Time to Upgrade ?:-}

Jim Thompson · Aug 3, 2015

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 10:45:22 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/03/2015 10:26 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
In article <ae52a0bb-cb59-4d31-9390-079a34c0c186@googlegroups.com>,
"dcaster@krl.org"> wrote:
[snip]

I have had CD's that were no longer 100 % readable.

I read a study in PC World or the like showing that CD lifetime varied
by media type and manufacturer. Don't recall the details, other than
there was one very good option.

Joe Gwinn

Taiyo Yuden. I use them exclusively.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Phil Hobbs · Aug 3, 2015

On 08/03/2015 10:59 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 09:50:09 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

On 8/3/2015 12:40 AM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:
On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 19:05:15 -0700 (PDT), "dcaster@krl.org"
dcaster@krl.org> Gave us:

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 8:48:42 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

We backup design releases to CDs, which I store in the cave at home.
Some are 10 years old, and I occasionally have to retrieve one. So
far, it has always worked.

I have had CD's that were no longer 100 % readable.

Dan

Hard drives are cheap. Get an mSATA drive and USB drive enclosure and
every design directory you ever had can be fully backed up onto a device
which reads as fast as your HD subsystems do and will for a long time to
come.

Easy greasy Slap-it-in-and-go-soeasy.

Readonly backups are very comforting if you ever have a ransomware
infection.

The boot up under a Linux live distro, and make the file system on the
mSATA ext4. Done.

I use DVD+Rs and have never had a serious problem with them.

They degrade. Period. That rules them out for me.

Well, you do have to refresh your backups on any medium, including HDDs.
Taiyo Yuden discs have been very reliable for me for about 15 years
now. I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Also nowadays I never attach any remote drive to my filesystem.

You are talking about Windows vulnerabilities, not file system
vulnerabilities. Get a decent OS and your problems go away.

Not true. Synology uses a Linux distro, and there's a dedicated
ransomware version (SynoLocker) aimed at them.

Rsync
and git all the way. Inconvenient, but reduces the attack surface by a lot.

Live boot discs mean ZERO vulnerability.

Not against APTs--they can reflash your hard drive and/ or BIOS, and
operate from there. The ATA command set includes "load microcode", so
it doesn't even need that much hacking.

And even a live CD doesn't help once your disc has been encrypted--it
just makes it impossible to recover.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

Piotr Wyderski · Aug 3, 2015

Jim Thompson wrote:

My first Spice machine was a 386 with 486 co-processor. Looks like
the Xeon Phi requires software specifically written for it ??

In short, yes. The Phi cores themselves are mostly x86-compatible,
but the differences are at the upper level: they are shipped as
a PCI express card with its own OS (ssh-able). At least the ones
I've seen.

OTOH, they support OpenCL wery well, so any GPU-aware program
would also run smoothly on the Phis.

Best regards, Piotr

N. Coesel · Aug 3, 2015

Jim Thompson schreef op 08/02/2015 om 06:16 PM:

I think it's time I upgraded my 'Spice' machine... my present machine
is as follows... no laughter please... I've successfully done at least
at least 20 chip designs on this machine. What modern equivalent
should I replace it with?

I got a Dell 5810 workstation earlier this year with a Xeon CPU, ECC
memory and SSD. It's very quiet (I actually had to get used to the
absence of noise in my office) and it has been rock solid even with very
memory & CPU intensive tasks (routing FPGA designs and compiling large
software projects).

John Larkin · Aug 3, 2015

On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 18:47:23 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:

On 8/2/2015 5:46 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 11:18:17 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:

On 8/2/2015 9:16 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:

So, the trick is finding the right amount of "wait" -- too little and
you can't get started on something else; too much and you risk the
task taking too long for your schedule, etc.

I got a new PC on Friday, and I'm going through the awful process of
installing all my existing apps and settings and projects and desktop
stuff. Old HP XP, new monster Win7 Dell with 4x the ram, 30x the disk,
gobs of horsepower. Such a trauma is worth it every 3 years or so,
certainly not much more often.

For a "trivial (windows) machine" (e.g., something that just does word
processing, web browsing, email, etc.) it usually takes me the better
part of three days to get a new machine set up and configured. Rarely
do you just reinstall all the same (old) apps: "Hmmm.... should I
upgrade Firefox? And, what about the tool that I use to view ISO's?
And what's the latest set of Adobe Reader bugs? ..."

My *work* machines take *weeks* to set up! Invariably, something
that used to work doesn't any longer. So, time spent (wasted)
researching the "why" behind it. Then, deciding if I should
"live without" that thing -- or, *risk* upgrading it and hope
it doesn't break anything else in the process...

