[SwitcherX]

Some of us were taught that way...   

Opus is right...

[TheZookie007]

I'd been avoiding it and avoiding it and avoiding it until I could avoid it no more. I finally installed VirtualBox on my Windows laptop, and then installed Ubuntu Linux (Trusty Tahr, if I recall). It's not bad but I still haven't figured out how to minimize windows and stuff, so I end up having to Alt-Tab through the windows. But I'm getting my project done and so far so good.

[SwitcherX]

the flame still burns...

[gonZo]

(I see Berk has had his lettering made into a font...)

[SwitcherX]

 

[Palomine]

Thanks to a sale at Frys, I just got some new drives for my main/desktop PC, which lets me now use the older/smaller drives that were on it til recently as my "new" set of backup drives. And that allows me to retire/recycle all those even older/smaller drives that used to be the backups.

Attached pic is of the box of now-retired drives waiting to be recycled. They all work, so after one-pass reformat they'll be ready for re-use (in building re-purposed PCs for neighbors/older pals... usually running a Linux distro).

Not that this will be news to everyone, but like any modern OS, Linux can use a variety of drive filesytem types such as Fat and NTFS, as well as Ext4 (generally specific to Linux PCs I think/assume). That is to say: a Linux PC can automatically mount, read and write drives that come from straight from a Windows PC or a Mac without any trouble. I used to use Ext4 for all my drives, but now that's just for the boot drive (a SSD) and I use NTFS for all the data drives so if it ever was necessary, I could transfer all my data to a non-Linux OS simply by attaching the drives to a Windows or Mac PC (since both can use NTFS of course). I can't imagine that I'd ever need to stop using Linux as my main OS, but it seems a good idea to have my data as platform independent as possible.

Also like any modern OS, Linux has no trouble recognizing large drives... I dunno what the current limit is, but every drive I've ever connected to a Linux PC up to and including 5TB externals just mounts instantly with zero fuss... even on decade-old PCs

Go Linux!

OldHardDrives b .25

[Palomine]

Purty.

[TheZookie007]

Purty.

Sweet!

My next job is to get a RAID NAS so I can consolidate all my backups in one place instead of having ten or so externals of various sizes (ranging from 500 GB to 5 TB) laying around. Of course, my first assignment is to finally find the time to clone my 600+ GB internal hard drive to a 1 TB SSD and sling that into my main laptop.

A geek's work is never done...

[Hiram]

My next job is to get a RAID NAS so I can consolidate all my backups in one place instead of having ten or so externals

The Holy Grail for me is somewhere to store all my data that I can access over my LAN. Not sure how much data you have to store - I only have 3 TB or so - but I have a lot of data DVDs that I'd like to transfer to HDD.

[Hiram]

Purty.

Yes - I used to have a box brownie as well.

[Palomine]

Sweet!

My next job is to get a RAID NAS so I can consolidate all my backups in one place instead of having ten or so externals of various sizes (ranging from 500 GB to 5 TB) laying around. Of course, my first assignment is to finally find the time to clone my 600+ GB internal hard drive to a 1 TB SSD and sling that into my main laptop.

A geek's work is never done...

I've been thinking about/looking into a NAS storage system, but have ruled it out as unnecessary (in my case).

Aside from the added cost (of a NAS enclosure vs. regular external hard drives and/or enclosures) there's the fact that any old PC on the LAN with regular drives attached can serve as the "NAS" machine... and all it costs is the extra PC (this can be any old/recycled PC, so it's essentially free).

While I could maybe justify NAS if I needed to access my data from every PC and/or device in the house, that's not something I really need... I do most of my surfing and work from one desktop PC... the one with the most storage. While I do have a couple of old laptops for other purposes (filesharing, bedtime email, etc...) they don't really need constant access to the main chunk of storage.

