The earth is continously bathed in at least 2 types of radiation or particles that we know of in our present time.

THe sun sends us light and warmth, it also sends a continous stream of particles, not just us, the entire solar system gets it, these are mostly protons, referred to as the solar wind, but magnetic charges get sent as well these are solar storms and mass coronal ejections. When they hit the magnetic field of the earth they induce a current which charges the ionized particles in the upper atmosphere causing the Auroras seen mostly in artic regions, as the strength of the solar discharge increases, the color spectrum changes, red being the most powerful of the light produced, and the latitude where these can be observed increases to closer to the equator.

These are the visible effects, the excess current induced in the magnetic field is funneled at the poles into the earth, this may be one of the means that allows the earths core to be hotter than the surface of the sun for billions of years, that or we got one helluva of a fireplace down there.

The galaxies (a union or collection of many, many, many suns) also send their gifts to us and rain down, tiny very low mass, but very high velocity particles. These are referred to as Cosmic Rays, as we don't know exactly where they came from in most cases, but we know it wasn't Solar Rays.

These rays or particles, do not cause Auroras, but can be used for imaging the pyramids like a big x-ray machine (a really, really,really big machine). These same tiny particles pass through us usually without harm, but may contribute to eventual genetic mutation or decay in DNA causing cancers and other damages, usually our bodies can repair the damage and we are okay. same with micro electronics like memory chips, sometimes they just pass through, no problems, sometimes we get a blue screen of death (BSOD) from Windows and have to replace ram chips or a cpu or an SSD etc.

MUON imaging the Pyramids and Volcanoes

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/new...ays-help-us-see-inside-pyramids-and-volcanoes

 

Last edited: Feb 8, 2025

Thanks. I'll look into this hex editor business and try it as an experiment. Still have the drive, and if it's still able to be read. Can't recall if it finally gave up the ghost or not. 3tb drive. There'd be a lot of shit on it to re-organize, lol.

 

start with the biggest files as they will hold the biggest snippets of data, the really tiny files are usually text files that may only hold a couple of sentences of text, but only you know what important to you...

 

I believe it mate. I have to quote though, first gen consumer ssds were made either of SLC or MLC nand flash. In the first case, retention time (according to their white papers) is well beyond 10 years.

Sorry my good friend, this is a wrong assumption. The only thing fucked if you fill an ssd 100% with data, is performance, which will drop significantly. Manufacturers ain't stupid. "Most" consumer ssds have extra hidden space which isn't accessible/visible by users. This allows the device's controllers to use it to move data around even when full, perform various maintenance and trim functions and general optimization like garbage collection etc. A note here, i said "most" in quotes when in reality i should say all of them, because i can't include the strictly Chinese models and brands. These guys do their own thing and they don't always -if ever- follow industry rules or manufacturing standards and trends and with big sites like ali express and temu etc., spreading mostly shitty hardware or even straight up fake Samsung ssds and whatnot in ridiculous prices all over the globe, it is imperative i should warn users about these and exclude them from the list of respectable brands with industry standard warranties etc etc.
So, i am not saying fill up your ssd, But it's not dangerous per se. Ssds should be filled up to 70-75%.
If you seek the best speed and responsiveness constantly, keep it at 50% max. It's the best tip i can give for system (C drives, of course only if you have the convenience of affording to do so. Having a 1 tb drive for system where you use half of it max, will guarantee full performance at all times.
Cheers
PS: About 11 yrs ago i bought a Sandisk Extreme Pro 240gb SATA ssd to use as C: drive. My softies and plugs hardly exceeded 120-130 gbs, capacity was enough for me. Mind you this was a little before WD bought Sandisk. A few things about it which were mentioned in my posts. First, the 240gb capacity indicates that this is a 256gb drive, the remaining 16gb are the hidden space i mentioned. Second, the particular drive came with a very uncommon 10 years warranty. And lastly, i wish it would brake somewhere within warranty so i can claim it and get a new one but no! hahaha. The drive still works like new, suite shows 95% life lol.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2025

I still say when your hard drives are full you are f*ckedd, i think we just disagree on the degree to which you are fuc*d. I knew about the hidden or unallocated memory cells, but no sense giving people a false sense of safety since, those areas will be getting a full workout daily when the drive is full and they too will fail eventually, perhaps more quickly since they will keep getting rewritten more often since there is no longer any other slack space available now that the drive is totally full.

