Extra Storage

Thanks for bringing Backblaze to my attention. Seems a good option as an extra and continuous backup.
 
Im just in the process of backing up to Backblaze for the first time, this could take a little while as I have 1.4Tb to back up. I set it running at 10:30ish, so far it has copied about 15GB. Just a note, you can speed up your upload speed initially by adjusting the manual throttle and number of threads in the Settings, worth doing if you have a super fast fibre connection
 
Thanks for the note. I think I'll get the process started in thr late evening and let it run overnight. Only issue is that this is probably peak US time!
I guess for thr initial backup it is a case of suck it and take thr pain!
 
Based on the current upload rate, it is estimating the progress at 484GB per day. At that rate mine will take 4 days to complete. Oh well should be done by the time I get home on Saturday as I am away with work for a few days :)
 
ChrisHeathcote said:
Based on the current upload rate, it is estimating the progress at 484GB per day. At that rate mine will take 4 days to complete. Oh well should be done by the time I get home on Saturday as I am away with work for a few days :)
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That actually sounds quite fast. What sort of upload speed is that based on?
 
so strange that this thread has come up - I have a seagate hd and hadn't really used it however thought I should move my pics on to it and for some reason I saved my Christmas holiday pics directly on to a folder I created on it - then yesterday I couldn't access the drive :( when I right clicked the drive it wasn't giving me the option to browse files. So today took it to a shop to see if they can get do anything - as long as they can get the pictures from it I'll be happy. Certainly won't be getting a seagate again and will be keeping copies on my computer too - thought I'd free us some computer space by transferring them over.
 
Mich56 said:
so strange that this thread has come up - I have a seagate hd and hadn't really used it however thought I should move my pics on to it and for some reason I saved my Christmas holiday pics directly on to a folder I created on it - then yesterday I couldn't access the drive :( when I right clicked the drive it wasn't giving me the option to browse files. So today took it to a shop to see if they can get do anything - as long as they can get the pictures from it I'll be happy. Certainly won't be getting a seagate again and will be keeping copies on my computer too - thought I'd free us some computer space by transferring them over.
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I'm not the first person to mention this on here, but Seagate are the only drives I've ever really had problems with. I've had about 5 HDD failures over the years and at least three of them were Seagates. WD seem a better bet but for the love of god never buy from their re-certified shop. Shocking service, lesson learned trying to save a few quid. Should have read the reviews fist.

I currently have iMac internal storage backing up to a 4tb USB drive and also to a myCloud drive (or whatever they're called) that is in a separate building so just about fire proof in most disaster scenarios. The macbook also backs up to the mycloud but since it's not really got much on it, I'm less concerned about that. Do like the idea of Backblaze though. I've put off the cloud storage stuff for far too long.
 
ChrisHeathcote said:
Its now tracking at 664GB/day, however I do have the 200 mb/s fibre from Virgin

View attachment 117543
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I'm with Virgin too but only 100 mb/s service. Rarely see upload speeds into double figures. Normally 5-6 ish. Suspect my data is going to take weeks rather than days. 4tb ish.

But I guess it's not too disruptive and just cracks on in the background?
 
sounds like a very viable option to me, may well look more seriously at this for backing up photos and docs. One other thing though, when it backs up a file and you then work on it and it backs it up again, does it overwrite the original or create a second file?
 
gad-westy said:
I'm with Virgin too but only 100 mb/s service. Rarely see upload speeds into double figures. Normally 5-6 ish. Suspect my data is going to take weeks rather than days. 4tb ish.

But I guess it's not too disruptive and just cracks on in the background?
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Its been running in the backround all day and i havent noticed it at all. I have been streaminf music and surfing and havent noticed any lag on my mac. Normally my upload speeds are in the 10-20 mbs range, it think its down to using multiple threads
 
keeweeman said:
quick question regarding backblaze but can you access your data like you can with say onedrive or is it a backup only (ie, the software creates an image on the cloud and you just download the whole thing in the case of a data loss)?
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you can select dates to back up but not individual files hth mike.
 
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Mich56 said:
so strange that this thread has come up - I have a seagate hd and hadn't really used it however thought I should move my pics on to it and for some reason I saved my Christmas holiday pics directly on to a folder I created on it - then yesterday I couldn't access the drive :( when I right clicked the drive it wasn't giving me the option to browse files. So today took it to a shop to see if they can get do anything - as long as they can get the pictures from it I'll be happy. Certainly won't be getting a seagate again and will be keeping copies on my computer too - thought I'd free us some computer space by transferring them over.
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I'm not that surprised. I've had two proper hard drive failures and both were Seagate. After that I swore I'd never buy another.
These days I have Western Digital for hard drives and Sandisk for SSDs and memory cards.
 
ABTog said:
I'm not that surprised. I've had two proper hard drive failures and both were Seagate. After that I swore I'd never buy another.
These days I have Western Digital for hard drives and Sandisk for SSDs and memory cards.
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I doubt there is much difference between the major brands. In my experience I have had no failures with Seagate HDDs but all my WD HDDs have failed. Whatever you buy you should backup your backup.
 
Archie747 said:
I doubt there is much difference between the major brands. In my experience I have had no failures with Seagate HDDs but all my WD HDDs have failed. Whatever you buy you should backup your backup.
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that's what I'm thinking now -
 
Archie747 said:
I doubt there is much difference between the major brands. In my experience I have had no failures with Seagate HDDs but all my WD HDDs have failed. Whatever you buy you should backup your backup.
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It is down to personal experience, you may just happen to get a good drive or a bad drive from any manufacturer just like lenses. But Seagate have in the past had some bad batches, perhaps more than the other brands.

