Computer Storage Solutions

Safe photo storage ideas?

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:58:13 +0000

I knocked my almost new 500gb external HD off the desk and lost thousands of photos. What’s the safest way to store those I recovered and future ones? I’d prefer not to use DVDs because it’s a pain looking for something and I’m not very organised. Is there a solid state external drive? would that be safer? or can you put a ssd into an enclosure? I only need about 100-150gb.
Perhaps I should just glue an external drive to the desk!!
If anyone has any solutions I’d be very grateful.

Get a second 500GB drive (or sell the 500 and get 2×250), and set up RAID 1 (mirrored drives) on them. RAID 1 writes identical data to two drives, therefore if one fails, the other one has all data preserved. You can then replace the failed drive, and repeat process.

Is this a good computer?

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:05:07 +0000

7-Outlet surge suppressor
Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse
Logitech Bluetooth diNovo Media Desktop
2-Year Limited Warranty
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
Dual Cold Cathode Light 12 Inch Blue
NZXT Sentry LX High Performance Aluminum Fan Controller Black W/ LCD Dual 5.25
Maximum number of quiet fans
Zalman GT1000 Z-Machine Mid-tower Aluminum Windowed Titanium
Corsair HX1000 1000W modular Active PFC
Hauppauge HD-PVR High Definition Video Recorder USB H.264 MPEG4 Component Up to 1080I W/ IR Blaster
Internal Data/Fax Modem V.92 PCI
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium FATAL1TY Champion PCI-E 7.1
D-LINK DWA-556 Xtreme N Desktop Adapter 802.11 Draft N B/G 3X3 PCI-E1 Adapter
Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter PCI-E
Internal 8-in-1 Card Reader
LG Black BLU-RAY Writer 8X BD-R 16X DVD-R SATA Lightscribe Internal Drive
Western Digital Caviar Black 2000GB 32MB 7200RPM SATA2 Dual-processor
Corsair Storage Solutions 256GB 2.5IN SATA2 Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 2000GB 32MB 7200RPM SATA2 Dual-processor
Corsair Storage Solutions 256GB 2.5IN SATA2 Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB in Quad-SLI
12GB Triple-channel Corsair Dominator: 6 x 2048MB DDR3 1600MHz
Stage 4 Air Cooling: Enthusiast-grade vertical heatsink with 120mm fan Ultimate air cooling
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 3.2GHz x 4 with HyperThreading 6.4GT/s FSB 8MB cache overclocked to 3.84GHz
ASUS Rampage II Extreme ATX LGA1366 X58 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 PCI CrossFire SLI

the gtx295 suck, a 5970 is 2x as good as they are. don’t get an alienware, so not worth it and way overpriced, building is cheaper, faster, and higher quality. overclock.net

Where can I get the best deal for Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB Network Attached…?

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:12:55 +0000

…Storage LS-W2 0TGL R1
Where can I find a really good deal online for Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB Network Attached Storage LS-W2 0TGL R1

Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro Duo 2 TB Network Attached Storage LS-W2.0TGL/R1 (Black)

List Price: $368.99
Price: $337.83 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $31.16 (8%)

In Stock.

What is the best long-term storage solution for backup files?

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:04:01 +0000

I want to back up my computer photos and music and documents on something in case my hard drive should crash or I have some other problem. My photos and music total about 18 gb. I was thinking of an sd disk, but I am told that is not good for long-term storage. I have used CDs, but they don’t hold that much. Should I go for a complete hard drive backup device? I am not sure how to use a hard drive backup device, or how easy it would be to retrieve individual files from that. Please tell me your opinions. Thank you.

You could use a trustable online service, like Carbonite, Mozy and Acronis. What I am now using is Acronis, it safeguards my important data with 250 GB online backup, it’s the reliable service for years. You could have a free trial before backup important files there.

https://store.acronis.com/325/cookie?affiliate=9433&product=59760&redirectto=http%3a%2f%2fwww.acronis.com%2fhomecomputing%2fproducts%2fonline-backup%2f

7 inch netbook - if I buy it, will I regret it?

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:10:55 +0000

My laptop recently packed up and I am considering buying a 7 inch netbook. I will use it for checking email and general internet use. As money is a bit tight, I am considering buying this 7 inch from Poundstretcher and its not clear what make it is. Would like to hear from anybody who has used one of these very small netbooks and hear if they were happy with it, or regretted it.
The spec is as follows:
Windows CE 5.0
7-inch widescreen
266MHz processor
128MB memory
4GB solid state storage (HD card storage up to 32GB)
Built In 802.11b/g Wireless
10/100 Ethernet
1x SD Card slot for upgrade - up to 32GB extra storage
3x USB for mouse / keyboard connection
Windows CE ActiveSync
Support for YouTube videos
Basic Office pack - Including SpreadCE Spreadsheet, WordPad, Foxit Pro Adobe Reader, Core Video Player
1 year warranty
Overall Dimensions: 211(w) x 140(h) x 30(d) mm
Thanks for the responses so far. I think you have persuaded me not to buy it. Its always good to hear experiences of other people. Will have a look at the suggestions put forward.

i would regret it, if i were you I woulds get a nice cell phone. honestly, that netbook would take like 20 minutes to start up, and you would be lucky if it could do youtube. THAT netbook has 4gigs of hard drive? My ipod nano has more than that!! really if you get like a blackberry or somthin you could browse the web and use email just as eisily

Is there a way to close outlook via a DOS or batch command?

