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Gear / Technical Help => Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity => Topic started by: morst on July 02, 2021, 04:22:51 AM
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Welcome to 2021-Q3!
If you have not backed up your data since the start of Q2 then it is DEFINITELY time to consider backing up anything which has changed since then.
Three copies is best, one should be "off site" if possible.
May want to consider using multiple brands of storage devices, such as Western Digital / Seagate / HGST.
I have been a bit of a WD fanboy for ten years or so, but now I read about this and think SEAGATE SOUNDS SAFE!??!
Would this happen to be a Western Digital My Book NAS?
https://www.westerndigital.com/support/productsecurity/wdc-21008-recommended-security-measures-wd-mybooklive-wd-mybookliveduo (https://www.westerndigital.com/support/productsecurity/wdc-21008-recommended-security-measures-wd-mybooklive-wd-mybookliveduo)
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/wd-my-book-nas-devices-are-being-remotely-wiped-clean-worldwide/ (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/wd-my-book-nas-devices-are-being-remotely-wiped-clean-worldwide/)
https://threatpost.com/my-book-live-wiped-rce-attacks/167270/ (https://threatpost.com/my-book-live-wiped-rce-attacks/167270/)
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/mass-data-wipe-in-my-book-devices-prompts-warning-from-western-digital/ (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/mass-data-wipe-in-my-book-devices-prompts-warning-from-western-digital/)
ALSO:
Fuck Cancer: Check balls and breasts by hand at the start of each month for any new lumps.
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Morst's advice for 3 copies with an offsite is solid. If you want to see who is really performing well, Backblaze publishes quarterly hard drive failure rates for the drives used in their data centers. This is the first place I look to find out which large hard drives are reliable (or not). Be sure to read all the way through the lifetime drive stats:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2021/ (https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2021/)
BTW, Backblaze is a great online auto-backup service if that type of thing interests you.
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Hard drives are good as part of your backup strategy, but for long-term stability I recommend additionally burning optical discs. This has been my strategy since the late 90s and it has not failed me. If you buy high-quality media and store your discs well, they will be reliable far longer than any hard drives. I have CD-R backups over 20 years old that still work perfectly.
Getting the right media is the most important part of getting reliable long-term storage for optical discs. I currently use 25 GB BD-R discs, but there is a big difference in quality out there. You must be careful to only buy 'HTL' discs; not the cheaper 'LTH' discs.
Here is where you can find out which discs are HTL or LTH:
https://blu-raydisc.info/licensee-list/discmanuid-licenseelist.php (https://blu-raydisc.info/licensee-list/discmanuid-licenseelist.php)
Here are two versions of Verbatim HTL discs I use. I have only ever had one or two fail to write, and none that successfully wrote ever failed to read:
https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Original-Spindle-Printable-Blueray/dp/B008F5M2OY (https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Original-Spindle-Printable-Blueray/dp/B008F5M2OY) (BA5 on licensee list)
https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-BD-R-Blu-ray-Recordable-Media/dp/B00GSQ4DBM (https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-BD-R-Blu-ray-Recordable-Media/dp/B00GSQ4DBM) (IMe on licensee list)
This is why HTL or LTH process matters for your discs:
https://digistor.com/not-all-blu-ray-discs-are-created-equal-but-does-bd-r-quality-matter/ (https://digistor.com/not-all-blu-ray-discs-are-created-equal-but-does-bd-r-quality-matter/)
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I agree that it's a good idea to use multiple modes of storage as well as multiple brands of media.
I've had very few failures on properly-stored optical media as well.
Backblaze's technical reports every year are of great statistical interest to me, for sure.
Thanks for the reminder on HTL vs LTH.
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I agree that it's a good idea to use multiple modes of storage as well as multiple brands of media.
I've had very few failures on properly-stored optical media as well.
Backblaze's technical reports every year are of great statistical interest to me, for sure.
Thanks for the reminder on HTL vs LTH.
Like you, I was pretty brand-loyal to WDC for many years. I was a computer repair tech back in the late 90s / early 2000s, and in those days we avoided Seagate like the plague with all the failures we ran into on customer machines.
HTL / LTH is one of those things that the average customer doesn't know about, because it isn't really advertised.
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Unsurprisingly, WD has more vulnerabilities on newer drives and their MyCloud OS3 software:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/07/another-0-day-looms-for-many-western-digital-users/