I firmly believe in living with a known set of problems and
capabilities instead of seeking out a whole new set! Most of
the time, the machine is sitting in a tight loop waiting for
me to decide which *key* I'm going to press...

I sure as hell don't need to install "updates" every week and
wonder what won't work thereafter -- and *when* I will
discover the problem! (most updates are security related;
keep machine off the internet and all those problems go away!)

In the 80's, I had a pair of 25MHz 386's. It would take a full 24 hours
to render some of my 3D CAD models. I'd turn off the monitor (save
power) and put a note on the keyboard: "Do not turn off" (lest I
forget in a moment of distraction). Then, move to the other machine
and keep working on mode models, or a schematic, or a layout, or some
software, or assembling a prototype, or ordering components, or office
supplies, etc. Always *something* that could be done in the time waiting
(without it feeling like you're "waiting")

I occasionally run a Spice sim on the old 5-year-old HP that take many
minutes per run, so design iterations are slow. That's about the
slowest thing I do, and most circuit sims take a second or two. I can
spin a SolidWorks 3D model essentially instantly. Doing a design rules

Spinning a model is simple. Photorealistically *rendering* it from
a wireframe eats cycles. (I have models of things where you can actually
see the detail of the "legs" of components/DIPs in the final model)

The SolidWorks viewer shows all the surfaces nicely rendered and
colored, and does sections so I can see inside things. Things spin
about as fast as you could spin the real thing in your hand, on my old
HP. I don't run the full SolidWorks, just the viewer.

This spins around with no visible delay:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Mechanics/SESM_1.jpg

I couldn't spin the real thing as fast: it's big and heavy!

check on a big PC board might take 10 seconds, so I don't often need
more compute power. Webbing is connection speed limited.

Why does Microsoft keep changing the way Windows works, for no
apparent reason? Most annoying.

Why "new coke"? Why "new and improved" ANYTHING? Esp when the
"improvement" rarely *is*!

If Windows Y was the same as Windows X, who would buy Y?

I would, if it were actually better. Scrambling the UI doesn't make it
better, it just makes it annoying.

What I found most amusing is reading the numerous papers MSweenies
publish touting the rationale behind all of their decisions -- esp
user interface decisions! Then, reading the counterparts to those
papers at the NEXT release... wherein they have an entirely different
rationale for an entirely different user interface dogma! :-/

Windows 10 looks to be yet another disorganized Apple clone, of OS-X
this time. X=10, get it? Steve Jobs was Microsoft's best architect.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
lunatic fringe electronics

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Don Y · Aug 3, 2015

On 8/3/2015 9:13 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 18:47:23 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:

On 8/2/2015 5:46 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 11:18:17 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> wrote:

On 8/2/2015 9:16 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:

So, the trick is finding the right amount of "wait" -- too little and
you can't get started on something else; too much and you risk the
task taking too long for your schedule, etc.

I got a new PC on Friday, and I'm going through the awful process of
installing all my existing apps and settings and projects and desktop
stuff. Old HP XP, new monster Win7 Dell with 4x the ram, 30x the disk,
gobs of horsepower. Such a trauma is worth it every 3 years or so,
certainly not much more often.

For a "trivial (windows) machine" (e.g., something that just does word
processing, web browsing, email, etc.) it usually takes me the better
part of three days to get a new machine set up and configured. Rarely
do you just reinstall all the same (old) apps: "Hmmm.... should I
upgrade Firefox? And, what about the tool that I use to view ISO's?
And what's the latest set of Adobe Reader bugs? ..."

My *work* machines take *weeks* to set up! Invariably, something
that used to work doesn't any longer. So, time spent (wasted)
researching the "why" behind it. Then, deciding if I should
"live without" that thing -- or, *risk* upgrading it and hope
it doesn't break anything else in the process...

I firmly believe in living with a known set of problems and
capabilities instead of seeking out a whole new set! Most of
the time, the machine is sitting in a tight loop waiting for
me to decide which *key* I'm going to press...

I sure as hell don't need to install "updates" every week and
wonder what won't work thereafter -- and *when* I will
discover the problem! (most updates are security related;
keep machine off the internet and all those problems go away!)

