Got a New Case!

Layback Bear said:

Jeannei if I may ask; what do you do that you need that many terabytes of backup space.
If it's a secret I won't tell anybody.

I keep multiple backups. For each data drive I have in use in my computer, I normally have four more the same size that I use for backups. I keep two of those backup HDDs at home and the other two in a safe deposit box at my credit union. I swap out the offsite and onsite HDDs at least once a month.

When I backup a data drive in my desktop rig, I make identical backups to both of the onsite backup drives. Using FreeFileSync, each backup takes only a few minutes on most days.

I had two data drives in my computer—E: and F:, both WD Blacks—but F: was being underutilized (it was being used mostly as a scratch drive). The newest WD Black is now my S: drive and I'm using it as a versioning drive; a drive that stores files that are deleted from any of the backup drives by FreeFileSync (to oversimplify it) so I can recover accidentally (or stupidly) deleted files sometime in the future.

Since I needed four backup drives (WD Greens) for my S: drive and I am too cheap to buy all four of them right now (I'm hoping to catch them on sale like I did the Black), I've stopped using the F: drive (2TB) for now (it wasn't being used much so far but I'll be ripping my DVDs to it in the future) so I can borrow the F: drive's three 2TB backup drives (I was one short but I didn't have any critical data on the F: drive yet) until I can get the full four 4TB Greens I need for the S: drives backups. Since F: had only three backup drives, I did buy one of the four 4TB WD Greens I needed so I will have enough backup drives for now (it will take me quite a while to fill up the 2TB drives I'm using for now so I have plenty of time to get the remaining three 4TB Greens I need).

Clear as mud? All that redundancy may seem excessively anal but it has saved my bacon...er...data in the past. One of the worst instances was when I almost lost a bunch of music scores (sheet music) I had arranged when I overlooked them when transferring them from the drive in my old rig to my present one, then wiped the old drive. If I had had a versioning drive back then, I could have recovered the scores from there. I lucked out because I still had copies of those scores on my notebook. Maintaining a versioning drive will also allow me to recover earlier versions of edited documents should I fail to use a copy when editing.

Edit: Oh yeah, it's a secret so don't tell anyone.

Clear as mud!!!

I've got 4 WD Hdds 500Go internal (average of 60% left after two years), one WD 1Tb external (40% left after four years) and one Seagate 500Gb external (85% left after four years too). Not talking the two 3,5" external others i gave to me mum and girlfriend.

I've tons of s**t in there, musics are mostly all in wave format and some divx vids, datas plenty .doc and .pdf and texts, photos, games installed, games backups and so on...I impress myself how i haven't fill up more as i'm backing up all my softwares too, Windows 7 .ISO files, others .iso... Bought three of 4gb Usb keys for very personal datas ones (two in use, one for Bios backups).

The only drive i will change soon will be my WD Black as actual OS with a newer WD drive and swap it with an internal Blue that will become another external backup with my hot-swap bay.

@Lady, i've crashed few years ago datas i'll not recover anymore. I can understand why so much you are using to save your entire files! My WD drives are rock solid at the moment but will come the time to backup them and finally will end up too with large amounts of bytes!!!

NoN said:

...My WD drives are rock solid at the moment but will come the time to backup them and finally will end up too with large amounts of bytes!!!

I agree that WD drives are rock solid. Out of the 19 WD drives I have or had, only two have failed. One was my first 4TB Black that arrived DOA (and that could have been from rough handling in shipment—there was a reason we called UPS OOPS back when I worked Shipping and Receiving) and a Green that was installed in a previous computer by a computer repair shop that should have known better (Greens aren't well suited for installing an OS); it was one of the early Greens that had the excessive head parking issue that is no longer an issue. I did have a WD 120GB that I retired after 7-8 years because I outgrew it, it was way too bulky and cumbersome, and it was starting to make some noise.