Its not how I would want to run a computer system that i depended on for anything important.
but some folks enjoy living on the edge..

 

Hold on, since you know all this, just tell me why assume the solid state drive gets full. It's only logical and a main guideline, any ssd should not be full. But you take for granted the most extreme scenario is a fact at all times and conclude on that. Spock says highly illogical Captain.
After all, even hdds shouldn't remain for long on the "red" indicator but that's another story.
Anyway, many peeps here are power users. They know what gives. Given any normal circumstance and operation having an hdd as your single backup drive when your system drive is ssd makes no sense whatsoever. You want your backup to be as fast as your sys drive or near the same ballpark anyway. After all no single drive is 100% safe anyway you look at it. The external backup "set it and forget it" options do not include a single drive there anyway. These solutions all belong in a raid config of some sort and as said in my very first post, this is where hdds may well come into play. But a single hdd as backup is quite anachronistic from all points of view. A 4tb Crucial P3 Nvme SSD is about 200-220 euros right now. Add 30-40 for an external USB 3.2 enclosure and you get a reliable backup drive with modestly fast performance that will reach 1.8-2gb/sec for 250 -280 euros, which i find not too shabby, including that Crucial/Micron's soft suite, is one the very best along with Samsung's. Yes ssd is more expensive but the benefits outweigh the minor disadvantages on its behalf, imho.
All my best mate.
PS: Last summer, a friend of mine went on and bought a WD My Book 16tb external hdd. At 320 euros it was priced good. He had the nerve to fill up 12 tb of it. Don't ask me what happened when his cat decided to jump on it and the drive slided to a downfall on the floor. I will only say the recovery service asked for 5k to recover all 12tb lol. And he didn't get any warranty either. An ssd would be intact like nothing happened.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2025

you forgot to vote

 

i try or actually really do leave around 50gb of free space on every sort of harddisk i use .

 

I think I read your post wrong at first @taskforce , and I agree with pretty much all of what you have typed on this thread, or rather 'all', as I can't think of anything I don't lol....

initially I read it wrong as having an hdd as a backup drive or whatnot wasn't salient, but obviously I read that wrong before I hit the "reply" button.

My system drive (and I don't think you are macOS, but I imagine you are pretty educated on how now they don't encourage the 1:1 clone system as we used to normally use, I 'kinda' get the why now, when I didn't at first with new apple silicon when I first got my system last year, as I was always used to having a 1:1 bu of different system drives on the shelf etc in case of that 6:30am s the bed, gotta 9am deadline, and it was plug and play to get you to the finish line.... it has saved my ass, fortunately not many times, but enough that I never regretted it...

so of course I was confused with new apple silicon and macOS with the way they do it now, in which only the user data/apps/etc are backed up, (you can clone but..), with the only (could be big duh) problem being that if your system drive dies, with their soc, you are screwed unless you have another system that's ready to go, but argh...

Fortunately, at least in the circle of people I speak to, outside of anything completely catastrophic like a flood/fire/cat(!)/whatever.. that hasn't happened to anyone I know of or have spoken to in forums etc....

I think I stated my rather pedestrian backup routine in this post here:

Long term storage: SSDs vs HDD?

as while yes, I do backup my system drive to ssd, (and I did make a "bootable" one, but never employed it as well, hey, fortunately right now in what I am doing, I'm not that deadline demanding, etc (and if so, I would just get another system etc if it was of consequence)... and then that ssd backup is also backed up again on an hdd just in case.. but whatever...