Interestingly Backblaze are very open about the way they run the business and publish hard drive reliability stats.
Looking at their stats (admittedly for NAS spec drives rather than desktop drives) Seagate have a higher failure rate than other manufacturers.
See here
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2017/
These are NAS drives designed to run in a NAS device but they aren't enterprise spec drives.

As stated above, It is true about backup though, make sure you have a backup of your backup.
(Eg a local backup and an online backup)
 
My computer tech guy says there is no conclusive evidence that one brand of hard-drive is more reliable than another. Based on his experience (decades) he's concluded that laptop HDs are more likely to fail, simply because they get lugged around. A hard-drive works basically like a record turntable with a needle so is obviously more prone to mechanical/physical damage if it gets a knock.
 
well the computer shop can't retrieve the files from my Seagate so that's that. More annoyed with myself for downloading my Christmas holiday pics directly to the HD and not keeping on computer too like a usually do. Lesson learned.
 
Mich56 said:
well the computer shop can't retrieve the files from my Seagate so that's that. More annoyed with myself for downloading my Christmas holiday pics directly to the HD and not keeping on computer too like a usually do. Lesson learned.
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Do you know what they tried? All may not be lost if all they did was try plugging it in!
 
@Furtim No think they did more than that (well I hope so anyway!) - they had it for a good few days. He said something about getting a 'beep' from it but that was all - they could have given me the details of someone in Glasgow but he starts at £300 and for the Christmas pictures I couldn't justify that.
 
Mich56 said:
@Furtim No think they did more than that (well I hope so anyway!) - they had it for a good few days. He said something about getting a 'beep' from it but that was all - they could have given me the details of someone in Glasgow but he starts at £300 and for the Christmas pictures I couldn't justify that.
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Could be worthwhile getting in touch with someone who knows Linux (or even Unix) who has the ability to attach a drive. I mention this as I've had problems in the past with both HDD's and SSD's - attempting to attach a drive to a system running Windows operating system usually results in failure whereas using Linux when mounting (attaching) the drive - it doesn't bother with the preamble of scanning the drive and thus risking failure. I've managed to recover stacks of stuff by using Linux over the years by carefully pin pointing exactly where the files are and retrieving what I need. Not guaranteed 100% though.
 
Mich56 said:
@Furtim No think they did more than that (well I hope so anyway!) - they had it for a good few days. He said something about getting a 'beep' from it but that was all - they could have given me the details of someone in Glasgow but he starts at £300 and for the Christmas pictures I couldn't justify that.
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Have you tried to recover the images from the cf/SD card?
 
With all the talk of SSD’s of late I thought I’d share this that I’ve just seen. I think I may be tempted enough to get one for travels

https://www.dpreview.com/news/52617...ds-designed-for-photographers-and-drone-users

Also if anyone is thinking of Backblaze, I have just received an email which gives us both an additional 3 months subscription on purchase. PM me and I’ll see what I can do (Sorry if I’m breaking any rules, I’ll happily remove if need be)
 
razor777 said:
Could be worthwhile getting in touch with someone who knows Linux (or even Unix) who has the ability to attach a drive. I mention this as I've had problems in the past with both HDD's and SSD's - attempting to attach a drive to a system running Windows operating system usually results in failure whereas using Linux when mounting (attaching) the drive - it doesn't bother with the preamble of scanning the drive and thus risking failure. I've managed to recover stacks of stuff by using Linux over the years by carefully pin pointing exactly where the files are and retrieving what I need. Not guaranteed 100% though.
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thanks for that - I'll have an ask around at work
 
Mich56 said:
I deleted them from card and reformatted it at the time
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Deleting images and reformating the card doesn't in fact delete anything!

Actually removing data (by over-writing every cell with zeros) takes a quite a long time in a PC. Deleting and reformating simply instructs the card controller that these cells are available to be over-written - but until they are over-written with new data, the old data remains and can usually be easily recovered with free generic software such as Recuva https://www.piriform.com/recuva

If you haven't used that particular card since, the images should still be there. Even if you have taken a few new shots on that card, most of the data will still be intact though some bits could be missing.
 
I've just ordered a G-Technology 4TB External drive for my Mac and it's apparently been delivered.

For £99 I thought that was a good deal.

Time will tell.
 
Archie747 said:
Recovery software may still be able to get the images. Usually comes with the cards. It has worked for me.
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HoppyUK said:
Deleting images and reformating the card doesn't in fact delete anything!

Actually removing data (by over-writing every cell with zeros) takes a quite a long time in a PC. Deleting and reformating simply instructs the card controller that these cells are available to be over-written - but until they are over-written with new data, the old data remains and can usually be easily recovered with free generic software such as Recuva https://www.piriform.com/recuva

If you haven't used that particular card since, the images should still be there. Even if you have taken a few new shots on that card, most of the data will still be intact though some bits could be missing.
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I have used the card again and again since but will have a look thanks!
 
Archie747 said:
Recovery software may still be able to get the images. Usually comes with the cards. It has worked for me.
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HoppyUK said:
Deleting images and reformating the card doesn't in fact delete anything!

Actually removing data (by over-writing every cell with zeros) takes a quite a long time in a PC. Deleting and reformating simply instructs the card controller that these cells are available to be over-written - but until they are over-written with new data, the old data remains and can usually be easily recovered with free generic software such as Recuva https://www.piriform.com/recuva

If you haven't used that particular card since, the images should still be there. Even if you have taken a few new shots on that card, most of the data will still be intact though some bits could be missing.
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gad-westy said:
If you've filled it since, you might not get anything but if not, you might be pleasantly surprised.
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thanks so much! Downloaded the software and got almost all the images! Thank you so much guys :clap:
 
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