Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/07/31
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Tina, When disks are powered off, they are quite tolerant of shock because the disk head is "parked" and the motor is not spinning. Unless your road is really, really, really bad and you are driving a Landrover or a truck with no suspension, it shouldn't be a problem to transport disks. USB plugs are designed for a fixed number of insertions (3000 comes to mind but I could be wrong. It has been a few years since I looked at the spec). I doubt if you can exceed that in a year or 2. Computers unfortunately are far too complicate to be simple. Apple comes closer than anyone else but still not that simple. Don't get me started on badly designed computer interfaces. :) Do you run backup S/W of some sort? I know nothing about Windows backup S/W. My low cost suggestion is to have 3 external disks of equal size. One external disk is kept permanently at your office and another at your farm - both are unplugged unless in use. You carry one back and forth. The one you carry is the one you always copy your data to. You also has to copy your data to the on-site disks. It's a bit cumbersome because you have to copy your data 3 times if you are doing this manually but this will make sure you have an active copy with you and a local backup so if catastrophic events occur (fire, car crashes). It is important to buy quality external disks. They should be from different manufacturers. Note that it is hard to tell what hard disk is actually in the nicely packaged external disks. I usually buy the enclosure separately from the hard disk so I KNOW what disks are inside. I no longer believe in any of the consumer grade disk enclosures. : ( Single point of failure with their control electronics and power supply. Regards, Spencer On Jul 31, 2009, at 17:12, Tina Manley wrote: > Yes, this particular drive is unplugged every day and carried back > and forth from my office at the house to the farm. It is plugged > into an Acer UPS. I'm sure the plugging and unplugging and carrying > back and forth can't be good for the USB connections but I don't > know what else to do. The Drobos look interesting but get very bad > reviews on Newegg and I need to be able to access the files from > both of my offices. I bought a 4 bay enclosure several years ago > but the drives in it routinely failed. I either have very bad luck > or I'm as hard on computers as I am on cameras!! I just want > something that works with no attention from me and automatic backups > in case something goes wrong.