3TB and trouble.

[daveh]

Well, it's that chicken and egg thing, memory gets ever cheaper, applications get more memory hungry. Big hard drives are now on the market and prices are tumbling, in spite of the floods in Thailand.

I had toyed with the idea of getting a 3TB drive for a while. There is much conflicting information out there about what will or won't work and why. My conclusion was that the only way to fond out for sure was to get one and see.

So far, failure: i have come to the conclusion that the bios of my computer can't handle above that 2.2TB ceiling, and that there doesn't seem to be a suitable bios upgrade for it. I haven't given up though, some time I shall find the solution, but along the way I have come up with a few truths:

1) no one ever seems to want to make it easy for other, lesser mortals.
2) Microsoft (almost alone it would seem) want to make it particularly difficult. Other operating system designers put inflation-proof methods in place after an earlier 'maximum capacity' scare. Not those wonderful people at Microdaft though.
3) Mickey is one of the most sensible amongst us - having opted for Apples and Macs.

I don't have it working as yet, but I have moved my knowledge on. It's an ill wind etcetera.

[Rachel]

Dave, I looked on the web and found several references to using large drives and possible solutions. Here's one anyway tinyurl.com/8aywkot .

[daveh]

Rachel, thanks. I had seen that entry - I think I've probably seen them all by now. What annoys me is having done a search an entry will promise "all the answers here". When you get there the fight though pages of garbage starts and culminates in a download that doesn't actually work. I've been trying to upgrade my bios, but but (is it?) American Megatrends don't seem to want to help I need a fresh look in a few days. It may all fit into place then.

[SidW]

Dave, I'd never imagined I might one day want any number of TBs. My mind still can't fathom MBs.

Then one day ...

The computer snarled up in the middle of a full virus scan. The virus scanner people replied the hard disk was failing. My guess, that turned out to be correct, was that the disk was getting full and there was no headroom for temp files etc. A 500GB disk had three partitions, and one, the photo partition (what else?) had just 12GB to spare. 12GB? That was a size disk beyond my dreams not long ago. More than any flash card i have for the camera. Anyway I shifted 20GB free space into the tight partition and got the computer moving again. There was a second 500GB disk, external, similarly partitioned, for backup and of course the photo partition there was in the same state. But, the computer froze within 10 secs when it was switched on, so it had to stay off.

I got a 1TB disk to replace the internal 500GB data disk, formatted and partitioned it, did a full check disk, and copied over all the data files. using a gadget I'd hesitated to get in the past. This is a small box that you just drop a hard disk into and connect via USB, and it buzzes along day and night doing its thing, leaving the computer free for use (free and free, it's slow of course while the USB disk is demanding resources). Then I screwed the new disk into the computer chassis and continued reformatting and repartitioning and checking the old 500GB disk which then went into an external cabinet to shadow half the new TB disk. Finally, I woke up the original external 500GB disk and did the same to that, and put it in another external cabinet to shadow the other half of the 1TB disk.

I dread to think how long it will take to format, partition and check 3TB. Can't you use a smaller one, or maybe two smaller ones? And still use the original disk(s) for backup?

[daveh]

Sid,

I'm slowly going through my files and am attempting to sort them out so I have all my important (I.e. mainly photo) files backed up. In the early dyas I used CD then DVD, but modern RAW files are getting too big. I intend to backup as JPGs to DVD so at least I have a copy of each file even if all harddrives 'go down'

While I have normally had at least one backup there are some files from 2009 which I don't see to have a copy of, and that disc has gone down - so some I have lost for good. There are some edited versions of some of the events recorded, if I can remember to whom I gave discs (and that assumes they still have them.)

In terms of total size of discs. I have at the moment attached to the computer:
main disc 600GB, 2TB, and 300GB in a removable cage and 3 external 1TB drives. Most of the information is backed up on other drives though some, such as recordings from TV isn't (nor do I intend to back these up). I have about 1.2TB free, but the Canon 18 megapixel RAW files (at between 20 and 32 MB) soon eat it up. Even the Pentax at 6 megapixel has files just under 10MB.

The 3 TB drive, when I finally get it running (I haven't tried to recently) will do me very nicely for a fair time. At £120 it is quite considerably cheaper than film, when one considers how much it will store.

[SidW]

Dave, as disaster follows disaster, you try to do better.

I separate data into photos, sound and general documents (text, database working files, downloaded installation files).

Just looking at photos, I've always archived layered edits of raw files - I found I've a gentle learning curve since I started digitizing 10 years ago (and camera since 2004) so I wanted to be able to go back. Now I'm beginning to archive in flattened tiff. I'd never archive jpg - it's a lossy format, and every time you edit and save it gets worse. JPG is for final versions for a specific purpose, like a slideshow or publishing online. Being paranoic, I never make online pictures larger than 500x500px and always low grade jpg.

I might, or might not, have archive pictures on the hard disk - depending on what I'm working on or haven't tidied up or haven't got round to making a revised or permanent backup. But I always make jpg copies of everything at 500x500px and 1600x1200px that are kept on the hard disk, and managed and described in a database (ACDSee) so I can find anything in a jiffy.

The main archive is on DVD. But I've also been using a shadowing backup for a few years now, that synchronizes an external backup with the internal hard disk once a day (SmartSync, but there are several available). This was a great help during the latest disaster I mentioned yesterday, I didn't lose any data at all this time.

[daveh]

I had always intended to set up an instant mirroring system, but I've never quite got round to it. While it seems a good solution in the event of a crash, there is however the problem that a file deleted from one is deleted from the other too. I just tend to manually save to two disks so I have a backup.

I like the way with RAW files, CR2 and PEF for my cameras, that the changes can be saved as a sidecar file. Whatever is done to it the original file is unchanged. As a rule I scan to TIFF these days.

The original digital photos I took were all taken as JPGs, so they are archived in that format. In those days memory was expensive and there just wasn't room to save as a TIFF unless you were prepared to spend a veritable fortune on SD cards. A 128mb card cost more than a 32gb card costs now. In terms of hard drives, I remember buying a 120mb drive for just under a £1 per megabyte. Now you can get about 25gb per pound sterling spent, so the times they are a changin'.