I need to back up my data, what is the best solution?

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thsu01 · #1 Post by **thsu01** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:41 pm

The hard drive (7K60) in my five month old T42p crashed last month. I have to send the hard drive out for data recovery. The prive tag was nearly $2,000 (talking about the quality and stability of IBM Thinkpad?). I am looking for a good way to back up my data, just in case that it happened again. Is it a good idea to get another 7K60 with USB? Or should I buy another slim adaptor for the hard drivedrive? Could anyone make suggestion wht is the best media to use for my T42p?

Thank you in advance!

T42p
2373KYU

craigg · #2 Post by **craigg** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:01 pm

I have been using a 7K60 for about 18 months with no problems. With that being said, I suggest you make an image of your drive at least on a monthly basis. I use Acronis True Image for backup. It creates an exact image of your hard drive and in my opinion it is the best imaging product on the market. I have a few extra 2.5" drives here so in the event of a failure I can usually be back up within an hour. With Acronis you can back your data up to either dvd, tape, or an external hard drive. With hard drives being so cheap now there is no reason not to backup.

thsu01 · #3 Post by **thsu01** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:20 pm

Can anyone tell me what I should be buying? A hard drive? What kind of hard drive? A flash memory key?

Thanks!

#4 Post by **aamsel** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:29 pm

A flash memory key is much too small for hard drive backup.
A USB hard drive (external) is the easiest solution, but you also need Ghost or Acronis True Image (for an image) or a backup software program for a backup. An image is (in theory) the easiest to restore.
If you have a desktop PC with lots of free space, or a tape drive, you can backup your Thinkpad to it across your home network.

I don't think that your hard drive crashing says anything about the quality and stability of the Thinkpad whatsoever. Hard drives will die, it is just a matter of when.

Andrew
Austin, TX

thsu01 wrote:Can anyone tell me what I should be buying? A hard drive? What kind of hard drive? A flash memory key?

Thanks!

The Weissman · #5 Post by **The Weissman** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:45 pm

I second the vote for Acronis True Image. Norton Ghost and Powerquest Drive Image are other packages of the same kind that are also good, but I prefer Acronis.

On a go-forward basis, consider partitioning your hard drive into two sections: a "C" drive for Windows and all your programs, and a "D" drive for all your documents and user files.

Make an image of the C drive right after you re-load, to keep an image of a pristine running system, that you can restore after the next system crash.

Periodically make images of the D drive because that's your stuff, and you want to preserve it.

What should you back up to? Hopefully you have a burner...a CDR or a DVDR would be best.

(On my laptop, I also have an "E" drive, where "D" is all my business stuff and "E" is all my personal stuff.)

Steve

FrankK-F · #6 Post by **FrankK-F** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:30 am

A full HDD crash for me means folding my tent .. an economic catastrophy.

Thus I have 3 identical Hitachi 72K60 HDDs -- and I use Norton Ghost-2003 via DOS to clone my current Primary HDD once a week. This takes about 32-33 minutes.

I then take the clone and swap it into the primary position. I use this step to assure myself that the cloning was successful .. and this step also rotates my HDDs thus pushing out the time for a potential crash.

The last step in my "backup" is to rotate all three dirves -- but keep one off-premises.

It works for me. Is there a weakness in my method?

Frank K-F

A31p / A31p ...

JHEM · #7 Post by **JHEM** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:40 am

FrankK-F wrote:It works for me. Is there a weakness in my method?

Only if you don't burn backups of each day's work.

I basically do the same as you Frank, although with just two HDs and an image on my desktop.

Regards,

James

#8 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:43 am

Rotating your hard drives may accelerate the time to a crash, it is impossible to predict. There is some theory that a dormant hard drive is more likely to crash when spun-up than one that is used more often. A hard drive that is never powered down is less likely to crash, but the bearings may wear out sooner, so, once again, you never know.

Andrew
Austin, TX

#9 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:51 am

If this is really the case, you should add an additional backup method, such as a file-by-file backup using Backup Exec or some other program to DVD or tape. If the data is that critical to you, I would just be more comfortable with yet another backup method to a different media.

