Question I need to store 60G safely.

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Nov 17, 2019
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I have a folder of music that is just under 60Gb. It's taken a buttload of work and I don't want to lose it. Right now, it's on an SSD in daily use that I play the music from. I keep weekly Acronis backups on a second drive so at least i have that. Those backups are full disk though. I'd like another direct copy of just the folder itself, so I don't need Acronis to read it.

I see USB thumb drives larger than that available, but I've read some things about them not being stable. Or at least some of them.

I can't upload anywhere since I havve a slow-ish DSL connection and upload is only a couple of Mb which means it would take forever.

Suggestions?
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
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^ I have no problem copying a single file at a time at more than 5MB/s, then using on another system.

On the contrary, a drive that only write 5MB/s, I don't recall one that slow since sub-1GB drives (unless a huge # of very small files which has always been a USB weakness unlike this app of copying few-MB each audio files), except the particular Sandisk drives where they have a slug in the USB connector (where everything is integrated instead of a proper PCB) and tend to overheat, and mine that does this, drops to around 10-15MB at that point, not 5MB, but even if it did, if it did it reliably that would be fine for its intended purpose.

USB flash drives were never meant to be concurrent I/O performance leaders, nor will they ever be. Misapplication does not make them any less appropriate for the uses they were intended for.

At the same time, sure, you get a new backup medium and you test it to see if it will do what you need, and reject what won't work for your needs. Backup purposes are a 1x non-concurrent, linear write scenario, not trying to pummel it with concurrent I/O and find it can't handle that which is no surprise because not designed for that.
 
Jul 27, 2020
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Might want to get that bad USB port fixed, or replaced.

No wonder you're frying flashdrives if you plug them into a known bad port.
I'm not deliberately doing that and my PC doesn't have a bad port. At work, we have all Dell systems. I used to have to copy something important from some PC I had never used before and I would end up with a fried drive. Thankfully, don't need to do that too often and even if I have to, I use a company provided UFD now and never my personal UFD. Funny thing is, you can abuse something that's not your own as much as you want and it will hardly ever die. You take the utmost care of something you own and it still frickin' dies!

Funny anecdote: a guy from work got a used Dell PC with Core i5 8th gen. He brought it direct to work. I was curious to see if Libreoffice's OpenCL option would be enabled on it or not. So I asked him the password and proceeded to install Libreoffice. Midway through the process, he gets visibly uncomfortable and pleads with me to let it rest. I told him installing a commonly used software isn't going to bork his PC and if it does, he should be grateful that I identified a weakness and he can get his money back from the shop he purchased it from. So I run Libreoffice and OpenCL won't get enabled. I get more curious and run an OpenCL benchmark which runs fine. When he sees the benchmark running, he literally shouts at me, "Please stop that. My PC will die! It's a used PC. I don't want my money going down the drain!". I look at him bewildered while stifling my laughter and assure him that I will promptly shut it down as soon as the benchmark finishes. Now I'm gonna wait and see if he runs into some issue with that PC and then blames it on my few minutes of benchmarking :D
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
4,971
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I'm not deliberately doing that and my PC doesn't have a bad port. At work, we have all Dell systems. I used to have to copy something important from some PC I had never used before and I would end up with a fried drive.

Then I misread your post. Sorry 'bout that.

Still sounds odd. I don't think I've ever had a flashdrive fail on me in, what, 20 years. Apart from that one time one was fried by (half-deliberate) accident.

Thankfully, don't need to do that too often and even if I have to, I use a company provided UFD now and never my personal UFD. Funny thing is, you can abuse something that's not your own as much as you want and it will hardly ever die. You take the utmost care of something you own and it still frickin' dies!

I've always had the exact opposite happening to me. My own kit always works, if I borrow something or work on provided kit you can more-or-less count on it failing at some point.

Must be some sort of karma. Maybe we even each other out, eh? :D
 
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mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
17,577
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I've been thinking about the fact that my backup strategies don't yet involve off-site backups in any way, and one system I'm mulling over is a hybrid option for my most essential data: Back up to my phone into an encrypted veracrypt container. My phone has an SD card slot as well, so I can increase its storage if need be.

I'm playing about with this idea and one issue I've run into is that I am 99% certain my Android phone has formatted the SD card with something like FAT32, I know I tried to copy a film to it once and it failed (4GB file size limit), I had to use internal storage.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
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^ AFAIK, all but ancient (by phone standards, maybe post-4.x?) versions of android support exFAT so I'd try formatting to that.
 

