Entries tagged with “Storage” from streamline/online
Dropbox has become my replacement for USB thumb drives. It functions in the cloud, but unlike the iDisk and other remote storage technologies. Instead of mounting a drive to hold your files, you download and install a small application. The application places a folder on your desktop, the contents of which are synced to online storage automatically. Once installed on multiple computers and devices (e.g., the iPhone), you always have your updated files at hand. And when you're on someone else's computer, you can access your files via a web interface. It's slick, and it's free. You pay for extra storage space over the first 2GB.
Well, the recent hard drive debacle forced me to reevaluate my backup strategies. I have developed a three-phase plan. Two are off-the-shelf Backup 3.1.1 plans, and I created the third from scratch.
Plan One: Personal Data & Settings
This daily plan works in two stages. It backs up my Address Book, iCal calendars, Keychain, Safari settings, and application preferences to two locations: first to my iDisk, then to my local Firewire drive. The backups are scheduled 30 minutes apart, though each only takes a few minutes, max. The purpose(s) of this plan are (a) to keep vital settings in multiple locations, and (b) to keep the number of archived files low for quick recovery in the event of file corruption or accidental deletion.
Plan Two: Home Folder
As you may recall from the previous entry, the loss of my Home folder was the most catastrophic aspect of the event. Innumerable documents and all the associated man-hours were lost. This daily backup will hopefully prevent any such future tragedy. Some of this is overkill, in that many of the files archived in Plan One will be copied again, but this is meant to be a comprehensive backup for a simple, one-step restore of my Home folder, should the situation arise.
Plan Three: Weekly Comprehensive: Users, Applications, Library
This is the plan I attempted to create last Saturday. This weekly archive will contain the bulk of my hard drive (minus System files) in case of severe catastrophe.
Let me hear feedback, if you have any.
Well, this weekend was certainly a mess. I am not even certain where to begin.
The hard drive on my laptop--which is my primary computer--had been acting suspicious since I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) a while back. The SBOD would start as the drive went through repeated and rapid chug-chug-chug-chug-pause cycles for up to several minutes. The computer was unusable during this time. The Activity Monitor provided absolutely no clues. Occasionally, I would have to force the Mac to shut down by holding the power button for several seconds. I didn't know what was going on; it was an intermittent, new, and extremely frustrating problem.
I considered the following possibilities:
(1) I had acquired some sort of mal-ware without my knowledge (this seemed highly improbable);
(2) Some new third-party app or extension was poorly written or too drive-dependent (this also seemed unlikely, as I was disabling software left and right with no improvement);
(3) Something--software or the new OS--was wonking up the drive on a regular basis (verifying the disk, repairing permissions, and clearing the cache files regularly seemed to help things);
(4) The new OS implemented more background processes that required intensive hard drive access (for all I knew, Spotlight was busy indexing files, or virtual memory was swapping scratch files, or... you get the idea);
(5) There was a hardware problem (which I was very reluctant to admit, since I had just replaced the laptop's hard drive about two years ago).
I had been investigating possibilities with little success (see 3, above) when the annoyance caused me to do more searching Saturday morning. Unhappily, I discovered the problem was symptomatic of a disk that is developing bad sectors. I read lengthy trouble-shooting documents and decided to implement a cure, of sorts:
(1) I used Backup to (I believed) transfer all of my apps, library items, and user folders over to the 0.5TB G-Drive I added to my system a while back (nearly half a million files, so this was no short task);
(2) I attempted to erase the drive and Zero Out All Data on the drive.
Both of these were catastrophic. Erasing the drive did not work. Disk Utility estimated 16 minutes to completely zero out the entire 40GB drive, but apparently wasn't anticipating all the bad sectors. From what I had read, when erasing a drive with bad sectors in this manner, Disk Utility is supposed to mark the bad sectors as unusable, allowing the remainder of the disk to function as normal. However, I left the computer to this task all night and by morning (more than ten hours after I had started the process), Disk Utility still had not made it through half the disk.
It was at this point that I decided the drive was a lost cause and needed to be replaced. No problem; I ran over to Best Buy, grabbed a new 80GB drive for just under $100, popped it in, and set Backup to restoring my files.
Oops, Backup didn't copy my entire Home folder. What makes the matter worse is that I specifically checked after Saturday's backup to confirm all the files I had intended to transfer were copied into the archive. But there it was, staring me in the face: the applications were there, my son's directory was there, but my entire Home directory was missing from the list of files. I rightly began to panic. Then it occurred to me that I could probably salvage some of these files from the other backup plans I had been running. So I started restoring, plan by plan.
When all was said and done, I managed to recover (probably) about half of my files. You see, Backup has this odd scheme for selecting what will be archived. For example, you can select the packet titled (something to the effect of) "Back up all Keynote presentations." I assume Backup scans the entire drive for Keynote files, then archives them. As a result, I have some complete folders saved (folders that I had specifically marked for backup), and all the files of a certain type (for instance, all my Word documents). But many things were never backed up at all, apparently.
To compound the issue, Backup apparently hadn't run a scheduled nightly/weekly back up of my files since a month ago. This one still has me scratching my head. Of course, when I purchased the new drive and installed the new OS, I also installed a new version of Backup, so I will assume the new plans I've created will run as scheduled. For now.
Anyway, all of this basically boils down to the fact that I have lost innumerable files (many of which I certainly won't realize have been lost until I need them and go looking) totaling perhaps hundreds of man-hours of work. Currently, I am most angry over the loss of my new web site design, which I had hand-coded in HTML and CSS but not yet copied to my server. Poof. Gone. Am I kidding myself believing that anyone's life can actually be made simpler by use of technology?