Andrew
Austin, TX

FrankK-F wrote:A full HDD crash for me means folding my tent .. an economic catastrophy...

FrankK-F · #10 Post by **FrankK-F** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:52 am

My earlier comment about

pushing out the time for a potential crash

may have been "sub-optima", lets say.

But at today's HDD prices, replacement cost is dirt cheap compared to the investment in my data.

Frank K-f

JHEM · #11 Post by **JHEM** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:52 am

Andrew,

I would tend to believe that the new fluid bearing HDs aren't prone to the platter seizure of older HDs.

Besides, by the time I need to worry about it happening, I'll already be using the new 10K120 HDs!

Regafrds,

James

#12 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:55 am

You are probably right.
Now, how and when do I get my hands on one of those 10K120's !!??

Andrew
Austin, TX

JHEM wrote:Andrew,

I would tend to believe that the new fluid bearing HDs aren't prone to the platter seizure of older HDs.

Besides, by the time I need to worry about it happening, I'll already be using the new 10K120 HDs!

Regafrds,

James

#13 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:59 am

Whatever you do, DON'T backup to re-writeable media ever! (other than tape)
The only times that I have been let down by my backups, I had used CD-RW's (years ago) and, more recently DVD-RW (never used DVD+RW, but would think they are similar). If you use DVD media, whatever you do...use write once media only!! I don't know what it is about re-writeables, but there are definite issues with them.

Andrew
Austin, TX

none · #14 Post by **none** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:39 am

Hard drive vs. CD is a tough choice... If you use a hard drive, you stand the risk of mechanical failure. CD backups are not safe because as we all know the dye can scratch easily (information is actually written on the dye). If you use cheap CDs the dye can even lose information at random over time, even if the CD is well protected. My advice would be to get a backup hard drive AND high quality CDs.

#15 Post by **BillMorrow** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:43 am

best backup is a clone..
or two..!
father, son backup..
drives are cheap, USB2 external boxes for a 2.5 inch drive are cheap..
2nd HDD adapter is cheap..
acronis drive image is cheap..
you have NO EXCUSE for not having a clone backup..
period..!!

egibbs · #16 Post by **egibbs** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:26 am

Just to throw another option in the mix...

I use one of these - http://www.buffalotech.com/products/pro ... egoryid=16 - 160 GB Network Attached Storage. It's cheap, been pretty reiable so far, and all the 'puters in the house can backup to the same device without having to carry a USB drive around. Every so often I burn all the backups off to DVD, and keep a set off site.

I personally use Rescue and Recovery plus MS Backup as my strategy - R&R is the easy way, and MS Backup "Files and Setting" is the fallback.

R&R is easy and essentially does an image backup - though due to some problems in the past and frequent updates that seem to invalidate older backups I consider it too chancy to trust alone.

MS Backup will always be there and I know I can count on it, but it requires some extra work. I will have to reinstall Windows and create the accounts before I can restore the data if it comes to that.

Ed Gibbs

#17 Post by **carbon_unit** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:40 am

Or if you want more Network attached storage go get an old 486 or low end pentium, stuff it with 4 160GB hard drives and run this:
http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php
That will give you 640GB of storage.
It works very well, I have one here running a Pentium 75 with 40 MB ram and it runs flawlessly. It has no CPU fan and is very quiet.

#18 Post by **daeojkim** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:38 pm

carbon_unit wrote:Or if you want more Network attached storage go get an old 486 or low end pentium, stuff it with 4 160GB hard drives and run this:
http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php
That will give you 640GB of storage.
It works very well, I have one here running a Pentium 75 with 40 MB ram and it runs flawlessly. It has no CPU fan and is very quiet.

This seem like the most efficient and cost effective method of backing up data. since internal HD's are cheaper than external. I could just stuff the PC in a closet so that it stays quiet and control the machine via telnet.

Thanks carbon_unit for the info.

