I’m having hard drive trouble. Specifically an almost completely full 5TB drive is starting to crap out on me. I’ve got enough space on my other drives that I can transfer it all over to, but it is going to take time. The trouble is that this faulty drive keeps disconnecting itself. This means I cannot transfer it all over at once, but I have to move files in smallish batches. Right now I’m managing about 5-10 gigs at a time. But when you have to transfer 4.5 TBs that’s a lot of transferring. Especially since I basically have to sit at my desk and watch it so I can move to the next batch.
I know, I know, I should have it all backed up. But I’ve got over 10TBs of files and I can’t really afford to buy another 10 TBs of storage just for backup. As I write this I realize I have money in my PayPal account that you all have generously donated so I’ll use some of that to buy me a couple of new drives to store everything and to back it up.
But that doesn’t solve the current problem. If the drive doesn’t completely crap out on me it will still take me several days to get everything transferred to my current drives. Then when the new ones come in I’ll want to take some time to transfer everything over there and get things organized. Then I’ll want to get my backup drive in order.
If my drive does crap out before I get it all transferred, I honestly don’t know what I’m gonna do. So cross your fingers. And please be patient.
Sorry to be taking a break so soon after starting this new site, but I’ve got to get this fixed ASAP. I will not be doing any new blogging on this during this time.
take your time man..good luck!!!
Thanks for all you do!
I leave 1 TB left on my drives, to avoid clutter
My drives are 3.5, & 4.5 & a a 2 TB drive
No need to apologise Mat, you do enough as it is. It will be done when it is done.
Sometimes it’s the connecting cable and not the external drive? But good luck to you and us all. Polypheme
I’m pretty sure the problem is the little thing the USB plugs into. At least that’s what my tech guru thinks. I actually have an extra one and I started to try hooking it up. But getting the casing off was difficult and I was afraid I was gonna break something.
Once I get it all backed up I’ll probably try fixing it, but for now I’m just backing up.
This morning was a nightmare. The drive kept disconnecting every few minutes. Then my keyboard wouldn’t work. Then it kept locking up everything. I nearly cried. But I disconnected all my other drives and connected the dying drive and my backup drive directly to the computer (I usually have them all connected to one of those big USB port thingies). Anyway it has been running smoothly this evening so hopefully I can get it all backed up soon.
We appreciate all that you do Mat, just take care your storage issues for now, it’s priority No .1. As far as back-up, twice since 1987 I had complete hard drive failures. After the first failure I had no back up, permanently lost everything. Then I started religiously backing up every night using Carbon Copy Cloner. Saved my ass on the 2nd hard drive failure, no issues since. Actually, hard drive storage is not that expensive at all anymore, I been backing up to twin 8TB drives every night for many years now using CCC. I HIGHLY recommend you check out the hard drives manufactured by Glyph Production Technologies. They are seriously excellent drives, industrial quality, and cannot speak highly enough about how reliable they are. And super fast too. Killer drives. Here is a link:
https://glyphtech.com/collections/portable?srsltid=AfmBOorkgnTgPWxRdlYKjD1cyo0sMnVrkAJr-sV5oOMh-9bj9QKgJC1O
See you soon and success in getting your data secured again.
Paul Baldassini
Interesting, I’ll check them out.
Take your time to do what you have to. Thank you again for all your time and work.
Matt, you’ve shared such a wealth of music with us lately that now WE have time to catch up. Take the time you need.
I understand completely, judging from my own struggles with much less data than you have. Good luck with it all, and thanks again for all the time you put in to share the music!
Fingers crossed, Mat, from across the pond. Will have to rely on ridiculous MAGA clips on Youtube to keep me occupied.
Oh gosh. That would just stress me out . We are too close to the election 🙂
Mat, I’m sorry to hear this, because you put so much hard work and care into this site! I hate it when technology doesn’t cooperate.
Here’s an idea. Or not. But I thought I’d share.
For all my computer life until last year – 30+ years – I did exactly what it sounds like you are doing. I had lots of backup hard drives and backed up to them manually.
It worked OK, but the downside is a) I kept having to buy more TB drives, b) I had to remember to back up, c) it took hours to back up, and d) any of those drives could fail.
Then a friend told me about a service he uses that backs up all files. Plus any attached external hard drives. All day long, every day, invisibly, to the cloud. No thinking needed.
It’s called Backblaze – http://www.backblaze.com
I think it’s $9.99 a month for the version I use.
Dude, it’s a life-changer. I was just telling my wife just today how stressful it used to be, trying to make sure I have all these files backed up, and at any given time, there were ALWAYS many Terrabytes of files not backed up yet.
Backblaze solved all that. For about $120 a year. Done.
Now, I’m cheap, and I hate subscriptions. So I won’t be surprised if you say “I got no cash for that, man!” I get it. But trust me, it’s worth it.
Just something to potentially consider.
Sending you good mojo in the meantime.
And of course, the idea above doesn’t do diddley to help with the current situation, of course! 🙂
Just thinking of the future, because a hard drive fail is always ahead for all of us at some point. (Dammit!)
It will take just as long as it takes Matt. The amount of music you have been sharing is amazing…and well appreciated. You’re also getting lots of great advice from your supporters. Good luck mate!
God & Greyhound knows I am NOT a computer whiz, but I did learn early on that one should never attempt to “fill up” an external, or internal, for that matter, hard drive to capacity. Always leave about 10-20% empty. Otherwise, it goes haywire. Keep that in mind for ALL hard drives, current, & future, Mat. Just take your time, don’t rush it. Go with d’ flow, bro!
Thanks for all you do!
thanks for all that you do & look forward to when your up and running again.