The file management workflow I've developed for myself is almost identical to Jonathan's. It's simple, quick, easy to manage and, as Jonathan's 110K files indicates, expandable.
I also use the mirrored drives approach. Except as a Mac user I use Firewire drives because a lot of macs only have USB1 support which is really slow (USB2 is about the same speed as firewire).
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
USB2 in actual use is slower than FireWire. FW has the advantage of maintaining a constant data transfer rate wherein USB2 fluctuates in speed. If you want to have external drives that perform their best, FW is generally the way to go. For PC users, a FW PCI expansion card can be had for a measly $24.
The drive enclosure can have an effect on performance as well so don't buy a cheap POS. Stick with a recognized brand.
If you always keep the files on a pair of drives, this reduces your risk of loss to having both drives go out at the same time. So if both drives are perminately plugged into the same surge protector and it overloads from the building getting hit by lightning, you might lose all your files (this 1/10000000... chance is why I don't keep the drives plugged in).[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=56086\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Backups are important. Being a Mac guy, I have my files stored on an internal drive which is automatically cloned to an external FW drive every night via Applescript/rsync. PC users have similar options available, but [a href=\"http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp]third party software[/url] is required.
Forget surge protectors. I think battery backup solution (UPS) such as an
APS or a
Tripp Lite are a must. They do more than a surge protector by protecting from surges, spikes, voltage dips, noise and outages. They're cheep insurance for protecting your computer (they come with $15K to $200K equipment replacement warranties) and drives.
And most importantly, if you get signs that a drive might fail (a new clicking or grinding noise, odd warning messages, random corrupt files)
- Timothy Farrar : farrarfocus.com
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Emphasis added. Those last two points are software failures and can be fixed in most cases with drive recovery software such as [a href=\"http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm]SpinRite[/url] (stay the hell away from anything made by Norton!).
hanks Jonathan for this interesting information, what hard drives would you recommend?
I'd primarily recommend Hitachi (formerly IBM) and Seagate.
Many people hate Maxtor claiming high drive failures but I'm skeptical how legit those concerns are (in terms of overall reliability, not wether or not someone actually lost a drive). Depending who you talk to, you can get the same horror story for any of the companies. It's a moot point anymore as Seagate have recently purchased Maxtor. Western Digitals are good with their Raptor line for speed.
Stick to those name-brands and maintain constant backups and you should be golden.