I've owned only four Seagates: One died, one arrived with bad sectors, one (a SSHD) had lackluster performance, and one works just fine but I don't use it anymore (I salvaged it from a dead netbook).

There are only two kinds of HDDs: those that have failed and those that are going to fail!

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I did some more work last week on the little side project I made that short SATA data cable for. I've been hampered by an extremely painful stiff neck since Wednesday that's probably a weird manifestation of my TMJ (I'm seeing a chiropractor late tomorrow morning). I needed five more of the mighty midget cables so I worked on them yesterday and that turned into all kinds of fun. Out of five of the cables I made only three worked. I went through parts from three more cables before I finally figured out why they were failing and what to do about it. In a nut shell, the piece that held the cable in place for pushing into the punch down connector pins was shifting slightly when I was squeezing it in with slip joint pliers causing the pins to bend instead of biting straight into the cable jacket. It was just dumb luck that the first cable and three of the next five worked. I finally figured out how to hold the connector body with a pair of those cute little 4" vise grips I have so the jaws of the vise grips would guide the plastic piece that was shifting on me. I was expecting some spoilage and had ordered extra cables for that reason so I'm not especially upset that I "killed" three cables for the cause, especially since I worked out how to prevent the problem in the future. I couldn't take pictures of the process while I was doing it because I have only two hands but I did mock up the process after the fact. The first two pictures show how the connector is held by the vise grips (I love those little guys; they are proving to be so handy!).

Attachment 336520

Attachment 336521

This picture shows the piece of wood that I used as a drift I gently tapped with a hammer to drive in the plastic piece under it into place. The vise grip jaws to the left of the connector in the photo are what guide the little bugger into place; otherwise it wanted to shift left, bending the pins underneath. For more detail on what the disassembled connector and cable look like, go to post #1540 here.

Attachment 336522...

While I made the Mighty Midget SATA data cable for the 2.5" hot swap bays I will use on another project, I will be using the same technique to make custom length SATA data cables once I have my present computer moved to the new case. While the cute little vise grips will work, it's a bit of a pain in the a....neck so I whipped out a little fixture for guiding the ornery little piece that doesn't like going in straight (that's what a lesbian gets for wanting to do something straight ) from scrap pieces of 1/4" solid oak and oak plywood I had knocking about.



The connector sets inside the fixture. This is an assembled connector and cable since I'm too lazy to take one apart right now. After I took the pictures, I noticed the fit wasn't as snug as I wanted even though it felt like it. There is a small gap where the arrow is pointing that could allow the ornery little piece to drift south.



To fill the gap, I used a sliver of 3"x5" card stock stuck in with double sided Scotch tape, then coated with brush on Krazy Glue to make sure it stayed put. I did the same on the other side, only using lighter 20 lb. paper (see arrows in picture below). After a bit of very light filing on the paper, the connector now fits nice and snug yet not so snug I can't wiggle it out using the cable.



What's nice about this fixture is it fits in one of the compartments of one of my small parts boxes that I keep cable connector bodies in so I won't have to worry about keeping track of it. It should be a lot simpler to use than the vise grips (no matter how cute they are).

That's very clever Jeannie don't forget to patent it ... you could end up being a rich lady :)

Stephanie said:

That's very clever Jeannie don't forget to patent it ... you could end up being a rich lady :)

LOL! Thanks, Stephanie! I doubt there would be much of a market for something like that with a very limited application.

Well, I can't take credit for the mod to shorten that brand of cable since I received the information second or third hand hand (and I did credit the guy I learned it from). The fixture (who can tell me the difference between a fixture and a jig?) is just a small wrinkle added to the process. Even if I patented it, I doubt I could market it.

Looking forward to seeing the final modded build Jeannie

Thanks, Stephanie! Believe me, so am I, so am I. I've been tied up for the past seven weeks and still have some things to take care of (like a new water heater ; at least it's not an emergency replacement) but I really need to get my rear in gear and get this done; I'm tired of looking at it setting in the hallway.