Thread: Takes so long sometimes

Heading to court tomorrow. Did the inspection in 2007 for a woman suing the builder. The builder's atty got disbarred a few days after he deposed me a little over a year ago.

What's interesting is 2007 is the year I lost everything on my computer, and back up hard drive. For whatever reason, I had transferred the report and photos to my spare laptop.

I had backed up stuff to c/d's but when I went to retrieve them, they wouldn't read. I lost everything from 2007. That's when I signed on with Carbonite. So I back up to c/d's (and check that they will read, an external hard drive, and carbonite.

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I quit using CDs, memory sticks are the way to go. I keep a mem stick plugged in all the time and copy my report to it as I write it. Every time an important doc is modified I copy it to the stick right away. Then every month or so I copy everything to another hard drive, other PC's and other memory sticks that stay in a fire safe. I don't backup pictures as much as everything else though.

memory sticks are really meant as a easy way to transfer stuff, and not designed to store information long term. I have seen, first hand, way too many memory stick failures to want to rely on them for any long term use.

When my backup hard drive failed (only a couple of years old) and I took it to a place to try to retrieve the files, I was surprised to learn how common hard drive failures are. Thats when I decided to also back up "in the clouds".

Originally Posted by Jack Feldmann

memory sticks are really meant as a easy way to transfer stuff, and not designed to store information long term. I have seen, first hand, way too many memory stick failures to want to rely on them for any long term use.

When my backup hard drive failed (only a couple of years old) and I took it to a place to try to retrieve the files, I was surprised to learn how common hard drive failures are. Thats when I decided to also back up "in the clouds".

I just lost a lap top to a severe crash and burn. Absolutely nothing was salvageable. I guess I did not learn back at the end of 2007 that I should back up immediately I did not lose much as it automatically backs up to Norton 360 for my pics and files such as word and pdf files. I did lose the couple of inspection from that day that I just did. As a matter of fact it crashed just while I was doing the second report later that evening. I was able to get the report back from the first couple and for the strangest reason which I do not know the second reports pictures did not automatically delete after down loading to the computer so I saved them.

That will be 2 laptops in a 3 year time span. The last one showed no signs at all. It locked up as I was adding a picture to my report and did a slow burn while trying to recover it and then finally died altogether and never came back to life.

I use a RAID setup in my desktop computer, two drives which automatically mirror each other. I also backup to an external drive which is kept in my detached garage.

I sleep well at night.

I use reporthost.com, this way everything i do is on the web and they will give me a report on a cd at the end of the year

Rick,
I'm not familiar with RAID. Is that still two physical hard drives?
I guess my learning point in this experience was to not trust physical hard drives, since they can go out.

In my case I had my old laptop. I backed everything up on c/d's and also on the external hard drive. I then got rid of that laptop.

Lesson #1. Check c/ds when you burn them to make sure they actually have the stuff on them that you think is there. I didn't do that.
Lesson #2. Back up hard drive died. My mistake was thinking they actually would last many years without a problem.

Lesson #3 and thankfully it didn't happen to me. A friend of mine that lives 1/2 mile from me had his house struck by lightning. It not only fried every single thing that plugged into an outlet, but caught part of his house on fire.

I lost a lot more than my inspection reports on that back up hard drive.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, there are many different configurations but RAID 1 is two seperate hard disks which the RAID controller maintains as exact copies of one another. No user intervention is required, it is done automatically. If one drive fails just shut off the computer and swap it out, the RAID controller will restore the mirroring automatically. Most newer motherboards have a RAID controller built-in, more info can be found on Wikipedia.

Make sure to still back up and store it "off-site" in case of fire or theft of your whole computer. The on-line storage (or cloud) system is good too, I just prefer to keep my data close by.

A second benefit of RAID 1 is that WHEN a hard drive fails, you still have a usable system and do not have to re-install all of your software, programs, settings etc.

Thanks Rick. I'll look into that. Just shows how much I DON"T know. :-)

I use Report Host and Carbonite as well; Report Host keeps everything off of my hard drive, and my clients can read their reports anytime in the future just by clicking a link.