In the 80's, I had a pair of 25MHz 386's. It would take a full 24 hours
to render some of my 3D CAD models. I'd turn off the monitor (save
power) and put a note on the keyboard: "Do not turn off" (lest I
forget in a moment of distraction). Then, move to the other machine
and keep working on mode models, or a schematic, or a layout, or some
software, or assembling a prototype, or ordering components, or office
supplies, etc. Always *something* that could be done in the time waiting
(without it feeling like you're "waiting")

I occasionally run a Spice sim on the old 5-year-old HP that take many
minutes per run, so design iterations are slow. That's about the
slowest thing I do, and most circuit sims take a second or two. I can
spin a SolidWorks 3D model essentially instantly. Doing a design rules

Spinning a model is simple. Photorealistically *rendering* it from
a wireframe eats cycles. (I have models of things where you can actually
see the detail of the "legs" of components/DIPs in the final model)

The SolidWorks viewer shows all the surfaces nicely rendered and
colored, and does sections so I can see inside things. Things spin
about as fast as you could spin the real thing in your hand, on my old
HP. I don't run the full SolidWorks, just the viewer.

Yes, I understand. Its a different thing, entirely, to do full ray tracing,
light sources, etc. I.e., I build models that I can "take photos of"
and not know that there was no "camera" involved!

This spins around with no visible delay:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Mechanics/SESM_1.jpg

I couldn't spin the real thing as fast: it's big and heavy!

check on a big PC board might take 10 seconds, so I don't often need
more compute power. Webbing is connection speed limited.

Why does Microsoft keep changing the way Windows works, for no
apparent reason? Most annoying.

Why "new coke"? Why "new and improved" ANYTHING? Esp when the
"improvement" rarely *is*!

If Windows Y was the same as Windows X, who would buy Y?

I would, if it were actually better. Scrambling the UI doesn't make it
better, it just makes it annoying.

Exactly. But users only *see* the UI. Joe Average User couldn't describe
Windows (any version) in terms other than "a graphical user interface
with lots of WINDOWS"

What I found most amusing is reading the numerous papers MSweenies
publish touting the rationale behind all of their decisions -- esp
user interface decisions! Then, reading the counterparts to those
papers at the NEXT release... wherein they have an entirely different
rationale for an entirely different user interface dogma! :-/

Windows 10 looks to be yet another disorganized Apple clone, of OS-X
this time. X=10, get it? Steve Jobs was Microsoft's best architect.

OS-X was derived from BSD.

John Larkin · Aug 4, 2015

On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 19:05:15 -0700 (PDT), "dcaster@krl.org"
<dcaster@krl.org> wrote:

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 8:48:42 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

We backup design releases to CDs, which I store in the cave at home.
Some are 10 years old, and I occasionally have to retrieve one. So
far, it has always worked.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
lunatic fringe electronics

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

I have had CD's that were no longer 100 % readable.

Dan

I keep them in ziploc bags, in a cool dry dark place, basically a cave
under my house.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Simon S Aysdie · Aug 4, 2015

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 9:53:15 AM UTC-7, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 5:24:39 PM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:
On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 3:59:57 PM UTC-4, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:

The CDs are probably kackered now.

NT

CD's are not a very reliable archival tool. You might look at updating your optical drive to a 25 gigabyte M disc drive.

http://www.mdisc.com/faq/

warning , I have not used a mdisc. And the media does not seem to be in stores.

Dan

Supposedly the brand matters a great deal. And if you're using DVDs, use DVR+R. Discussion here:

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media/

I have found that brand matters a lot for double layer DVDs (DVD+R DL 8.5 GB). The only brand I have found that is reliable is Verbatim.

I never had too many brand related issues with CD-R or single layer DVD.

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn · Aug 4, 2015

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:09:14 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

mSATA drive is an SSD. A spinning, platter based drive is a tiny clean
room and would be no different now or in 20 years. Far more reliably
than an optical impingement (it isn't even a true 'burn"). Hint, hint.

Phil Hobbs · Aug 4, 2015

On 8/3/2015 6:00 PM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:09:14 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

mSATA drive is an SSD. A spinning, platter based drive is a tiny clean
room and would be no different now or in 20 years. Far more reliably
than an optical impingement (it isn't even a true 'burn"). Hint, hint.

Using SSDs for long term backup is an option for trust fund babies, or
those with very little to back up.

Taiyo Yuden CDRs and DVD+Rs are very reliable.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn · Aug 4, 2015

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 18:09:36 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<hobbs@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

On 8/3/2015 6:00 PM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:
On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:09:14 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

mSATA drive is an SSD. A spinning, platter based drive is a tiny clean
room and would be no different now or in 20 years. Far more reliably
than an optical impingement (it isn't even a true 'burn"). Hint, hint.

