shouting it'll eventually talk

He he ... Works for me.

[Roxoff]

That's cool ... How do you handle backups Roxoff? Do you have a separate machine to copy files over to? And do you run backups as Cron jobs? I've just never got into it as I've got GBs of data to protect ... This is classic lazy desktop user's syndrome.

There's got to be a 'best practice' solution for that somewhere, for those of us who don't want to run big iron servers in our bedrooms.

My backups have been strictly ad-hoc. I have some documents that I need to keep copies of (and I keep copies of these synced on my laptop and desktop) but I dont have any policies, and I dont keep big backups.

Its a home user system, if the kids lose copies of their email then tough ****. If the missus loses the high scores to whatever desktop widget game she has been, then I dont care. But if I lose my Neverwinter Nights characters on my server vault, then I'll go nuts... Better go back those up right now.

Having said all that I just got (literally a week ago) a second hand tape unit and scsi card. If i can just get that working, then I can automate documents (and NWN characters) backup onto a tape overnight. Of course, the law of electronic demise would come into play - the hardware it's all running on now has a life expetancy of just less than the time it'll take me to set up this tape drive.

[fingal]

My backups have been strictly ad-hoc...

Sounds okay to me. I thought about pensioning off my current desktop box, building a new one and using the old machine for similar ad-hoc backups. I would just need to copy over my old files to the new machine.

The more I think about it the more I think, 'Arrrrgh! I can't be bothered!' But a new box would be fun, even if it takes me 6 months to build it in between working and other stuff. There are plenty of issues to deal with there ... like replacing the Maxtor with something else.