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
5,725
943
126
I'd get 2 of these personally:


  • Redefine everyday file transfers with speeds up to 400MB/s
  • Reliable and secure storage for your photos, videos, music, and files
  • Rugged metal casing for durability with key ring to prevent loss
  • Safeguard your data (Water proof, shock proof, magnet proof, temperature proof, x-ray proof)
  • USB 3.1 flash drive with backwards compatibility (USB 3.0, USB 2.0). Non-operating Temperature-(-10) ~70℃
These Samsung BAR solid metal drives are blazing fast and virtually indestructible (i know as i've used many of them at work and sold a lot).
 
Jul 27, 2020
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These Samsung BAR solid metal drives are blazing fast and virtually indestructible (i know as i've used many of them at work and sold a lot).
Would be nice to hear your personal stories of how these saved the day for you. Also, when did you first buy these and what's the oldest file you stored on them that is still accessible today without any errors?
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
17,577
9,268
136
^ AFAIK, all but ancient (by phone standards, maybe post-4.x?) versions of android support exFAT so I'd try formatting to that.

It was very odd changing to this phone - on my old phone (Moto G5, Android 8 I think), I did all my backups to the MicroSD card, swapped it into this new phone (Nokia 8.3) which then claimed that it couldn't read the card and it had to be formatted. Maybe Nokia/Android Pie is picky in some weird and wonderful way?

Whatever the old filesystem was, it was readable on my PC.
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
4,971
1,691
136
These Samsung BAR solid metal drives are blazing fast and virtually indestructible (i know as i've used many of them at work and sold a lot).

They're my go-to drives too. They aren't even that much more expensive then the -cheap- drives either.

Maybe Nokia/Android Pie is picky in some weird and wonderful way?

Android and SD cards. :rolleyes:

It needs to be formatted in the phone first because Android insists on making the whole Android directory structure on the card. Even if you just use it for storage.

Just plug the card into the phone, format, and then connect your phone to your PC. Make sure the phone is set to do file transfer. Then just make a directory, and copy the encrypted file over via the PC. Might take a while depending on file size, but that's about it.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
17,577
9,268
136
Android and SD cards. :rolleyes:

It needs to be formatted in the phone first because Android insists on making the whole Android directory structure on the card. Even if you just use it for storage.

Just plug the card into the phone, format, and then connect your phone to your PC. Make sure the phone is set to do file transfer. Then just make a directory, and copy the encrypted file over via the PC. Might take a while depending on file size, but that's about it.

That's what I was planning on doing; I was responding to mindless1's suggestion to format the SD card with a better choice of file systems. Unless there's a way to convince Android to use say exFAT?
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
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Android and SD cards. :rolleyes:

It needs to be formatted in the phone first because Android insists on making the whole Android directory structure on the card. Even if you just use it for storage.

Just plug the card into the phone, format, and then connect your phone to your PC. Make sure the phone is set to do file transfer. Then just make a directory, and copy the encrypted file over via the PC. Might take a while depending on file size, but that's about it.

But is that still true with modern phones with OTG feature? I could be wrong but I could have sworn last mSD card I bought, just threw it into a phone and was able to use w/o formatting. It was definitely larger than 32GB and started out as exFAT... fast forward to today, wouldn't bother getting anything smaller than 128GB now with them only ~$10 and up, are usually already exFAT formatted.
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
4,971
1,691
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I could be wrong but I could have sworn last mSD card I bought, just threw it into a phone and was able to use w/o formatting.

Can't say for other brands, but my Nokia insists on making the whole Android directory structure on the card before it'll use a card. After that, it's plug-and-play. "Formatting" is saying a bit much about what happens. It's really more like readying the card for use. Just like my old pocket camera, which has to make a database file, and a few directories, on the card before use.

You're right about card size. There really isn't much point to buying smaller then 128GB, unless you happen to have a device which only supports SDHC cards. But at current pricing, you can easily buy a small stockpile if you're in that situation.
 

KentState

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2001
8,397
393
126
For my most important of files I back them up to 2 16TB local HDD, 1 16TB HDD in safety deposit box, Backblaze 2TB and Google Drive 2TB. This is on top of the data being stored on a set of TrueNas servers which replicate between each other.

I personally would not trust an SSD for long term storage as I have seen data corruption from long term storage due to loss of charge. I know it varies by make, but have experienced it first hand with OS drives that sat unused for a long period of time.
 
