Get a mybook external drive and it has software that will automate most for you. However, while I OWN three, I only backup what I think is important enough to lose. My work files, my music, my Priest DVDs, photos. I still have the install discs for applications, Most I can just download again.
Simple thought. Should your system die tomorrow, what would you REALLY miss? I say, without question, that you should sit down and think about this eventuality (it WILL happen). Myself? I was once crushed when I lost all my progress in a video game. Sure, I could have installed the game again but the save files, no (Simpsons, if anyone cares! LOL?). Had I another copy of the save games, the game itself (massive files) were irrelevant as I still had the install cds. It was the data that was crucial. Back up your data, my friend. All I can say.
You even saw that I recentlly bought a webook (Acer Aspire One) because I travel so much. Losing my Macbook would be the end of the world to me as it is my main business machine. However, a $300 webbook, pfffff. Not so big a deal. 160GB harddrive and 6 hours battery life. I watch a lot of movies on it, IOW. Should it get stolen, someone better enjoy all the Lost in Space episodes I have on it! "Oh, the pain, the pain!"
[Show/Hide Quoted Message] (Quoting Message by spapad from Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:46:24 PM)| |  | spapad wrote: | | So to reinstall My windows from the biginning, I would have to have all the crap on this PC backed up down to the smallest irritating game?
| | | guidogodoy wrote: | | For most people, that is usually the case (I qualify with "usually" as I am quite the hardcore user). The drive SHOULD outlive the board. However, as stated, I build machines all the time. My current is a monster. Always two harddrives (at least) set up in a RAID configuration and my latest gaming machine has a water-cooled heatsink. Just to say that I am not the typical "type a document" sort of person. I modded out my latest build with six fans. Put toggle switches in them to turn the fans off and on as needed (running games vs. email). Sounds like a small airplane taking off when I hit my fan-boosters! THAT is my "true" machine. Bleeding edge techology. I currently (and usually type) on my Macbook Pro. I have another machine upstairs that is just my multimedia server that beams stuff down to my television / stereo and yet another home build in my office at work. The way things go is if I upgrade any part of my main machine, I rotate down. The low-end always ends up in my office at work be it memory, hardrive, ram, motherboard.
To add to this, I service a lab of some 30 Macs. While I have seen motherboards and chips fry, it is rare. Harddrives, statistically, will go first. I have seen it at home, have seen it at work. Even overclocking a chip or memory won't kill them nowadays. Harddrives will fail. ALWAYS. Back up your crucial data, compadres. My office harddive is always the first to die as it is always the oldest.
Back to that defrag question, I have a good quote in hand: Maximum PC (do's and dont's):
"Myth: defragmenting your harddrive improves performance:
One of the most venerable suggestions for improving disk performance is to defragment your harddrive regularly. The science of defragging is sound: By putting all the bits of a file or application in sequential order on your drive, the drive should do less work [and spend less time] to access those files. Thus: faster performance. Well, in practice it's not really true. Today's hard drives are fast enought to make fragmentation largely irrelevant, and our benchmark tests have repeatedly borne this out: On moderately fragmented drives, defragmentation will offer nigligible to no performance increase. For seriously fragmented drives [think 40% or more], especially those runing XP or older OSes, defragmentation can help, but don't expect the world."
Word for word as I had what I already knew at hand. Take it or leave it as you will from someone who hasn't defragged a drive and works with a bunch of geeks who also haven't don so in a decade (or more). However, I HAVE installed a clean version of windows MANY a time.
| | | spapad wrote: | | Truthfully though,.........the disk will probably survive long after the computer itself becomes obsolete, that is the real sad part. I usually get about 5 years down the road with a still operable PC but it is inadequate for so much of the newer technologies that all there is to be done is keep what is worth keeping, go buy a new PC and complain about the amount of money I spent when I get home and I'm loving the speed and reliability of the new PC. Much like a car, only I usually hang on to a car for about 10 to 14 years, call me sentimental. HA!!
(Quoting Message by guidogodoy from Saturday, February 21, 2009 12:58:54 PM)
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guidogodoy wrote: |
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It really depends on the drive. For example, IBM once produced a great drive called the Deskstar. Whle the majority were fine, ONE batch was a complete disaster. Got to the inevitable "click of death" (hear this click and you are pretty much done-for...it is the arm that can't spin over the platters of the medium anymore...data rescue services that charge upwards of $2000 can't even help you) in about a year or less. Actually contributed to the demise of IBM in the harddrive market. They sold that entire division off ASAP (and the Deskstar got better but IBM STILL has a class action lawsuit against them).
Not an easy question to answer, in other words. Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate (the biggies) with all the different models always release "data stats" that typically avoid that one crucial piece of information. True "failure rate" data actually comes from outside sources. For example, I have a Prius. On paper it says it gets 60 MPG. In real life, it gets far less. Industry papers vs. real life.
No set answer in other words. Give me the make and model of your drive and it STILL won't tell me the year / batch of production or even the PLACE (China drives are cheap and fail like crazy. Taiwan and Japanese are better...latter being the best). Same goes for readwrite CDs / DVDs. Sad thing is most majors often have plants in many Asian countries. A Sony DVD from Taiwan, for example, is better than one from China.
Moral of the story. BACK UP YOUR CRUCIAL DATA!
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Edited at: Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:14:24 PM |
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