Why is it...

[HCMarkus]

... that the *one time* I work for two days solid without backing up as a deadline is approaching (with nary a DP crash!), my main Audio/Project Raptor 150 fails, taking with it all my sequence and audio data?

Profanity deleted. Someone hand me tissue. And pray data recovery succeeds.

[bongo_x]

When I'm on a tight deadline is when I back up the most because I'm thinking "I don't have time to redo this", and that's when the poo always hits the fan. It's when I'm screwing around that I get lazy and lose stuff.

Let me be clear that I'm not blaming you, and I feel your pain and sympathize.

bb

[SixStringGeek]

I do not know why. However it is my experience that the probability of catastrophic failure is inversely proportional to urgency. I hope your recovery succeeds.

[davedempsey]

Good luck with the data recovery... I've found Data Rescue is terrific and Disk Warrior is also if the problem relates to Directory File Structure.. if it's a physical problem on the drive I guess it's a job for the pros...ouch. I've had a couple of failed drives but never a problem with a Raptor drive... best wishes.

I have suspected for a very long time now that we, being partly electric and I guess also, by definition, magnetic tend to have effect on technology from time to time - particularly if energy is out of balance. I try to stay calm and controlled and not push myself too far - radiate calm and don't scare the machines too much.

[Phil O]

... that the *one time* I work for two days solid without backing up as a deadline is approaching (with nary a DP crash!), my main Audio/Project Raptor 150 fails, taking with it all my sequence and audio data?

Google Murphy.

[James Steele]

... that the *one time* I work for two days solid without backing up as a deadline is approaching (with nary a DP crash!), my main Audio/Project Raptor 150 fails, taking with it all my sequence and audio data?

Profanity deleted. Someone hand me tissue. And pray data recovery succeeds.

You gotta ask that Murphy guy... as in Murphy's Law, right? Things NEVER fail until the worst possible time. Equipment will never fail so long as you have a backup unit on site. Once it knows there isn't any it will fail. I feel your pain.

[Tonio]

I think we need to get rid of this Murphy dude

Kidding aside, I always seem to be on a transition of upgrading machines when a HD dies.


Hope you data recovery goes well..


T

[Jim]

Where do I sign the petition to repeal Murphy's Law?

[HCMarkus]

$568 later, i have my project back on a new drive. Back on track, albeit with a reduced profit margin.
Thanks for the good wishes. I plan to move to a RADI 5 array ASAP, to preclude similar future issues.

And yes, I have signed the Murphy's Law Repeal Petition.

[Jim]

I plan to move to a RADI 5 array ASAP, to preclude similar future issues.

Au contraire, amigo. You're still not out of the woods with a RAID 5. What if two drives fail simultaneously? You are even more screwed, as that is a totally unrecoverable situation.

RAID 6 would allow two drives to fail without data loss, but at reduced transfer speeds. There's always a trade-off.

I run a RAID 5, and I've had one disk go bad. The RAID notified me by email, and as soon as I put in a replacement drive, it rebuilt itself as slick as you please. It took about seven hours.

But, I was on pins and needles until it reported that it was rebuilt.

And so for sleep at night, I got an LTO4 drive to back-up my projects and media on the RAID, and I'll keep the tapes (2 copies before deleting media from the RAID) in separate rooms until this Murphy Law gets repealed.

[HCMarkus]

Well, while we're at it, how 'bout an off-site backup? Last time I lost a bunch of data, my studio burned to the ground in a wildfire. Thank goodness I retrieved the backup DVDs before abandoning the studio!

Maybe just plain old mirroring (RAID 1) is the best way to go. With a backup drive stored remotely...

[Frodo]

With a backup drive stored remotely...

See what I'm sayin' -- ?

[Jim]

Well, while we're at it, how 'bout an off-site backup? Last time I lost a bunch of data, my studio burned to the ground in a wildfire. Thank goodness I retrieved the backup DVDs before abandoning the studio!

Maybe just plain old mirroring (RAID 1) is the best way to go. With a backup drive stored remotely...

Don't let me dissuade you from going with a RAID 5 or 6. RAID 1 seems like a big waste to me... half your drive space used for a backup, and slower read/write times vs. 5.

They're all gambling, though, and you have to decide your own comfort level. No RAID plan can save you from a fire. That's why I mentioned keeping my tapes in another room. Two copies in two separate buildings would be a better idea.

Off-site, web backup is a great idea. Unfortunately, my core business is video, and a typical big HD project is 400 - 700 GB, and I can't afford the time or the space for that amount of data. Last I checked, the pricer per G was pretty steep when you consider how many I'd need. Audio uses far less data than video, and may make perfect sense for you.

Prices for web based backup should be getting cheaper as drive prices decline and competition increases. Services like Yahoo put a pretty price on their fastest upload speed. I don't know how much work you do, but I could easily see one spending more time backing up than doing actual work in a web-based backup plan. T1 would be ideal. It's still kind of expensive, but could be a drop in the bucket if your business is on the line.

I saw one ad for $200/mo. Since Yahoo's fastest DSL plan is $100/month and the speed is paltry by comparison, the T1 solution is starting to look right. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, you can configure it to do real-time audio recording, so you could partner up with other studios in remote locations and record high resolution audio over the T1 line as well.

[HCMarkus]

My demands are not as great as yours, Jim. I have been keeping a drive off-site, but it is a bit of a bother updating it regularly. My recent bout with drive death has restored my zeal to do a better job keeping up. It is trouble enough just dealing with audio... I can only imagine the challenges imposed by video work!

Interestingly, my recovered files are working OK, but there are apparently some issues, as I've encountered a few "Resource unavailable - 193" crashes. Regardless, I got the mixes done and my computer is back in shape (I had backups of everything else!). The system is running fine on newly-drafted projects. Whew!

[SixStringGeek]

My demands are not as great as yours, Jim. I have been keeping a drive off-site, but it is a bit of a bother updating it regularly.

You might consider an Amazon S3 account.