I work off ssd's generally for system drive, assets(samples/libraries), and sessions/projects, and then backup as explained in the link the way I do... (I do have the occasional old Kontakt library from decade + ago, or maybe one more current that I only use in a particular project that doesn't need to eat up some of bloated space they do with it for the one part in one thing etc... that will be on one of the larger hdds, and I can live with that longer loading time for that kinda thing on and if a problem, move it to ssd, but whatever... )

I guess, given modern ssd's and cpu's, and hdd size etc, I don't use raid's anymore. It was good for speed striping for things for me back in the day, or 1:1 backups etc, but as you know, with controller failures and the multitude of other issues one can encounter, I've just found it better to have separate, say, ~18-20TB hdd spinners, with one having stuff not needing the speed or legacy/not used often but size considerable stuff, and another is the backup of the different ssd's (and hdd's or whatever) and whatnot daily, and then another on the shelf not plugged in with the same which might not be the same up to the second kinda thing, but you know, not live or subject to the same kinda failures that you once in awhile encounter with things..

so tl/dr, I have raid enclosures etc from previous systems or ways of working, but not needing the speed boost that they used to offer over other options affordably as much these days, so I don't need Raid 0 on that, I don't need raid 1, as I've seen more disasters or problems with that, as a bad controller/psu/etc, hell, it's multiplying chance of fail in many ways, I don't think I need raid 5/6 with what I have laid out I don't think, and raid 10, I don't know... I know how I'm doing it may be a tad slower or requires a little more effort but...

I don't know, I just respect the fact that I think you know what you are talking about, and while many aren't as ocd on backups or whatnot as some are... outside of hitting a few buttons or setting the script for things to do what they do, do you think I'm missing something here or approaching it wrong in any way? (and that is leaving out the offsite explained in the other post link)..

I guess perhaps setting up some larger hdd's in raid 0 or whatnot configuration would be good for those old or big libraries not oft used, but I guess I just don't know where I need to use any raid configuration here, in reasonable use and trying to be somewhat portable lol... so just tossing it out there to you, as it seems like a strong subset of your knowledge...

(and I hope I explained that right.. ;))

 

Here's something completely different, what do you think? Does anyone use it?

TANDBERG RDX External Drive Kit with 4TB USB3+ (Includes Windows Backup and Apple Time Machine Support) Black
Brand: Tandberg - Price: €606

About this item

• RDX QuikStor is a solution for secure, reliable and portable data storage at an affordable cost
• The SATA III and SuperSpeed USB3. 0 interfaces provide high throughput rates
• The drives are durable and the media are shock resistant and robust enough to last 10 years. Impacts and drops do not mean data is lost
• RDX drives are available as internal and external variants. The RDX USB3+ external drive requires only one USB3. 0 connection for operation

www.overlandtandberg.com/products/rdx-removable-storage/rdx-quikstor/

 

25 gb music programs are very common nowadays, sample libraries as well. a couple hundred gigs here and there and pretty soon you are talking about some real storage space.

let me know where to find a goldmine to purchase a 16tb ssd.
only 1800$, I think i'd get the cat a valium perscription its much cheaper.

I have a 16tb seagate, hdd, I don't have a cat, it works fine. it cost me 149$ at costco. its usb3, thats a cost factor of less than 1/10th the price of SSD. Adults learn how to take care of their things, children not so much. I glued extra feet on to my hardrive to increase its stability and increase airflow from the bottom to the top since heat rises. you don't have to accept things being under engineered when you buy them you can make them stable and you can make them run cooler and last longer. Velcro is your friend when you have a cat. I've owned up to 5 at once. they are nice, but not the smartest 4 legged creatures.

Tip plastic vitamin bottle caps make great feet for electronic gear - super glue is a wonderful tool. Stone bookends make great stabilizers to keep a hard drive where you want it to stay. I favor Geodes, these are a bit to gauche for my taste, but you get the idea. You don't have to accept the world the way you find it, its okay to improve things...

 

I haven't used it, but that just seems way too slow for 2025.

(up to 330 MB/s* with SATA III or 260 MB/s* with SuperSpeed USB3.0 ... and that's with certain conditions/fw updates and other caveats?).

Maybe to slug around as a robust/rugged unit in different conditions?

Just taking a quick look at it Radio, maybe I'm reading it wrong, perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the product actually is?

