SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

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Algenon5
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SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

If you are like many FF members, you have a substantial investment in fetish videos from excellent producers like Bluestone, PFK and others. It would be a shame to loose it all because of a hard drive crash. Yes, hard drives do still fail, even the new solid-state drives in some laptops. Therefore, backing up you videos and other important files makes a lot of sense.

Burning them onto CDs sounds like a good idea - that is until you realize how many CDs it would take. You could upload them all to a public file storage site - er, another not-so-great solution. Or you could simply add an external, backup drive to your desktop or laptop. An external drive is easy to install and use. Its content is displayed, run and even edited exactly same as the content on your computer's internal hard drive. (More on this later.) It also provides you with a huge amount of extra storage space, but its chief benefit is peace of mind. However, there is one additional benefit - privacy. If your computer has multiple users, all of your sensitive content can be kept on the ex-drive, which can be unplugged from the computed and taken with you when not in use. (I suggest hiding it under your bed, next to the comic books.)

Ex-drives come in all sizes and prices. The one I currently use cost $69 USD and its capacity is 500 GBs. How much content will 500 GBs hold? At last check my ex-drive was storing 408 full-length feature films, 632 print data files, 1,274 fetish videos and 27,348 still images - and there still is 184 GBs of free space left on the disc. More than one ex-drive can be connected to a computer. I use a second drive salvaged from a fried PC to store and play my digitized music, but that's another and even more boring story.

The difference in price between a 100 GB drive and a 500 GB drive is only $15 or $20, so go big. You can find refurbished drives for as little as $25, but why gamble. The following are two sources that have real-person phone help if you're uncertain about what to buy.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

http://www.geeks.com/

Connecting an ex-drive to your computer requires all of five minutes, and that includes taking it out of the box. Using the supplied cable, plug it into one of you computer's USB ports. Follow the simple instructions on the installation disc, and you're ready to roll.

HOW TO USE AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

How To Copy A File To An External Drive
> Right-click on the file
> In the dropdown menu that appears, left-click SEND TO: (or COPY TO:)
> In the secondary menu that appears, left-click NEW VOLUME (or NEW VOLUME E)
> A small box opens that indicates the transfer's progress, which will take a few seconds to a minute or two, depending on the file's size. This box closes at the transfer's completion.

How To Access An External Drive's Contents
> Click the new icon on your desktop
> A view opens that looks exactly like the My Documents view produced by your computer's internal hard drive.
> Click the desired file. It will open and run as usual.

Al
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

Since writing the previous post, the prices of external hard drives have come way down. For example, Tiger Direct mow sells 2 terabyte (2TB) drives for as little as $89 USD. How much can you store on a 2TB drive? 2TBs equals 2048 gigabytes, or 2097152 megabytes (MBs). There aren't two million megabytes of fetish videos on the whole planet. (Blue, start editing all that neglected shoot footage!)

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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by shootingmad »

2TB for only 89 bucks?

Jeez... here we have 1tb for almost 1.000 pesos (which is around 250 usd) each.


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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Sharpshooter »

Algenon5 your idea about putting your files on a separate hard drive is good, unfortunately any hard drive is liable to fail, even modern external hard drives (I should know I've recently had one pack up on me! :mad: )

My view is to get any files which you deem your very favourite files or irreplaceable photos of family and friends onto DVD as soon as you are able to.

The the most annoying thing about hard drive failure is that your files are most likely intact on the hard drive platter, however you can't simply remove the platter ......doing so would very likely make the platter unreadable due to exposure to even the tiniest dust particles! :shake:

Professional data restorers can manage to get data off dead hard drives......but a a cost......even thousands of dollars! :shake:

Computers and external hard drives are great......its a shame no one yet has come up with a product that is both affordable and renders data loss due to hard drive failure a thing of the past.
Most PC users are aware of the need to back up data.....but very few will do it on a regular basis.......because complacency creeps in.
But when the day your hard drive fails you will be asking yourself......no why the hell didn't I back up my data!.
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

shootingmad wrote:2TB for only 89 bucks?