The Holy Grail for me is somewhere to store all my data that I can access over my LAN. Not sure how much data you have to store - I only have 3 TB or so - but I have a lot of data DVDs that I'd like to transfer to HDD.

Probably prudent to transfer the contents of your data DVDs to HDD... opinions vary, but the reliable lifespan of optical media is finite, with home-burned CDs and DVDs having significanly shorter lifespans than commercially produced ones. Here's a Cnet discussion about it: http://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/do-burned-cds-and-dvds-have-a-shelf-life-327942/

Not that hard drives last forever either of course.

Image added after 1-1-1 elapsed.

[Hiram]

Probably prudent to transfer the contents of your data DVDs to HDD... opinions vary, but the reliable lifespan of optical media is finite,

I have maybe 60 or 70 mixed DVD's and CD's that I'd have the transfer to HDD. It is going to be quite a job, and I have looked at ways of automating it somewhat. I'll have to insert the disc into the drive, but what happens then I'd like to automate.

I do keep my DVD's in a metal case, so hopefully they'll last a little longer - I have tried some of them quite recently, and the random ones I tried all seemed fine.

[Palomine]

I have maybe 60 or 70 mixed DVD's and CD's that I'd have the transfer to HDD. It is going to be quite a job, and I have looked at ways of automating it somewhat. I'll have to insert the disc into the drive, but what happens then I'd like to automate.

I do keep my DVD's in a metal case, so hopefully they'll last a little longer - I have tried some of them quite recently, and the random ones I tried all seemed fine.

Though I haven't had a go at any of them lately, when I put an old CD I've burned into a drive (some of which date back to the earliest days of home CD burners, so whatever that is now... 20ish years?) they generally/usually read OK too. However, I'd be lying if I said my confidence level (of being able to retrieve the data from all such older media) was high, because it's not.

Copying 60 or 70 disks to HDD doesn't seem like too onerous a task to me, but then again, I'm a glutton for punishment. If I were you, I'd just transfer one or two a day: stick a disk in first thing in the morning, click-and-drag to start the xfer to HDD (a 'To be sorted' folder or whatever) and then walk away/leave for work. Same thing again once at night. You'll be done in a month, or less if you manage to squeeze some extra xfers in on those days you're sitting in front of the computer anyway.

Silly/pointless/overkill: while I'm sure someone somewhere in the past made a CD-jukebox thingy for data disks, it probably wouldn't make sense to hunt/buy/figure out how to use such a thing, especially since it's old and full of tiny plastic gears and levers. And you'd still need some kind of script or control software to instruct it to do what you want (automatically load the contents of 60-70 CDs to a HDD)... good luck with that given the device (and its software) will probably be a decade older than your current PC and OS. Here are links for some huge commercial jukeboxes: https://kintronics.com/solutions/optical-jukeboxes-and-libraries/ and http://www.primearray.com/products/cd_dvd_jukebox.php ...but I imagine someone somewhere made smaller/consumer versions akin to the CD jukeboxes some home audiophiles had on their stereo systems in the 90s (pic of one attached, but it's an audio device).

If you have an old/extra laptop with a big flashkey, I suppose you could even do these xfers on-the-go/while you're at work, as long as you're OK walking around with some old pron (or whatever )... it'd be prudent to make sure the laptop requires a password to come back from the screen saver.

Best of luck with your task Hiram.

[Hiram]

If I were you, I'd just transfer one or two a day: stick a disk in first thing in the morning, click-and-drag to start the xfer to HDD (a 'To be sorted' folder or whatever) and then walk away/leave for work. Same thing again once at night. You'll be done in a month, or less if you manage to squeeze some extra xfers in on those days you're sitting in front of the computer anyway. .

That is a good idea. I will make a start on that and do a few at a time. I'm going to need to sort out which I've copied and which I haven't. At present I have 4 full spindles of disks, and nowhere really spare to keep them safe. But I'm sure I can come up with something.  I have an external DVD writer that I will enlist for the purpose.