Question about File Locations

[speedlever]

It helps that I'm on a hardwood floor. But yes, static discharge is possible. I haven't had an issue with it.

[Pinecone]

Hmm, lets see, external USB hard drive. Not much more expensive, pretty much fool proof (especially the ones powered off the USB port).

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Uh oh. I am a geek.. and I do spin the fans! Forgive me for I have sinned! (I also vacuum out my PCs).

Sometimes spinning is unavoidable. I have to completely dismantle one of my Dell laptops to clean out the fan area, and when I take out the fan+dual heatsink (one each for the main and graphics processors) I'm faced with a choice - remove 8 tiny screws and fully dismantle it or spin the fan to clean it out. I generally spin the fan because by that point I'm tired of tiny screws.

I don't vacuum them though, but mostly because I hate the noise and the dog goes nuts. Plus I'd probably accidentally suck up the 500 tiny screws I had to take out. I go through a lot of canned air during "computer cleaning season".

Sometimes I miss the simplicity of working on desktop computers.


Back on topic - I finally cleared out the original files. I have my calibre library automatically backed up with Sugarsync, plus I do regular backups periodically. It took me a while to get to that point, though. It's hard to get out of the habit of keeping the originals. It wasn't so much that I needed the drive space as it was the fact that my drive-image backups were taking longer than they needed to because of the redundant files.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

...Sometimes spinning is unavoidable. I have to completely dismantle one of my Dell laptops to clean out the fan area, and when I take out the fan+dual heatsink (one each for the main and graphics processors) I'm faced with a choice - remove 8 tiny screws and fully dismantle it or spin the fan to clean it out. I generally spin the fan because by that point I'm tired of tiny screws...

By spinning the fans, I'm referring to letting the air pressure spin the fans. Spinning too fast could wreck the fan bearings and, although it's really remote, it's possible for a fan to generate a voltage that could feed back and fry something. Rotating the fan manually to gain access to what's behind it isn't going to hurt it. I have to do that to completely clean the heatsink on my machine's CPU.

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

...It wasn't so much that I needed the drive space as it was the fact that my drive-image backups were taking longer than they needed to because of the redundant files.

That's why I let processes like that that run a long time run overnight while I'm sleeping. If the process requires that I babysit it while it is running, I get a different process. My computer is supposed to simplify my life, not make more work for me.

[Worldwalker]

Lady Fitz does have a point, in that there are a fair number of old PCs out there which can't handle large IDE drives, or use SATA drives at all. In that case, upgrading the PC can be more practical than upgrading the drive ... and, of course, it's not cheap unless you're in the habit of building your own machines from random cast-offs. Which I've done, but that's not something I'd recommend to the average user. (building a PC from new parts, yes; building one from stray bits, not so much)

[theducks]

WW
Stray bits and cast offs are how most of my systems are built , Only the cases are new ( I WANT LOTS OF DRIVE BAYS )
I think any P4 era motherboard BIOS will handle large drives.

SATA needs hardware support (there are cheap SATA adapters that plug into a IDE port ). but you still might need Drivers for XP and older. I believe USB will accommodate any size additional drive attached that way.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Hmm, lets see, external USB hard drive. Not much more expensive, pretty much fool proof (especially the ones powered off the USB port).

USB memory stick - even cheaper. a 4GB stick will hold an awful lot of books!

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by cybmole

USB memory stick - even cheaper. a 4GB stick will hold an awful lot of books!

Also very unreliable. I'd not recommend using thumb drives for any serious data storage, they're really only useful for sneaker nets.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Also very unreliable. I'd not recommend using thumb drives for any serious data storage, they're really only useful for sneaker nets.

oh I agree, ( I think - not knowing what sneaker nets are! )

i would not store critical data on one

I was just countering the "my hard drive is full & I can't afford a spare" argument.

maybe I should have gone with delete one (divx /avi) movie, gain space for 1500 more books :-)

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by cybmole

oh I agree, ( I think - not knowing what sneaker nets are! )

This might help. There's a related adage: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 stuffed full of DVDs."

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by cybmole

maybe I should have gone with delete one (divx /avi) movie, gain space for 1500 more books :-)

This! Books take up very little space, most in my library are about half a megabyte—2800 ebooks take up 2.42 Gb. However pictures, movies, and music are space hogs.