Carbonite is awesome as well because it backs up EVERYTHING, and you don't have to do anything, its automatic. When I needed to recover some files that I lost, I just logged into their site and "voila" there they were. (And I can also access it from my mobile phone or wireless laptop anywhere.

Gregg

A question RE: the Carbonite service (I know...I should just go to their website, but thought I would hear some first-hand info!) - When you need your data restored, is it all done over the net, or do you need to send/receive your media on another memory device (such as portable Hard drive, etc.)? Seems like a large number of files could take a LONG time to download! Just wondering.....!

It did take a long time to upload all my stuff to Carbonite - a very long time.
I did try to get a file back once to see how the process worked, and it was pretty fast. I'm guessing that if I had to replace my entire file, it would take quite a while.

I back up to two hard drives and burn to DVD's and have files on two different computers, best to over do it.
Hope your court date went well!

Thanks for the quick reply, Jack! I kinda thought that may be the case......but it still is better than losing everything with no possibility of recovery!

Court update....
Yesterday sat for 3 hours
Today sat for 4 hours,
Set for 9am tomorrow morning, and hopefully I will get on the stand right away.

I keep reports on a external drive as well as my laptop. Another backup I have is I email reports. Not only to the client but I email a copy to another hotmail account I have. Even if everything burns down, the emails can be accessed and the reports are there.

I have two NAS (Network Attached Storage) on my wireless network router. One is a 1TB and the other is 500GB. I keep all my business files on the 1TB and then every night it backs up to the 500GB. They are Buffalo drives and they were roughly $125 a piece when I purchase them in the last two years. Once a quarter I back everything up to a WD 1TB USB drive that lives in a fireproof lock box.

I have learned that depending on a single mechanical device is risky and with Murphy's law unless you are always checking the disks you are burning on an independent machine you run the risk of being caught with no backup data at all! Try explaining that to a judge or worse an IRS auditor.............

//Rick

Personally, I print a hard copy for myself and I email copies of all reports and photos to clients thru Hotmail or Gmail - everything is there for them - and you, wherever you are. Gmail is great for photos, the descriptions stay next to the photo being viewed, as opposed to Hotmail's "Silverlight" which is more like a slide show presentation without the descriptions.

Rod,

The initial back-up of the hard drive can usually take about a day, but when you are done, its a mirror image of your hard drive. Afterwords, you can retrieve a file online in less than 30 seconds.

Send me your email address and I will send you some info from them directly.

Gregg

Been using Carbonite and so far no problems. Also, use external HDs. When Office Depot has a sale I restock and now have about 6 250 to 500 GB external HDs. I have a huge photo collection and they take up mucho roomo.

Redundant back up's, it is a good thing because you never know when you might need them.

Those of you contemplating using Carbonite should get a referral link from one of the guys who are already using it.

That will get the guy already using it a month or so free usage.

Take advantage of it.


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Originally Posted by Jack Feldmann

It did take a long time to upload all my stuff to Carbonite - a very long time.
I did try to get a file back once to see how the process worked, and it was pretty fast. I'm guessing that if I had to replace my entire file, it would take quite a while.

That is a normal situation for Carbonite. It is set up to run backups of the SELECTED files in the background so it doesn/t impact computer performance.
Additionally, you upload speed is always slower than the download in 99% of situations. On my 4G setup I get 2-5 MB/s down and about 1MB up pretty standardly. It is setup this way because most all computer users are consumers of information, not producers.

Local backups are good insurance for a quickie file grab. Carbonite or any other online service is the most secure.

A note about backups: Look at which backup software you are using. Some store all the data in one big proprietary file and it's all or nothing for the restore. Others mirror the file structure and you can pull one single file or part of a file if you need it. Of course, these take more room for storage but hard drives are way cheap now. I've seen 2 terabyte external drives for $100 - $150. A terabyte is 1000 GB. You will have a hard time filling that puppy up.

Jack, I spend half my life in court or depositions and I have found Amazon’s "Kindle" to be the best investment I ever made. Load any doc. or book you want and entertain yourself while waiting to testify. Yes, “Carbonite,” plus I use external hard drives that sit in my bank's safety deposit box until I exchange or add additional ones. It is only when you’re well prepared for a disaster they never seem happen.