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#1
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On demand backup drive.
I have to make my backing up more frequent.
Right now I use a double dock, with a 5 1/4" drive. I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!** Is there a 5 1/4" dock that will turn off when not in use. I have the impression that those 2 1/2" backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? (I wanted the HDD image to be made to a 5 1/4 so if there were a problem, I could just swap HDD's. That would work, right? But most of my backups are just data files (not part of a disk image). and I can't stand to have the drive spinning 24/7 when I only back up for 10 minutes once a day or less. And I can't reach the switch without standing up and going around the desk.) WRT my email backups, if there is a crash (and I just had several) the program rebuilds the table of contents but does a half-baked job, and if I back that up, I no longer have a backup of a good toc. Some software keeps more than one generation of backup. Any recommendations? **This is the second time advertising lied to me. Back during dial-up and call waiting, a modem claimed to let me know when someone was calling me, but after I bought it, it didn't work either and someone on the phone admitted it didn't work. TIA |
#2
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On demand backup drive.
On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:46:54 -0400, micky
wrote: I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 5 1/4" drive. I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!** Is there a 5 1/4" dock that will turn off when not in use. You probably mean a 3 1/2" drive, like a standard hard drive. CD/DVD drives are typically 5 1/4" wide, but hard drives haven't been that big in a long time. I have the impression that those 2 1/2" backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? (I wanted the HDD image to be made to a 5 1/4 so if there were a problem, I could just swap HDD's. That would work, right? If you're making a clone, your destination drive can hold exactly one copy of your source drive and you can boot from the clone if your source drive is/was bootable. (With exceptions.) If you instead create images, then you can place as many images on the destination drive as you have available space, but you generally can't boot from an image. Instead, you'd have to write one of the images to a hard drive and then boot from it. snip |
#3
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On demand backup drive.
In alt.comp.hardware, on Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:13:46 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote: On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:46:54 -0400, micky wrote: I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 5 1/4" drive. I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!** Is there a 5 1/4" dock that will turn off when not in use. You probably mean a 3 1/2" drive, like a standard hard drive. CD/DVD drives are typically 5 1/4" wide, but hard drives haven't been that big in a long time. You're right. I was never very good with numbers. (though I majored in math in college.) I have the impression that those 2 1/2" backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? (I wanted the HDD image to be made to a 5 1/4 so if there were a Oops. I meant clone. I was never very good with words, either. problem, I could just swap HDD's. That would work, right? If you're making a clone, your destination drive can hold exactly one copy of your source drive and you can boot from the clone if your source drive is/was bootable. (With exceptions.) If you instead create images, then you can place as many images on the destination drive as you have available space, but you generally can't boot from an image. Instead, you'd have to write one of the images to a hard drive and then boot from it. Right. I once knew that. T snip |
#4
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On demand backup drive.
Corrected post I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 3 1/2" drive. (I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!**) Is there a 3 1/2" dock that will turn off when not in use, when there is no data coming from the PC. I have the impression that those 2 1/4 backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? |
#5
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On demand backup drive.
micky wrote:
Corrected post I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 3 1/2" drive. (I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!**) Is there a 3 1/2" dock that will turn off when not in use, when there is no data coming from the PC. I have the impression that those 2 1/4 backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? The policy of the drive is one thing. You can have drives with aggressive spindown (but not complete power off necessarily). The problem is, when the computer first boots or is alerted to the presence of the drive, you get a drive letter and the partition is mounted. The OS can "probe" a partition at regular intervals. For a drive that has entered the spin-down state or the parked state or whatever, this wakes them up. Now, all day long, they're doing spin-up, spin-down, spin-up, spin-down. And if you had a fancy software that does: * Dismount * Offline or similar, now when your backup software goes to run, it finds the drive letter doesn't exist and the backup fails. If the drive is left in an inappropriate state, there is still trouble. And you can see here, there really is no happy medium. No matter what scheme they come up with, there is a "minus" at some point. https://superuser.com/questions/4109...hen-not-in-use ******* For an SSD, it wouldn't really matter if it was "left spinning". Idle power can be under a watt on some of them. If they wake up and go to sleep again, nobody cares. An SSD might be suitable for "small" backups. Or, break the bank for large backups, depending on who makes it and how big it is. For example, a recently advertised WDC SSD was $100 for 1TB storage. An SSD with SATA interface, would plug into your dock. Paul |
#6
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On demand backup drive.
micky wrote:
Corrected post I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 3 1/2" drive. (I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!**) Is there a 3 1/2" dock that will turn off when not in use, when there is no data coming from the PC. I have the impression that those 2 1/4 backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? Eventually, you get the size(s) right! :-) Theu are 2.5" drives. I use Western Digital (WD) Elements (USB) portable drives, 1TB. These drives do 'turn off' - I assume you mean stop spinning -, BUT when connected, Windows will often - shortly - access all connected drives, so they spin up again. That happens for example when you go to 'This PC' in (Windows) File Explorer, because that screen shows all connected drives, so File Explorer will re-check those. So they're *mostly* spinned down, but not all the time. I also have a NAS - Synology DS115j DiskStation - which *does* not (re-)spin up when I do not use it -, but as it's a NAS, it's connected via the network and hence not suitable for your imaging/cloning use. It is of course suitable for file-level backup, which is the way I use it. As to imaging (I don't (yet) clone), I use the WD Elements drives and connect them before the image backup and disconnect them afterwards. |
#7
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On demand backup drive.
On 6/22/2020 3:46 PM, micky wrote:
I have to make my backing up more frequent. Right now I use a double dock, with a 5 1/4" drive. I bought one whose advertising said it turned off when it wasn't getting input, but afterwards, when I tried to get the software the ad said was needed, someone there admitted there was no software and it didnt' do it!!!** Is there a 5 1/4" dock that will turn off when not in use. I have the impression that those 2 1/2" backup drives do indeed turn off when I'm not backing up. Do they? All of them? Any that you recommend? Any you recommend against? (I wanted the HDD image to be made to a 5 1/4 so if there were a problem, I could just swap HDD's. That would work, right? But most of my backups are just data files (not part of a disk image). and I can't stand to have the drive spinning 24/7 when I only back up for 10 minutes once a day or less. And I can't reach the switch without standing up and going around the desk.) WRT my email backups, if there is a crash (and I just had several) the program rebuilds the table of contents but does a half-baked job, and if I back that up, I no longer have a backup of a good toc. Some software keeps more than one generation of backup. Any recommendations? **This is the second time advertising lied to me. Back during dial-up and call waiting, a modem claimed to let me know when someone was calling me, but after I bought it, it didn't work either and someone on the phone admitted it didn't work. TIA Given that good practice would call for keeping the backup in a safe location -- a media safe for example -- what is the importance of this shutdown ability? There are certainly any number of USB3 docks around that have a power switch and, if the drive in the dock is to be used for backup only, clicking 'safe removal' and then flipping the power switch on the dock after the backup shouldn't be that onerous. -- Bodger's Dictum: Artifical intelligence can never overcome natural stupidity. |
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