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:35:45 +0000

I run a tape backup of someone laptop here in my company and they are always leaving the laptop logged into the network with Outlook running.
I get errors on my tape backup when the .pst files try to backup-because Outlook is open.

Is it possible to use task scheduler, with some kind of DOS or .bat command to cause Outlook to close out at a certain time of the night so I can get a clean backup.

I’ve tried to just get the person to close outlook at night, but its someone high up in the company, and I dont want to aggrivate him too much - - and I’ve already mentioned it a few times to him.

Its very simple…

Here, this might help:

Depending on the version of windows that you use, the program you want is either kill.exe or taskkill.exe. Both are in the %windir%\system32 or %windir%\system folders, so you should be in the path.

kill.exe /?
or
taskkill.exe /?

TASKKILL [/S system [/U username [/P [password]]]]
{ [/FI filter] [/PID processid | /IM imagename] } [/F] [/T]

Description:
This command line tool can be used to end one or more processes.
Processes can be killed by the process id or image name.

Parameter List:
/S system Specifies the remote system to connect to.

/U [domain\]user Specifies the user context under which
the command should execute.

/P [password] Specifies the password for the given
user context. Prompts for input if omitted.

/F Specifies to forcefully terminate
process(es).

/FI filter Displays a set of tasks that match a
given criteria specified by the filter.

/PID process id Specifies the PID of the process that
has to be terminated.

/IM image name Specifies the image name of the process
that has to be terminated. Wildcard ‘*’
can be used to specify all image names.

/T Tree kill: terminates the specified process
and any child processes which were started by it.

/? Displays this help/usage.

Filters:
Filter Name Valid Operators Valid Value(s)
———– ————— ————–
STATUS eq, ne RUNNING | NOT RESPONDING
IMAGENAME eq, ne Image name
PID eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le PID value
SESSION eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le Session number.
CPUTIME eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le CPU time in the format
of hh:mm:ss.
hh - hours,
mm - minutes, ss - seconds
MEMUSAGE eq, ne, gt, lt, ge, le Memory usage in KB
USERNAME eq, ne User name in [domain\]user
format
MODULES eq, ne DLL name
SERVICES eq, ne Service name
WINDOWTITLE eq, ne Window title

NOTE: Wildcard ‘*’ for the /IM switch is accepted only with filters.

NOTE: Termination of remote processes will always be done forcefully
irrespective of whether /F option is specified or not.

Examples:
TASKKILL /S system /F /IM notepad.exe /T
TASKKILL /PID 1230 /PID 1241 /PID 1253 /T
TASKKILL /F /IM notepad.exe /IM mspaint.exe
TASKKILL /F /FI "PID ge 1000" /FI "WINDOWTITLE ne untitle*"
TASKKILL /F /FI "USERNAME eq NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" /IM notepad.exe
TASKKILL /S system /U domain\username /FI "USERNAME ne NT*" /IM *
TASKKILL /S system /U username /P password /FI "IMAGENAME eq note*"

CHEER UP!

Does sata raid mirroring back up partitions as well as data?

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:31:15 +0000

Like if I have 3 partitions on one drive along with the data, will it be mirrored the same on the second drive?
I have a External Raid Box for the mirroring..

If it’s pure hardware RAID through the BIOS it mirrors the drive (or one partition - it depends on how you set it up). If it’s RAID in software through the operating system it’s usually only that partition.

which one is the safest external hard drive / solid state / flash?

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:06:33 +0000

Actually i had an external hard drive. 320gb seagate…recently i lost it because it fell down from my hands when it is connected to pc…and i lost all my data in it due to internal short circuit
…this time i am planning for a safest one please help me..which one is good i require 500gb storage capacity one..i heard about transcend external hd shockproof is that good?..please explain about the product which you recommend me..and thanks in advance for all your help.
(main question: so which one is safe though the product is damaged i can get my data back…?)

Solid state or "flash" drives do have a significant advantage since they have no moving parts however, they are still subjected to temperature extremes which may cause damage over time. I feel the cost of these drives are too high at this time. Why not set up a RAID system using external or even internal drives. These drives are cheap and you can even hot swap certain RAIDS if the drives go bad. Redundancy is the key to data safety.

Problem installing sata hard drive on alienware desktop, when i plug it into the raid spots they work when i p?

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:55:11 +0000

but when i plug them into sata 1 and sata 2 they dont work. So the issue i get is I get 2 hard drives working but not the other two. What, bios dosent see them at all please help
I have 4 hard drives total and they are sata.

One of the hard drives should be set as master and the others as slave.The master drive is the one that will have the OS installed on it so if it is set as master the bios will detect it,also one of your cd drives must be slave.Also check the cords and see if they are all powered in power supply

Why can’t you install Adobe Photoshop CS4 on flash-based storage devices?

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:48:22 +0000

Does that mean you can’t install Adobe Photoshop CS4 on a solid state drive or do they only mean external flash-based storage devices?

They only mean external storage devices.

The reason is because typically, when installed, some applications need to be able to write to the Windows registry or store its configuration files (such as an INI file) in the user’s profile. This cannot be done in external storage devices such as USB flash drive. Photoshop is one of those applications that write to the registry and store a lot of configuration files on your profile.

This is also what separate the portable applications from them. Portable apps are software programs that are able to run independently without the need to install files to the system it is running in.