Geekin’
Posted on April 8, 2008
Filed Under All, Technology, New Life |
So, we came home this afternoon, after a shrink visit and an hour’s walk (a loop through downtown Menlo) to find that one of our hard drives had failed. It was kind of like coming out of the clinic yesterday and finding a flat tire on our car. So I’m digging through my box of old hard drives for a replacement - the dead drive is an aging 80 GB external drive that backs up my current ‘main machine,’ a Mac Mini (Intel chip) via Time Machine. The drive, an USB unit, is bigger in some dimensions than the Mini.
Rather than dig out some ancient, chugging drive (I can just see the steam hissing from the sides and coal smoke pouring out the top) it may be time to rethink data handling and backup strategies on the LAN. Local area network drives are cheap, and one of them, in current 500 GB or 1 TB flavors, would easily accommodate all the smaller drives on our LAN. The trick will be tailoring the right mix of backup products: Time Machine, Backup and Chronosync each have their strengths…
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For backups, try SuperDuper —
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
It’s $28. I use it to automatically create a bootable backup on an attached FireWire drive, daily. It’s a good complement to an incremental file-based backup like Time Machine or Backup.
[…] We finally had to shut down the 500 GB LaCie HD hooked up to our Intel Mac Mini. The drive is performing fine, but the machine’s fan is making such a loud and annoying noise that it was no longer good company in our family room. Its control circuitry would appear to be in a loop that causes it to make a louder then softer droning sound that is very distracting. This is the second drive failure in a week… […]
[…] Toshiba has announced its Micro Nuclear reactor designed for small, remote communities, apartment buildings and small businesses. the 20 by 6-foot device produces 200 kwh and is completely automatic. Designed to run unattended for up to 40 years, the reactor produces electrity for 5 cents a kwh, about half the current grid price. Do we really need nuclear material spread all over the globe? In light of recent USB troubles, maybe my 80GB backup drive isn’t dead, after all. Nor my USB hub…? Judging by the number of forum posts, Leopard has some issues with USB and Firewire peripherals. Linda’s machine has stopped recognizing her iPod and gives the same ‘Device Removed’ error I was seeing. And we thought Vista was bad… […]