CD/DVD or External HD

Get help or discuss anything relating to audio/video software & hardware
zaval80
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by zaval80 »

Bazilnerk wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 4:50 pm Everything on my computer and all attached drives back up to Backblaze - Costs me something like $6 a month (can't remember exactly, as I pay in £!)
Currently, I have 14gb backed up. If a drive pops, I can just download everything from it to a new drive.
But what if they decide to get out of the cloud business.
Bazilnerk
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by Bazilnerk »

Plenty of notice will be given in that case. But that is all they do cloud back up & storage. Nothing else. They have just gone public, so must be a stable enough business. Still more reliable that hoping your drive and your back-up are safe. Using just HDD, you have to remember to back up regularly and drives that aren't used regularly can fail - I had this. I had an external drive and a back-up. I didn't add anything to the drive for a while, and when I did went to copy the new files to the back-up and the back-up had failed. Had my main drive failed and then I discovered the back-up had too, i'd have lost the lot.

In another case I had a drive I used at work. - full 2TB - It was about 6 months old. All the original files were backed up to a server. When I left that job, i brought the drive home and it wouldn't power up to enable me to back it up. A data recovery company couldn't rescue it either. Having left the job i could no longer access the server (and they had probably already wiped the data) so it had all gone in a puff of smoke.

Now EVERY file I have is automatically backed up immediately. This got me out of trouble within weeks of getting the service. A drive i'd used to hold my itunes library died (It had done well, lasted about 7 years) but i'd added a lot to it recently and not backed it up for a few months. I just bought a new drive and re-downloaded all 250gb of it straight from Backblaze. A full clone of the lost drive.

Another benefit is that wherever I am on earth, I have access to my full computer files.

- Is it worth $6 a month? Hell yes.
zaval80
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by zaval80 »

Whoa, that must have been an extreme case of bad luck, to find both drives irreparable. I'd be all for cloud keeping too then.
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yymca6
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by yymca6 »

To complete my previous posts, my Beatles audio (and books) is on a LaCie d2 10Tb which I back up on 2 different Seagate portable 5Tb.

Beatles video is on a LcCie d2T3 8Tb backed up on a 5Tb portable Seagate.

I still consider subscribing to unlimited Dropbox bt have not made up my mind yet.
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chrisp
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by chrisp »

Following useful advice on this forum I transferred DVDs to MP4 and put them on a USB drive which works well. I have now added an external HD (Toshiba) which is plugged into my Sony TV. However, if I watch something on the HD, leave the TV on standby and then try and watch something else off the HD nothing happens unless I reboot the TV. The TV doesn't seem to know the drive is there. I wonder if this is because the TV is powering the drive via the USB and whether I would be better off with an external HD drive with its own power source. Do other people use external HD with their own power source?
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alphabeatles
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by alphabeatles »

Bazilnerk wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:30 amUsing just HDD, you have to remember to back up regularly and drives that aren't used regularly can fail - I had this. I had an external drive and a back-up. I didn't add anything to the drive for a while, and when I did went to copy the new files to the back-up and the back-up had failed.
I'd heard of this before in relation to really old computers that hadn't been booted up in awhile – the magnetism on the drives gets borked.

What is considered not regular use? Days, weeks, months?

This week, one of the old 2TB WD server HDDs I had in the office as an offsite re-re-redundant backup suddenly decided it didn't want to mount when I put it in the external cradle (using Mac). Disk Utility couldn't fix it. TechTool Pro couldn't either but by attempting the repair, the drive was able to be mounted again.

So I updated that backup and stuck it back in the cabinet...

I am going to start using TTP regularly to keep the directories of my various drives in good order.
zaval80
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by zaval80 »

I have a selection of WDs from 1 Tb to more, haven't plugged some for years, but when I do, they are fine.
maccafan2021
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by maccafan2021 »

I have most of my collection on CD's and DVD's still. I like to hold the CD or DVD in my hand, put it in the player and watch or listen to it on TV or my palyer. I like to flip through the CD inserts, etc. I also have a lot on external HD. But I'm going to make an alert here because it happens to me sometimes and I've already lost HD material. The problem is that sometimes, with use, the file can corrupt on the HD, and you no longer have access or lose it.
So, I believe that the ideal is to have saved the material in both types: CD/DVD + HD or super HD (even better). A backup of everything is always good, for those who have the time and availability to copy everything and organize it.
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FileUnderT
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by FileUnderT »

I purchased a Seagate 2TB drive today so I’m looking forward to organising my collection over the Christmas break with my new Apple Mac Mini M1 desktop computer.
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alphabeatles
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Re: CD/DVD or External HD

Post by alphabeatles »

FileUnderT wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:33 pm I purchased a Seagate 2TB drive today so I’m looking forward to organising my collection over the Christmas break with my new Apple Mac Mini M1 desktop computer.
M1, mmm... Now next year you could probably get the M2 but why wait, ha!

As for Macs and external drives, I always reformat them to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) rather than keeping the original store-bought generic format. Unless you want to use them on other systems, in which case ExFAT seems to be best.
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