I have my Calibre library backed up to another hard drive, a thumb drive, and DropBox.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

This! Books take up very little space, most in my library are about half a megabyte—2800 ebooks take up 2.42 Gb. However pictures, movies, and music are space hogs.


I have my Calibre library backed up to another hard drive, a thumb drive, and DropBox.

In my case, my books (including magazines scanned to searchable PDFs) are mostly scanned image only PDFs and eat up 24GB on my drive. Talk about space hogs! And it will get worse since I'm only halfway through with scanning my dead tree books and I keep adding more. My books will eventually pass up my music collection (35GB for a little over 400 CDs; I keep large MP3s). Fortunately, I have plenty of room on my HDD.

[speedlever]

Jeannie,
I'm curious what your backup plan is for all your data?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Jeannie,
I'm curious what your backup plan is for all your data?

Right now, I'm using Carbonite to back up all my data online. I've been copying irreplaceable data to a 160GB Western Digital External Drive. I would image but my computer has outgrown the capacity of the external drive. Being the cheap, old bitch I am, I do not want to buy another external drive because I've been working on a new case with a larger power supply to swap the innards of my computer (except for the marginal PS) into that will allow me to add up to 5 HDDs (6 total). It also has an external hot swap bay I can use to plug internal drives into for backups. Internal drives in an external hot swap bay are less expensive, smaller, and faster (since they use a SATA interface instead of a USB) than external drives. The case is also "future proofed" because I can replace components as existing one become obsolete. There is also room for an SSD that I will be able to use for a boot drive once I upgrade from XP (the present MOBO is incompatible with Win7 and I'm too cheap to replace it until I get my money's worth out of it).

What I will do is repartition my HDD so it has a boot partition and a data partition. I'll have to farm that job out (possibly this April while I'm out of town for a week) since I do not have disks for my OS (I will never make the mistake of using an OEM OS again) and Office 2007. The recovery disk that came with the computer (I'm also never buying a computer again; I'll build my own) is a piece of crap loaded with crapware and a few faulty drivers. It is an image of the newly built computer integrated with a recovery disk so I can't just install the OS and Office 2007 by itself. The shop will have the necessary disk to reinstall the OS, Office 2007, and needed drivers. I have a service plan so it will cost me only $30 to have it done. I won't have any programs installed.

When I get it back, I make an image each of the boot partition on the external harddrive I have. I'll then install the programs onto the boot partition and, once they are all configured and working correctly, I'll make another image of the boot partition. This way, if my OS and programs go wonky, I can jusr restore the image. At worst, I may have to delete or add a program or two. If I delete very many programs, I'll restore just the OS and reinstall the programs I want to keep. That will keep the registry from getting too junked up. If I add very many programs, I'll make a new image of the partition. I'll have to do that every so often anyway to keep up with updates. I'll also just keep critical data only while I'm using the external drive.

Once I finish prepping the case (cutting a couple more holes for wiring, repainting the case interior, extending the front IO panel wiring, making up new, neater cables for the PS) and move everything into it, I'll start making versioned images of the data Partition using the external drive bay, probably weekly. When I get close to filling up the present HDD. I'll start adding internal drives. Since all they will hold is data, I can make a clone of that drive, again using the external drive bay, by just copying files from one drive to the other. I'll move the boot drive images presently on the external drive to an internal type drive and start keeping versions. I'll also keep a copy of the boot drive images on another drive and keep that offsite (probably a bank safe deposit box). I'll also keep a copy of the data partition image and copies of any additional data drives offsite.

Seems like a lot of hassle but I'll be keeping all my music, videos, books, personal records, etc. basically my whole life, on my computer and I don't want to take any chances of losing it all.

[theducks]

Lady F

I assume that you know about a feature of the Ubuntu Live CD: 'parted'
You can re-partition any 'unmounted' file system, leaving the data intact.

(The only time I lost a file system, was the time I saw a small 'Unknown" at the end and decided to reclaim the space I forgot that that disks partition had been marked "Dynamic" (failed Mirror experiment. XP pro only spans drives ) ,that was part of the Dynamic piece. )
I highly recommend that you have a UPS with a goodly long run-time when doing invasive procedures like this, just in case