I wish I had not thrown the P133 machine a year ago. I have a Cel600 machine that I could use. I wonder how much I could downclock the CPU so that a fan will not be required. Replace the power supply with a very quiet one and it should be set.

thsu01 · #19 Post by **thsu01** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:42 pm

Thaqnk you all for your insightful suggestions.

#20 Post by **aamsel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:06 pm

I just posted some questions about Acronis True Image in the Windows OS section of these forums. I would appreciate any answers to these questions.
It is posted at:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=9266
Thanks,

Andrew
Austin, TX

craigg wrote:I have been using a 7K60 for about 18 months with no problems. With that being said, I suggest you make an image of your drive at least on a monthly basis. I use Acronis True Image for backup. It creates an exact image of your hard drive and in my opinion it is the best imaging product on the market. I have a few extra 2.5" drives here so in the event of a failure I can usually be back up within an hour. With Acronis you can back your data up to either dvd, tape, or an external hard drive. With hard drives being so cheap now there is no reason not to backup.

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#21 Post by **BillMorrow** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:27 am

carbon_unit wrote:Or if you want more Network attached storage go get an old 486 or low end pentium, stuff it with 4 160GB hard drives and run this:
http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php
That will give you 640GB of storage.
It works very well, I have one here running a Pentium 75 with 40 MB ram and it runs flawlessly. It has no CPU fan and is very quiet.

yeah, ok..

and what happens when one of those 160gig drives crashes and takes all the data with it..??

so we not graduate to running a raid1 at the least.. cheapest..
so, suddenly, half the storage..
and suddenly you need a promise controller or the like or a new system board.. ok, now with the new system board you need a cpu too..
cheap one, of course..
and additionally, a UPS of some sort..

all in all the idea is excellent but the execution is not so simple i think..

thanks for the link, carbon..
going to read more on this and probably recycle a machine to this if the OS you pointed out works..
and thus re-retire the old netfinity ibm server..

all this said, this is exactly, more or less, what i do..
many HDD's scattered all over, with backups..

Bob Collins · #22 Post by **Bob Collins** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:43 am

so we not graduate to running a raid1 at the least.. cheapest..
so, suddenly, half the storage..and suddenly you need a promise controller or the like or a new system board.. ok, now with the new system board you need a cpu too..cheap one, of course..and additionally, a UPS of some sort..

How about good ol Vinum under FreeBSD on that spare box. Vinum can give you raid 5 if you like. Software based, so no need for a raid card. Quick and stable, I used it for some time in a no-name box with 6 IBM SCSI drives.

Raid 5 looses 1/x where x is your number of drives, so your 4 x 160 becomes 3 @ 160= 480GB, and the other space for parity. Not too bad.

Put Samba on it, and your Windows can backup to it. Heck you could set up rsync and others to semi-automate the process.....

Hopefully you have an old junker around to install FreeBSD, like that P60 you just can't get rid of....

#23 Post by **carbon_unit** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:37 pm

and what happens when one of those 160gig drives crashes and takes all the data with it..??

so we not graduate to running a raid1 at the least.. cheapest..
so, suddenly, half the storage..
and suddenly you need a promise controller or the like or a new system board.. ok, now with the new system board you need a cpu too..
cheap one, of course..
and additionally, a UPS of some sort..

all in all the idea is excellent but the execution is not so simple i think.. Smile

I didn't say it was the safest solution in the world, but it is very cost effective.

Besides we all know that hard drives are only temporary storage, right?

LeoB · #24 Post by **LeoB** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:49 pm

I've spent the last hour wandering through all the posts on DVD burners, and I'm possibly more confused now than when I started.

I have a T40 (2373-75U) that is a total workhorse. I back up my working data on it (about 4.5GB) to an external HDD, then copy that to an old PC's hard drive. Most of my data is also on CDs stored in files. And then I have a 2GB flash drive that I back up all my absolutely must-have stuff before I leave on a trip.

However, I would like to also take my back-up (my working data only) on a DVD with me while traveling, and want to buy a DVD burner compatible with the T40. It seems like the group opinion is that the IBM slimbay DVD burner is overpriced and slow. I wouldn't mind an external burner as I don't need to have it with me while traveling, and the write speed is not a big deal for me.