G-Drive
I am so far satisfied with my 500GB drive purchase. My iTunes library, weekly backups, and assorted large files (installer disk images, primarily) are safely tucked away on the corner of my desk. This has freed a sizable chunk of my laptop hard drive, improving performance (things were too tight before, and the computer would spin its wheels as it choked to swap memory for scratch files, etc.).
New Airport Extreme
My next technology purchase will most likely be the new Apple Airport Extreme base station, due out next month:
(A) My old wireless router went FUBAR several months ago, so I've been using wired Ethernet with my laptop. Not so bad for now, but I plan on adding another laptop and a desktop computer to my home network soon, which will require a new high-performance wireless router. With the new "802.11n" standard, this base station should keep our household happy bandwidth-wise for several years.
(B) The new base station can manage any attached hard drive via USB 2.0 and use it like network attached storage (NAS). This means I will be able to plug my new G-Drive into the router and access it from any computer on the network. The new base station can even auto-mount the drives in the Finder (regular NAS can't manage this). At first I was hesitant because of the "USB" connection. Some review of the stats, however, revealed that USB 2.0 is actually faster than the FireWire 400 connection I am currently using.
OS X Update
I finally bit the bullet and purchased a copy of OS X Tiger (at a steep education discount). I know, I know--Leopard is supposed to come along any day now. The problem is, Apple hasn't been releasing any details on the new operating system lately; the pundits say this means it won't be ready for its anticipated summer 2007 release. Add to this my reluctance to ever add a "new" operating system until its been tested by the masses (and appropriate patches applied), and I figure I won't be moving to OS 10.5 for at least 18 to 24 months.
So, I am now running OS 10.4.8 and loving it thus far. Spotlight and all of the associated "smart" objects alone (folders, lists, mailboxes) make it worth the purchase price. And with the convenience of Safari RSS, perhaps I can finally put away Firefox for good--I know everyone swears it's faster, but Safari has always been snappier on my laptop. Dashboard is eye candy, but I haven't found any real need for it yet; perhaps it will grow on me.
Scrivener and SOHO Notes
Be sure to check out these promising organizational apps. Scrivener is a tool for writers, a place to organize your project, including your text and all the assorted reference materials you need. SOHO Notes is a data collection utility for keeping all of your information in a single searchable database. Now that we have Spotlight, I would imagine most say "why bother?", but I am a fan of collection apps. Perhaps it's simple nostalgia, as I am often reminded of the packrat, my own app which was apparently very much ahead of its time.
I've taken a step with respect to my limited local hard drive space and back up woes by purchasing and installing a new 500GB FireWire G-Drive. The drive is very quiet and half the size of a large Kleenex box--good news for my desk space. I've set the laptop to back up my person documents to the drive once per week, and to back up my most important files each day to my iDisk space.
The best thing, in my opinion, is that I have off-loaded my entire iTunes library to the drive, freeing up about 15GB of the laptop's 40GB drive. This means I can no longer listen to my iTunes music on the laptop when untethered from the drive, but isn't that why I have my iPod anyway? Now I have more than enough space to rip my entire CD collection and sell the discs on half.com, using the money to pay some bills.
For a while, I had been considering Network Attached Storage (NAS) in lieu of a FireWire or USB drive. However, I decided against it because (a) I am not in a mixed-use environment, and any future sharing of the drive can be accomplished via Mac OS X's built-in mechanisms; (b) I don't currently need any media streaming or other similar exoticisms, as none of my other entertainment devices are up to the task; (c) research led me to believe that the configuration of NAS seems more complex than a true plug-and-play drive; and (d) mounting an NAS server sounds hit-and-miss at best (depending on manufacturer), and I wanted something that would mount seamlessly to allow for automated backups.
I've been busily creating to-do lists since my third year at Kent State, when it became obvious there is a better way to live than worrying if you are forgetting something every moment of the day. Once I decided to make the slow shift to being As Paperless As Possible, I searched for ways to keep my lists on my computers and PDA. After trying several possible solutions, I finally settled on a great piece of software called OmniOutliner and used it religiously for a few years. It became impractical over time, however, because one soon learns that--despite owning a laptop and a PDA--you are sometimes on the road with neither and need access to your lists. Additionally, OmniOutliner doesn't sync with PDAs, limiting its usefulness to only when near the computer.
I began using Backpack as a web-based alternative and have been keeping my lists there for a year and a half. Over time, using Backpack created a shift in my overall thinking: if I am going to house all this data in a digital format, why in God's name would I want to bind it to my laptop drive that (a) is too small to hold everything; (b) can only be one place at a time, perhaps a place where you are not when you need the info most; and (c) is guaranteed to fail at the most inopportune time? (I've lived through a few hard drive crashes. One was especially bad--a physical crash of the drive--and the data has been lost forever. I am notoriously bad about backups; that is, I don't do any.)
The answer became obvious: I am paying out the wazoo for unlimited high-speed internet access, so I may as well put it to good use by storing all this vital information off-site. There are benefits to this strategy. First, hard drive space offered by these companies typically exceed what is available on my physical laptop drive (within limits, of course). Second, we assume such companies make routine backups of your data, increasing the safety factor over my less rigorous methods. Additionally, with free high-speed access available many places in even smaller cities, your data is never too far away.
For a short time, I used a paid Backpack account to begin storing this data remotely. Recently, however, I have decided that making monthly payments seemed silly when I could house the data on the iPower server I use to host my various web sites. I installed MediaWiki, the same software used by Wikipedia. This will be the storehouse for all of my text and image files. I wondered briefly if I could also use this remote storage space as a place to back up all my other files. However, Mac OS X has trouble natively and transparently connecting to remote servers using FTP. Even when you are able to make the connection, the drive space is read only, which makes backing up to the server space an impossibility. If anyone has suggestions on this, I'd love to hear it.
