Help! I seem to have lost my calibre library

[BetterRed]

Not all SSDs use Flash memory, but most do. The NAND chips in SSD are usually much higher quality than those found in USB sticks etc. More recent SSDs don't use a SATA interface which was designed for spinning disk devices - instead they use PCIe (same as video cards), often with a M.2 package (something like a memory stick).

Intel's Optane devices (high speed solid state non-volatile memory) use a different chip architecture known as 3D XPoint memory. Faster and costlier - mainly used in data centres.

BR

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Thanks for the info, ilovejedd. I'm kind of hijacking this thread, but isn't one of the problems with flash that when it dies, it ALL dies. No second chances or last minute saves? Whereas with standard harddrives, sometimes it's just a bad sector and you still can access most of your stuff, or hinky hardware can still be gotten around to pull the data off if necessary?

That is more of a controller problem rather than flash itself. Endurance testing has shown SSDs developing bad sectors as P/E cycles are consumed beyond its rating. However, that's just not the typical failure mode experienced in field use.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I've been MEANING to set up a raid-style backup for years, but every time I start reading up on it, I just end up frustrated and confused. Too much jargon in whatever I've found to describe what you're doing. It always makes me laugh - at work I'm the "resident (amateur) techie". But I know what I know, and hardware isn't one of the things I know much about.

That's probably for the best. RAID is more for high availability than it is backup and adds a layer of complexity. If you're not using something like software Linux RAID, the RAID controller used becomes just another point of failure. Given how inexpensive hard drives are nowadays, I just do multiple copies to various HDDs and to Dropbox (cloud storage is the most practical offsite backup option for me).

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by wjBLqf-_9

Use the cloud if you are like okay with that philosophically.

Just be sure to turn of automatical syncing if you're using things like Dropbox, or OneDrive. Only turn it on when you're finished.

I have my library on my PC, automatic sync (except when I'm working with it) with OneDrive and manual sync on my tablet.

[theducks]

Don't these solutions have an API that could be added (Plugin) to Calibre, that could be used to automatically stop and start the sync if the current Library folder was detected as a member of the sync group?

Then there would be no need to REMEMBER to Stop or restart.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Just be sure to turn of automatical syncing if you're using things like Dropbox, or OneDrive. Only turn it on when you're finished.

I have my library on my PC, automatic sync (except when I'm working with it) with OneDrive and manual sync on my tablet.

Personally, I don't run my "live" Calibre in Dropbox.

I just run a FreeFileSync job (with versioning) to copy the library and settings to Dropbox. The batch file is also scheduled to run nightly just in case I forget to manually sync.

One of these days, I'll set up a RealTimeSync job to monitor the library folder and automatically sync it to Dropbox after, say, 10 minutes idle. For now, manual or nightly sync is better since I'm in the process of restructuring the library and I don't want to have too many automatically created versions.

Obviously though, library uses more storage with the way I do it (fine with me since Dropbox is my offsite backup).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Don't these solutions have an API that could be added (Plugin) to Calibre, that could be used to automatically stop and start the sync if the current Library folder was detected as a member of the sync group?

Then there would be no need to REMEMBER to Stop or restart.

Would have to cope with calibre restarts - if stopping to do a restart don't start cloud synch service. And what if someone wanted to use more than one cloud synch service - Dropbox for their Books, and Onedrive for their Media.

I'm firmly in ilovejedd's camp - use cloud services as backup doing the synchronisation with a separate tool.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Would have to cope with calibre restarts - if stopping to do a restart don't start cloud synch service. And what if someone wanted to use more than one cloud synch service - Dropbox for their Books, and Onedrive for their Media.

I'm firmly in ilovejedd's camp - use cloud services as backup doing the synchronisation with a separate tool.

BR

With Synology, I can stop the sync on a specific folder. No need to stop ALL other sync's

[BetterRed]

I thought Synology was a NAS, did it move to the cloud

Other issue with automating sync stop and start when calibre GUI starts and stops is this: when one closes calibre one might have some library content files open in content editors - calibre editor, Audacity, Sigil, Word, VirtualDub, WinRAR etc. Personally I would want to ensure I saved and closed those before any folder and file syncing started. .

BR

[Apache]

I just had my second personal cloud back up die. The first was a WD and the second was a Seagate. Lucky for me that I back up on multiple media, including cloud, personal cloud, other HDD and USB Flash Drives.
Apache

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I thought Synology was a NAS, did it move to the cloud

Other issue with automating sync stop and start when calibre GUI starts and stops is this: when one closes calibre one might have some library content files open in content editors - calibre editor, Audacity, Sigil, Word, VirtualDub, WinRAR etc. Personally I would want to ensure I saved and closed those before any folder and file syncing started. .

BR

It is a Personal cloud. And yes! IT CAN BE FROM ANYWHERE, as long as you enable that feature (and your connection TOU allows a 'server').