 

seems kinda pricey, never used it. but I have built my own raids, its not difficult. But if you want convienence without having to fuss with learning and doing, its probably a good starting point.

its much cheaper and not much more difficult to get a 4tb external toshiba usb drive and use something like Acronis or Macrium Reflect to backup automatically at midnight every night or whenever you aren't downloading porn )...

$110 usd..

https://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canv...iba+usb3+external+drive&qid=1739130155&sr=8-6



its not a raid, but if you buy 2 and swap them daily, you'll only ever lose one days work.
get them in different colours or label them so you aren't flying blind..

 

The Furbish Theorem, states:

"any storage device no matter how large, will eventually become too small and will be filled up".

its the nature of the universe. I beleive it involves quantum entanglement, entropy and massive scene releases.. this is speculation but I am crowdfunding for monies to research this here at Furbish Labs, let me know if you'd like to kick me a little somthin..

 

I double the size of whatever SSD I want to purchase, which kinda sucks,but there are some great price points where its not double the price to double the size. I usually calculate how much I want to store on it by checking the size of what I have installed on other machines. It takes a bit of experience and work, but so far I haven't filled up an ssd past 50%. Computers can be hungry animals and can consume all your time and income if you don't tame them and keep them on a leash. We have to let them know who is boss.

I keep a spare drive or two at home, just in case. I also wear a belt and suspenders, just been caught with my pants down too many times....

 

Amazing the amount of very lengthy epistle's here from the same cat's saying the same thing over and over again.

No one really gives a carp at this point. The two technologies mentioned in this thread are both flawed and you take your chances with either one of them. However, if you're smart about it either one of them can be used successfully.

 

Sorry if this has already been said but I want to join in and 7 pages is too much to read before bed.

From what I remeber right now.

SSD - uses electricity to use static charge to set and read microscopic switch in the silicon chips. if theres no power the switches don't move. However the switches wear out.

HDD - uses electricity to put patches of static charge on a metal disc and reads the patches of static. If theres no power for a long time the static discharges. SO will need to be plugged in and read every so often to recharge whats written.

Thats why big companies still use tapes to store their back-up data long term.

Personally I'm using Blue-ray discs (standard double layer discs / not the re-writeables), since it uses pigyment on a disc that will only wear out if it's read a lot of times. So for a 1 time read back-up that I hope to never need, it's ideal.

What ever drive you decide to use. Find one designed to be used for that purpose. A Western Digital Black series SSD although being faster will stop working before the Blue series SSD becuse the black is built for speed. The RED and Gold series are made for servers so their life time is measured differantly. Not in life time data writes per section but in dayly writes per section.

 

Yes, this is true. But I can tell you DLT (aka LTO) tape has issues all its own. Anyone who has worked in a large DC can tell you this. They are prone to all the same issues as video tape. There's at least two feet of tape pulled out of the carts every time it goes into a machine and the data is written and read by a high speed rotating helical drum - a very similar to process to video recording. This means that if the tape handling mechanism falters in the least little bit you have tape damage which can result in data loss. You'll never know about it until you go to retrieve the data - unless data verification is used which takes even more time for backups to complete.
The tape machines and the tapes themselves have never really been at a price point that makes them viable for home use.

 

Last edited: Feb 10, 2025

Hi mate. Well, i don't think you are doing anything wrong, your method is meticulous and guarantees that your -thrice copied- data will survive no matter what. I too use cloud storage services but only for my most crucial data, that is working projects and their accommodating sorted recordings/audio files. In my case these hardly ever exceed 50gbs and are there for the "just in case" scenario, i have never had a total disaster happening anyway. i too keep a lot of backups with my main being a comp that i built strictly as a storage server.
Cheers

 

Bought a Samsung 870 SSD for kontakt libraries, keyscape, superior drummer and addictive drums libraries a couple of years ago. Woke up today and it was no longer recognized. Countless hours down the drain. My best advice: instead of buying one 8tb HD, buy 2 4tb hds and use one as a back-up. There's no "better" when it comes to storage.