Jul 27, 2020
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I personally would not trust an SSD for long term storage as I have seen data corruption from long term storage due to loss of charge. I know it varies by make, but have experienced it first hand with OS drives that sat unused for a long period of time.
Please tell me that the OS drive was a Samsung model. I had the weirdest experience with 860 EVO 1TB. Cloned my HDD over to it.Then the SSD sat for 6 months while I suffered the HDD because my Asus laptop had non-standard screws (T5 I think) and I didn't wanna go out and buy a screwdriver set. HDD suffered a crash due to failing platter surface so got a screwdriver set, opened the laptop and replaced HDD with 860 EVO. It booted fine. Then suddenly, I start seeing in real time that my OS C drive is getting more and more free space. It was as if some process was deleting files in the background. Windows crashed in a minute or two and when I tried to boot it again, it said no bootable medium found. Weirdly, the data drive had a bunch of large RAR files intact with perfect checksums. I'm never gonna use that 860 EVO again for anything serious.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
126
^ Very weird, I wonder if it got infected with some ransomware that was making password protected RARs out of your files or something.
 
Jul 27, 2020
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^ Very weird, I wonder if it got infected with some ransomware that was making password protected RARs out of your files or something.
I didn't investigate the OS drive thoroughly in a USB enclosure after the real time deletion incident. If memory serves me right, there were a few folders in the OS drive. I was too pissed to think straight at the time. I did check the data drive and it had some huge RAR files of some personal data that opened fine. Anyway, I formatted the OS drive and installed Windows on it, checked everything was OK and stashed away that laptop (i7-4700HQ) and began my love affair with an old Thinkpad W530 (i7-3720QM) that was lying around as a backup. I love it and haven't found any reason to use the Asus again. Check out my uptime:

1638205057283.png
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
15,332
7,792
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I didn't investigate the OS drive thoroughly in a USB enclosure after the real time deletion incident. If memory serves me right, there were a few folders in the OS drive. I was too pissed to think straight at the time. I did check the data drive and it had some huge RAR files of some personal data that opened fine. Anyway, I formatted the OS drive and installed Windows on it, checked everything was OK and stashed away that laptop (i7-4700HQ) and began my love affair with an old Thinkpad W530 (i7-3720QM) that was lying around as a backup. I love it and haven't found any reason to use the Asus again. Check out my uptime:

View attachment 53573
LOL! That just can’t be a Windows PC, unless updates are turned off.
I've had Unix boxes with that kind of uptime.
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
15,332
7,792
136
I have a folder of music that is just under 60Gb. It's taken a buttload of work and I don't want to lose it. Right now, it's on an SSD in daily use that I play the music from. I keep weekly Acronis backups on a second drive so at least i have that. Those backups are full disk though. I'd like another direct copy of just the folder itself, so I don't need Acronis to read it.

I see USB thumb drives larger than that available, but I've read some things about them not being stable. Or at least some of them.

I can't upload anywhere since I havve a slow-ish DSL connection and upload is only a couple of Mb which means it would take forever.

Suggestions?
I have a NAS. But if I didn't, my setup would be SSD—>HDD—>Google Drive. Who cares how long it takes to upload it. Seriously, stop fretting about it and get it done.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,031
1,440
126
Could anyone tell me how to compress videos for saving storgae space? I love shooting videos, but it really takes up so much storage place in my PC.
There are too many variables to answer this simply, but I usually use avidemux. It is not "efficient", I queue up multiple jobs at a time, to get a balanced load on the hardware. YMMV.

With anything there is a learning curve and it depends on how optimized you want it to be considering that GPU decoding/encoding can greatly accelerate that.

If your GPU does native h.265. use that, except you still have to consider the performance/capabilites of the playback devices so target for that.

If you want better quality, use software encoding on the CPU instead, but it will take much longer to process the video. This topic is really too broad to try to answer in a single forum post, there are internet tutorials and forums like https://forum.doom9.org/
 
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bononos

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2011
3,883
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Get a NAS, a 4-bay prosumer unit, slap in four 14TB HDDs, that's 3x14TB net storage under RAID-5, or 42TB.

Buy a few 14TB external USB3.0 drives, and plug them in in a rotating fashion, and backup/rcopy the NAS's storage to the external HDD. Keep those as "Cold Storage", should anything happen to the NAS or it's data.
Did you misread the amount of data in the OP as 60Tb instead of 60Gb?
 
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