But we cannot do without hardisk storage and backups, especially if it contains our memories.
Imagine what will happen if your storage CRASH !
Professional Recovery is possible, but it can cost up to $thousands of dollars , and does not even guarantee 100% recovery !
In a recent edition of Digital Life, there is a NAS (Network Access Storage) comparison. We have
the Dlink DNS 320, which comes with 1 Tera (ie 1,000Gb, ie 1,000,000Mb).
What should you look out for when buying a consumer Storage system?
1) besides price, which starts from $100 plus, you should also look for scalability. The Storage system should allow you to buy extra hardisks to increase your storage capacity (when you run out of space again)
2) Throughput or performance. You do not want to take 24 hours to copy 100Gb of data.
Most hardisk and motherboard are now more robust.
3) Hardisk are known to fail. To be kiasu, you need minimum two backups :)
We are routinely copying our photos and data to DVD every 6 months.
4) Hardisk NAS system comes with redundancy features. For consumer storage system, you will hear :
- Raid 0 - basic storage, one hardisk (no protection, one hardisk gone, data lost. Only advantage is faster data transfer )
- Raid 1 - two hardisks, one breakdown, data not lost
Read more about Raid at eHow.
5) In the worst case, when you do not have backup, ensure you have two partitions C: and D: drive.
Normally we keep data in D: drive. In the event hardisk crash, Pray that you can reinstall
Operating-system (OS) on C drive, with your D: drive data intact. Pray !
6) If your NAS system allow for multiple hardisks, ideally during upgrades, go for same brand/model part-number to prevent "conflict" issues. We know hardisk are supposed to be robust and can mix and match (provided similar RPM speed or capacity), but we do not want to take any chance.
If you happen to have a Raid 1 configuration (refer point 4 above), it is even more crucial to have "identical" hardisks. What the vendors will not say is hardisks are always changing, even within the same "brand",
so it is near impossible for you to find identical hardisk after one year.
** In some cases, it might be recommended to always buy hardisks in pair.
(Daddy still cannot justify this point)
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Have you backup your data already? Do you perform random restoration of data? Be kiasu, do not assume your backups are good :)
IT-Show will be here next week, you do not need to go to Suntec for the latest deals, or brochures,
just pop by BootStrike for the latest pricing.
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