Using SSDs for long term backup is an option for trust fund babies, or
those with very little to back up.

Taiyo Yuden CDRs and DVD+Rs are very reliable.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The likelihood that you'll lose your data from a relaxation of the
original write session (hint, it is NOT "a burn") is far higher than
some stray gamma particle causing an SSD to lose what was written to it.

That is one 'fund' I'll trust forever by comparison, baby

Optical discs which were stamped by a glass master at a factory are
reliable. The crap consumers "burn" are absolutely not (burned or
reliable). The "pits" are mere slight impingements in a plastic layer
made at a very high speed which relax over time or with elevated
temperatures.

N. Coesel · Aug 4, 2015

Phil Hobbs schreef op 08/03/2015 om 05:09 PM:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my
data online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring
of the media.
I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard
drives because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing
computers. Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a
sensible way is a cumbersome task.

Phil Hobbs · Aug 4, 2015

On 8/3/2015 8:52 PM, N. Coesel wrote:

Phil Hobbs schreef op 08/03/2015 om 05:09 PM:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my
data online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring
of the media.
I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard
drives because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing
computers. Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a
sensible way is a cumbersome task.

You don't want to have them all mounted to a filesystem, though, because
ransomware is spreading like a plague.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn · Aug 4, 2015

On Tue, 04 Aug 2015 02:52:22 +0200, "N. Coesel" <nico@niks.nl> Gave us:

I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard
drives because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing
computers. Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a
sensible way is a cumbersome task.

I have several multi-terabyte drives laying here. Using one for films
and music, and one for archiving business data does not pose an issue
with my fail mind. (roll eyes again)

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn · Aug 4, 2015

On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 19:37:25 -0700, Don Y <this@is.not.me.com> Gave us:

Unless you're actively *checking* the media contents while they're
spinning, you still have no idea whether or not any particular file can
be retrieved when you need it.

Horseshit. If it was a reliable drive when you archived the data, and
you make dual partitions even on the same drive and manually (not a
mirror set up)redundify the stored data, you will not experience a
problem.

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn · Aug 4, 2015

On Tue, 04 Aug 2015 02:52:22 +0200, "N. Coesel" <nico@niks.nl> Gave us:

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my
data online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring
of the media.

A 'shelved' hard drive does NOT degrade.. An .'in use' hard drive
DOES. (rolls eyes)

Sheesh.

Don Y · Aug 4, 2015

On 8/3/2015 5:52 PM, N. Coesel wrote:

Phil Hobbs schreef op 08/03/2015 om 05:09 PM:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my data
online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring of the media.

Unless you're actively *checking* the media contents while they're
spinning, you still have no idea whether or not any particular file can
be retrieved when you need it.

I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard drives
because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing computers.
Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a sensible way is a
cumbersome task.

Don't bother "organizing"! I'm moving all my "bulk" archives onto external
drives (so they can be easily/quickly moved without having to worry about
building a "compatible" machine to read them WHEN something goes south)
and loosely "mirroring" them -- with the mirrors being <wherever> is
convenient.

Then, logging the contents of each rive in a relational database -- along
with applicable metadata (e.g., MD5's of each file, size, etc.). So,
I can query the database *without* having any drives spinning -- to
locate a file of interest.

Once located, I can spin up the necessary drive(s) and retrieve the file(s).

At the same time, a job systematically walks each filesystem WHEN the
drive is on-line and reverifies the MD5's of each file against the
MD5 stored in the database. So, if a file is in jeopardy (yields
read errors or a bad MD5), I know *then* to hunt down the mirror
copy and create a new backup.

Allowing the "verification" job to be interrupted (e.g., when the drive
is spun down) and *resumed* (in place) means I don't have to leave a box
up for hours while I verify its entire contents.

[At the same time, logging that task's progress (in the database) lets me
know when portions of each medium have been "ignored" for too long...]

Don Y · Aug 4, 2015

On 8/3/2015 6:28 PM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 8/3/2015 8:52 PM, N. Coesel wrote:
Phil Hobbs schreef op 08/03/2015 om 05:09 PM:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my
data online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring
of the media.
I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard
drives because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing
computers. Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a
sensible way is a cumbersome task.

You don't want to have them all mounted to a filesystem, though, because
ransomware is spreading like a plague.

You can access the data via a variety of protocols that are less accessible
than a nominally mounted filesystem (assume the host that has them mounted
is "secure"). E.g., FTP, RSYNC, HTTP, etc.

It's not just ransomware. When a disk is spinning and mounted, its
contents can be altered (when its on a shelf, they can't -- shy of
an EMP).