Any suggestions for an external USB DVD burner that is readily and easily compatible with a T40? Size and weight are immaterial, and cost is not a big factor. I'm looking at something that's easy to use and reliable (which is why I use a ThinkPad).

Thanks, folks.
Leo

JHEM · #25 Post by **JHEM** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:32 pm

Leo,

Checkout the LaCie: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10186

Regards,

James

Mucus Man · #26 Post by **Mucus Man** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:42 am

I was considering my CD/DVD storage options as well, and a friend alerted me to DVD-RAM. Slower but defintely more reliable, it's (per my understanding) the only DVD format designed for DATA storage, as opposed to VIDEO storage (though certainly all DVD formats can store any data types). The difference is that DVD-RAM sectors can be damaged, but you don't lose whole data streams, only that sector/file.

I recently picked up the LG GSA-5120D (external USB2.0 / Firewire) and have been using it to back-up my files. (This handles non-cartrige DVD-RAM discs).

My Buffalo 160GB external drive (Western Digital drive) has been failing, so I needed something in the interim.

Anyway, seach for DVD-RAM and consider this as a reliable DVD back-up medium.

Food for thought. By the way, this is my first post -- I've learned a lot from you all here. Unfortunately, I found this site only AFTER I bought my T42 (literally a day or two afterwards). So thanks for all your input.

- Scott

LeoB · #27 Post by **LeoB** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 8:00 am

James and Scott:

Thanks for the quick and helpful replies. I looked at the LaCie and the LG, and both are rated quite good.

One concern about DVD-RAM, though, is that it can only be read by a drive that's configured for it. I can't figure out if the internal CD-RW/DVD in my T40 can read DVD-RAM, and the other concern is that if I used that back-up DVD in another computer -- would it read it. I didn't mention that I probably want to use the most common DVD format so that in a worst-case scenario I could have access to my data files off a common-use PC.

For example, I might burn two DVDs with my working files on them, take one with me in my checked bag and send the other one to the office I'm visiting via FedEx (normally I send ahead documents and could just put the DVD in the box to hold for me). If something should happen to my ThinkPad enroute, at least I know all my working files will be in the office there and I could pull them up from any PC.

Thanks for all the help.
Leo

Mucus Man · #28 Post by **Mucus Man** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:46 am

Leo,

In terms of my T42 and my external LG DVD-RAM (writeable) drive I mentioned above, I have had no problems with the LG-burned DVD-RAM discs being read by my T42's internal CD-RW/DVD-ROM standard combo drive.

Nero has a small, free and downloadable utility (InfoTool) which you can use to learn all about your T40's drive capabilities, including whether it reads DVD-RAM (it's a snazzy tool). To be honest, I didn't expect the T42's DVD-ROM drive to do so, so I was pleasantly surprised!

But you are right, not every DVD drive supports DVD-RAM (read), so this is a valid concern as you attempt to find the right solution for you. I chose the LG model to keep my options open, as it also writes every other standard DVD format, but others do the same (though RAM writing capability certainly does minimize one's options!).

Good luck,
Scott

LeoB · #29 Post by **LeoB** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:33 pm

Well, I found the LG 5120D on-line for less than $120, including shipping, so I snagged it.

Although the reviews I saw said that it was noisy when playing CDs, that means nothing to me as I wouldn't use it for that. And the slow-ish writing speeds aren't important for me. It's the ability to handle all formats that I want -- and everybody said it worked well.

Thanks for all the help!

Leo

LeoB · #30 Post by **LeoB** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 4:42 pm

WOW!!!!

Today I got the LG mentioned above, plugged it into my T40's USB port, opened Record Now, and in about 15 minutes I had all my working files (4.5 GB) backed up onto a DVD.

Now THAT is how this stuff is supposed to work.

Cheers,
Leo

I need to back up my data, what is the best solution?

I need to back up my data, what is the best solution?

Consider DVD-RAM

DVD-RAM and my T42

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