Comments on: What Have I Learned From My Hard Drive Failure http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/ Utterly random, incoherent and disjointed rants and ramblings... Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:09:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Luke http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5701 Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:09:26 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5701 Oh man! It sucks. I commented back with some tips. Knoppix saves lives. Not an alternative to a good backup strategy mind you, but hell of a life line to have. :) Oh man! It sucks. I commented back with some tips.

Knoppix saves lives. Not an alternative to a good backup strategy mind you, but hell of a life line to have. )

]]> by: Travis McCrea http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5697 Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:24:00 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5697 I wish i learned from you... see my blog I wish i learned from you…
see my blog

]]> by: Matt` http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5696 Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:03:18 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5696 My "backup policy" is essentially just to have a copy of anything important in several places - coursework from school was on the school servers, my laptop and a thumb drive, updated whenever possible, most of the contents of My Documents is mirrored between the PC and the laptop, updated whenever I have anything important enough to warrant it. In the event of a crash of either machine all I lose is a ton of legitimately acquired *cough* videos that I don't have the space or inclination to keep 2 copies of (and the stuff I haven't watched yet is normally on both anyway, so I don't have to worry about transferring it when I want to watch it) It's probably not the best way, but I'm lazy, I don't have yet the fear instilled by experience of a fatal hard drive crash (just a few buggered Windows installations, and they gave me time to evacuate data) and hard drive space enough to backup everything is kinda expensive - I would want to be storing something new on it to justify the cost My “backup policy” is essentially just to have a copy of anything important in several places - coursework from school was on the school servers, my laptop and a thumb drive, updated whenever possible, most of the contents of My Documents is mirrored between the PC and the laptop, updated whenever I have anything important enough to warrant it.

In the event of a crash of either machine all I lose is a ton of legitimately acquired *cough* videos that I don’t have the space or inclination to keep 2 copies of (and the stuff I haven’t watched yet is normally on both anyway, so I don’t have to worry about transferring it when I want to watch it)

It’s probably not the best way, but I’m lazy, I don’t have yet the fear instilled by experience of a fatal hard drive crash (just a few buggered Windows installations, and they gave me time to evacuate data) and hard drive space enough to backup everything is kinda expensive - I would want to be storing something new on it to justify the cost

]]> by: Luke http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5467 Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:56:29 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5467 <strong>Fr3d</strong> - how about Hitachi Ultrastar series - 15K RPM! LOL I feel kinda inadequate with my 7200 RPM drives right here. Sigh... Fr3d - how about Hitachi Ultrastar series - 15K RPM! LOL

I feel kinda inadequate with my 7200 RPM drives right here. Sigh…

]]> by: vacri http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5466 Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:11:27 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5466 From what I've heard, you'd use RAID0 for the express purpose of increasing speed for temporary data - things like squid cache, where you don't need data reliability, but getting data fast is very important. I've also heard the same thing of the reiser4 filesystem... From what I’ve heard, you’d use RAID0 for the express purpose of increasing speed for temporary data - things like squid cache, where you don’t need data reliability, but getting data fast is very important. I’ve also heard the same thing of the reiser4 filesystem…

]]> by: Fr3d http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5446 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:31:36 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5446 [quote post="1763"]Of course in my mind Fault Tolerance > Speed but I can see how that may not always be the case.[/quote] Indeed - If you want real speed you'd buy a Western Digital Raptor (or Raptor X) and then use RAID 1 ;) It has it's ups and downs :p There are some bits that I really like, such as the search in the start menu, which makes it much faster to find a program. The mobility center for laptops is pretty good too. However both my installations (PC and Laptop) have worse driver installation procedures than Windows 95... But I think that's something to do with the ISO, since it's the same problem on two completely different machines. I did manage to <a href="http://www.fr3d.org/2007/03/failure-of-automatic-installation-of-usb-device-drivers-on-vista/" rel="nofollow">fix it</a> once, but it soon broke again and I haven't managed to mend it again. Bottom line, once you get used to it, and get it configured how you like it, it's not that bad :)

Of course in my mind Fault Tolerance > Speed but I can see how that may not always be the case.

Indeed - If you want real speed you’d buy a Western Digital Raptor (or Raptor X) and then use RAID 1 )

It has it’s ups and downs :p

There are some bits that I really like, such as the search in the start menu, which makes it much faster to find a program. The mobility center for laptops is pretty good too.

However both my installations (PC and Laptop) have worse driver installation procedures than Windows 95… But I think that’s something to do with the ISO, since it’s the same problem on two completely different machines. I did manage to fix it once, but it soon broke again and I haven’t managed to mend it again.

Bottom line, once you get used to it, and get it configured how you like it, it’s not that bad )

]]> by: Luke http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5444 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:19:57 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5444 Ah, ok. That kinda makes sense. Of course in my mind Fault Tolerance > Speed but I can see how that may not always be the case. Btw, I see you're on Vista now. Are you loving it or are you hating it? Ah, ok. That kinda makes sense. Of course in my mind Fault Tolerance > Speed but I can see how that may not always be the case.

Btw, I see you’re on Vista now. Are you loving it or are you hating it?

]]> by: Fr3d http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5442 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:43:49 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5442 [quote post="1763"]Is RAID 5 that much slower though? I always figured that if you are RAID’ing anyway, you might as well have some built in fault tolerance.[/quote] It's slower for writing (the same speed as one single drive) but it's (usually) much faster for reading.

Is RAID 5 that much slower though? I always figured that if you are RAID’ing anyway, you might as well have some built in fault tolerance.

It’s slower for writing (the same speed as one single drive) but it’s (usually) much faster for reading.

]]> by: Luke http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5438 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:39:19 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5438 [quote comment="5433"]RAID 0 is good for very fast storage of non-important stuff, such as games.[/quote] Is RAID 5 that much slower though? I always figured that if you are RAID'ing anyway, you might as well have some built in fault tolerance. [quote comment="5434"]... Yeah i remember windows not booting up because it didn't have firefox ;)[/quote] LOL. Actually, windows is pretty much self contained, so there is not many applications that can be considered crucial from the OS functionality. I mean crucial for me being able to work on the machine without getting pissed off. I can't browse the web with IE6 - it just can't be done. Fr3d said:

RAID 0 is good for very fast storage of non-important stuff, such as games.

Is RAID 5 that much slower though? I always figured that if you are RAID’ing anyway, you might as well have some built in fault tolerance.

Travis McCrea said:

… Yeah i remember windows not booting up because it didn’t have firefox )

LOL. Actually, windows is pretty much self contained, so there is not many applications that can be considered crucial from the OS functionality. I mean crucial for me being able to work on the machine without getting pissed off. I can’t browse the web with IE6 - it just can’t be done.

]]> by: Travis McCrea http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5434 Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:28:24 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/07/25/what-have-i-learned-from-my-hard-drive-failure/#comment-5434 <blockquote>crucial applications such as Firefox.</blockquote> ... Yeah i remember windows not booting up because it didn't have firefox ;)

crucial applications such as Firefox.

… Yeah i remember windows not booting up because it didn’t have firefox )

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