So, if the OS acts up (or the firmware on the drive), your data is at risk.

One reason I don't like COTS RAID arrays is there are still "shared components"
involved for "both" copies of your data: power supplies, CPU's, firmware,
memory, etc.

Decades ago, I had a ~dozen (bare) SCSI drives that I kept as a "cold"
archive; two copies of everything. When I needed a file from the archive,
I'd install a drive in an external SCSI enclosure, cable to the system in
question and then mount(8) the filesystem present on the drive. Copy the
file(s) I needed, then spin down the external drive and put it back on
the shelf.

One day, I installed one, mounted it -- and watched it FAIL in a big way.
My initial assumption was that the *drive* had failed: "(sigh) $1K down
the drain!" So, I pulled the "bad" drive and mounted the mirror copy.
And watched it suffer the same fate! "Hmmm... what are the chances of
TWO drives failing within minutes of each other??"

Turns out, the OS had an "issue" in the driver for the SCSI HBA with
that particular make/model drive -- something that didn't quite work
right (these are formally called "QUIRKS" by the code). Until the
issue had been identified, any drives of that type would suffer the
same fate!

I.e., had both been mounted at the same time, both would have died at the
same time as the problem lie in the OS/driver/HBA/disk combination.
Had all ~dozen of them been spinning in a shelf, I'd be looking at
an order of magnitude higher loss!

In this case, the problem manifested quickly and in a very obvious way;
had the QUIRK been more subtle, it could have been less obvious and not
discovered until a later date -- AFTER I had assumed that the retrieved
file was intact!

This taught me the value of having backups on other forms of media
(I recovered the contents of the drive and its mirror from a third
copy on MO media) *and* the value of having drives with R/O strapping
options! (i.e., try as it may, the OS *can't* alter the contents!)

Things break (aka "Shit Happens") so expecting *anything* and EVERYTHING
to work reliably at all times is a Rx for disappointment!

Martin Brown · Aug 4, 2015

On 03/08/2015 23:09, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 8/3/2015 6:00 PM, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno wrote:
On Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:09:14 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> Gave us:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

mSATA drive is an SSD. A spinning, platter based drive is a tiny clean
room and would be no different now or in 20 years. Far more reliably
than an optical impingement (it isn't even a true 'burn"). Hint, hint.

Using SSDs for long term backup is an option for trust fund babies, or
those with very little to back up.

Taiyo Yuden CDRs and DVD+Rs are very reliable.

They are provided you keep them cool, dry and in the dark. I am always a
little nervous of DVDs for high value stuff - I prefer to keep important
files on at least two independent media types.

It is scary seeing what happens to ones used as coasters left outside in
the sunshine. Even a sunny windowsill will degrade lesser brands
(especially if they forgot the UV protection to save money).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Joe Gwinn · Aug 4, 2015

In article <55C01534.7010700@electrooptical.net>, Phil Hobbs
<hobbs@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 8/3/2015 8:52 PM, N. Coesel wrote:
Phil Hobbs schreef op 08/03/2015 om 05:09 PM:

I wouldn't guarantee that a HDD sitting on a shelf would start up
reliably at that age.

Which is why you must not shelve hard drives. I choose to have all my
data online on multiple hard drives. That way I have health monitoring
of the media.
I found out I lost little bits of data by storing it on CDs or hard
drives because I misplaced them or never cared to restore when changing
computers. Making backups is one thing but organising the media in a
sensible way is a cumbersome task.

You don't want to have them all mounted to a filesystem, though, because
ransomware is spreading like a plague.

There is an old-school barrier to malware and ransomware - tape backup.

The reason tape is resistant is because it does not have a file system
on it, and cannot be accessed randomly.

So one recovery dodge if one has a infected disk is to back all desired
files up onto tape, reformat the disk, install a brand new OS image,
and then restore the files.

This will not help if the files were encrypted by ransomware.

Joe Gwinn

Time to Upgrade ?:-}

Jim Thompson

Guest

Phil Hobbs

Guest

Piotr Wyderski

Guest

N. Coesel

Guest

John Larkin

Guest

Don Y

Guest

John Larkin

Guest

Simon S Aysdie

Guest

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn

Guest

Phil Hobbs

Guest

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn

Guest

N. Coesel

Guest

Phil Hobbs

Guest

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn

Guest

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn

Guest

DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUn

Guest

Don Y

Guest

Don Y

Guest

Martin Brown

Guest

Joe Gwinn

Guest

Log in

Welcome to EDABoard.com

Sponsor