Jeez... here we have 1tb for almost 1.000 pesos (which is around 250 usd) each.


lucky bastards

Why not check to see if Tiger Direct ships internationally?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

Sharpshooter wrote:Algenon5 your idea about putting your files on a separate hard drive is good, unfortunately any hard drive is liable to fail, even modern external hard drives (I should know I've recently had one pack up on me! :mad: )
I agree. No backup system is absolutely failure proof, but the chances of having internal and external drives fail simultaneously are fairly remote.

It also is a good idea to burn irreplaceable files like family photos onto CDs as an additional backup. However, for video and movie collectors like myself it isn't a workable solution. I have 109 GBs of fetish videos and 302 GBs of classic American and British films stored. Burning this amount of data onto CDs would be out of the question. So like many others I'll have to be satisfied with having an external drive as backup.

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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by heartbreaker »

If your computer will burn DVD+RW's, you may want to give them a try. They've been working well for me and you can add & delete files. They hold 4 GB each vs. CD Roms 0.7 GB each. A 10 Pack of DVD+RW goes for about $15.00. Plus, I learned the hard way that multiple burnings on a CD Rom causes them to become "invisible" to your computer. I lost a few that way.
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

Another good idea. But in my case it would take more than 100 DVDs for my video and movie files, plus another 20 or 30 DVDs for my image and audio files. Like you I avoid CD-RWs because I learned how unreliable they could be, but I've never had a problem with a CD-R. I've also had the experience of burning DVDs which turned out not to be completely readable. So I guess there is no absolute solution, and I'll have to continue living dangerously with external drives as backup.

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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by TommyBailey »

Algenon5 wrote:So like many others I'll have to be satisfied with having an external drive as backup.
I saw something cool last night that I'll see if I can locate again for you. It was an external hard drive bay that holds up to 4 hard drives and plugs into USB (or other ports). On your system you see it as one removable device.

You save your files to it and it automatically duplicates the drive in bay 1 to bay 2. Once that drive fills, it will move down to the one in bay 3, etc.

With 5 drives total you would have a huge amount of storage and your data is always on at least 2 drives.

The main concern is the cost. The cheapest ones start at $799 USC and go up to $6000 USD.
"Yes Tommy, a lot of doctors screw their patients. But you're the medical examiner!"
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

An interesting idea for someone who need a truly gigantic amount of storage, but it's too rich for my thin New England blood. The 2TB drive I just ordered will have more capacity than I could ever hope to use. However, it will allow me to be a lot less discriminating in my feature-film collecting.

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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by TommyBailey »

Famous last words! I remember when I got m first 850 mb hard drive. It was advertised as "never run out of space again".....
"Yes Tommy, a lot of doctors screw their patients. But you're the medical examiner!"
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

Maybe so, but with 2TB being equal to 2048GBs, it will be quite a while
before I have to worry. By then entirely new storage devices will probably
be available.

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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by smudger »

I have a very simple solution. I have six external hard drives, all with everything duplicated onto them. If one fails (and it hasn't happened so far) I will just go out and buy another. The cost of a hard drive these days is very small in comparison to what I have paid for the clips over the years. I don't buy monster ones, because its pointless, as Al says, its unnecessary, and the better policy is to buy two smaller ones to safeguard the material.
Feel sorry for you paying that much shootingmad, can't you buy internationally on internet?
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Algenon5
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Re: SAFEGUARDING YOUR PRECIOUS VIDEOS

Post by Algenon5 »

Like Smudger, I never had an internal or external hard drive fail. When my first computer's CPU fried, I extracted the 100GB hard drive (a simple procedure for anybody with a screwdriver), and it now is the primary storage space for my digitized music.

I'm a little more trusting of the fates than Smudger. While my backup system is similar to his, it's not nearly so extensive. Primary storage is on my PC's 400GB internal drive, a 500GB external drive and the previously mentioned 100GB drive. The content on these three drives is now backed up on my new 2TB drive. When I find some spare change, I'll retire the 500GB drive and 100GB drive (which is 11 years old), and replace them with a second 2TB drive.

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