Dana Stibolt will be the guest speaker at next meeting of PPOGA – Professional Photographers of Greater Annapolis. He will be talking about backing up your important data redundantly and automatically.

The meeting will be held at the Annapolis DoubleTree Hotel (near the Annapolis Mall) Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 6:30pm. Free gifts from MacMedics for all who attend. $12 entry includes food, beverage, and door prize entry!

See the Professional Photographers of Greater Annapolis’ Facebook page here.

Why using a Drobo for Apple’s Time Machine might not be a good idea

We’re fans of the Drobo data storage device here at MacMedics. They are a fantastic, low-cost solution for storing large amounts of data with relative safety.

In a repair that I’m working on that involved a Drobo 4 bay device, I’ve come up with some thoughts on why a Drobo device is not a good idea for use as a Time Machine volume.

1. We already know that Time Machine really puts a strain on the directory of a hard drive. We commonly see TIme Machine volumes with severely corrupted directories. When you combine the action of Time Machine along with the process that Drobo uses to protect and preserve your data, I think that intensifies the strain on the directory of the RAID.

2. Time Machine is a workout for any hard drive when it’s running all the time, and we have seen a few hard drives that have succumbed to the strain of that duty. In the case of the Drobo combined with Time Machine, the drives just go non stop all the time at a fairly intense level. When you consider that all that hard drive activity could prematurely shorten the life of a hard drive in your Drobo. Don’t forget that increased hard drive activity means more heat which can shorten the life of a hard drive.

When you consider both of these factors and add in the fact that having an ever expanding Time Machine volume, Drobo is not the best choice as a Time Machine volume.

Time Machine is the most powerful feature of Leopard and Snow Leopard. Having said that, having a Time Machine backup is highly recommended, but in almost all cases we DO recommend a “Double Backup”. In most cases this can be accomplished with one hard drive. If you have a large hard drive, you can create a partition that’s slightly larger than your hard drive, and then use the remaining amount of space for Time Machine. The trick here, is to clone you hard drive to the small partition and allow Time Machine to use the large one. This way if you ever have a failure, you can boot off your “clone” and then have access to you Time Machine data from as recently as one hour ago.

See my post about Time Machine and for a link to a program that will allow you to adjust it’s frequency here.

See my post about doubling your Time Machine back up here.

Time Machine is an excellent way to back up your files! It's only cool and powerful if you actually turn it on and USE it!

So your computer’s hard drive and hopefully your back up system made it though Friday the 13th. Good job.

Now that we’re approaching the end of the year and the holiday season is coming up right quick, this WOULD be an excellent time to test your back up (or start one) before you get wrapped up in the holidays.

We’ve been over this before, but here on the front lines of data loss we see this just about everyday. It’s senseless the number of pictures, school papers, financial and business documents, and music get lost when a back up system can be had for as little as $99!

You need to make your back up system automatic, or use a program like Time Machine. That’s the first step. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can keep up with a “manual” drag-n-drop back up! To boot, quite a bit of the data loss we see here at MacMedics happens when someone copies over important data during a drag-n-drop Finder copy. Sometime, folks think they have the data copied, but something goes wrong and they just end up with an alias, then they go and delete the original data, because they think they just copied it.

The second step is to regularly test that back up to ensure your files are there and you’re able to grab them anytime you need them. There’s no such thing as a “Set-It-And-Forget-It” back up system.

If you need help getting your back up set up, our advice is free, and we have external portable and desktop hard drives in stock!

If you have data you care about it needs to be backed up! Just because your computer is new or you just replaced the hard drive offers you very little protection. Hard drives can die at any time, and in fact there’s an increased risk of that occurring in the first 30 to 60 days of a hard drives’ life.

See our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info on “retiring” older drives and ensuring you have a safe back up.

The pictures we take at the holidays are the most cherished and valuable. Make sure the picture you take this holiday make it onto you back up system as soon as you import them onto your computer. Also, as an added tip: Don’t have iPhoto delete your pictures off you camera. Leave them in two places, in iPhoto AND on your camera until you have them BACKED UP. You ALWAYS want to have your valuable data in TWO PLACES at all times.

New or old, hard drives can die at any time. This hard drive from a 2 month old MacBook Pro Unibody has failed without warning resulting in data loss. Always have a back up, and be sure that back up is tested and working before you start generating new data. See our website at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

Last year at this time we announced our campaign to “retire” older hard drives and to also ensure that data was backed up. We created an informative website to explain our thoughts on the matter. Our site has had thousands of hits over the last year, but sadly we still see cases daily where clients have lost data.

Hard drives can fail at anytime and at any age, so it’s very important to always have a back up of your data. Our message must be getting out there, because we see more and more clients who are in the planning stage of a back up system lose their data the day before they hooked the the new back up system up. As ironic as that sounds, it happens all the time. People just put it off too long and the risk catches up with them. With larger and larger hard drives available as the Apple factory option that risk only increases with the amount of data stored in one place. An automatic and reliable back up system should be put in place BEFORE you start generating data.

Another situation we commonly see is where a back up has been made and the primary drive then gets erased (on purpose) in preparation for a move to a new computer or some other reason. It’s very, very important that when you make a back up with plan to only have that data on solely the back up drive for a time, that you test to ensure your data is really there. If the backup is bootable, then try booting off it to test. If it’s a Time Machine back up, then do some sample restores from a couple of different days. The rule here is if you’re going to be moving your data, it’s very important that to check to see that data is valid before you erase your old data.

The new year is great time to start fresh with a good back up system. Do yourself a favor and make a resolution to get a back up system installed as soon as possible. There are lots of options, and many are very inexpensive. Ask your MacMedics Engineer or Service Coordinator for help. We’ll be happy to help install a system that’s right for you.

P.S. If you have a MacBook check to see if you have a Seagate 7.01 firmware drive. These drives are prone to an unusual fatal hard drive failure. If you have this drive installed, MacMedics recommends that your proactively replace it. See our previous blog post on the topic here.

Also see our post about stripped or spanned hard drive RAIDs such as the LaCie Big Disk. This is another case where having all your eggs in one basket can be very risky. We’ve learned over time that many of clients don’t even know they are using such a system. Super dangerous for your data. If you have one, just get in touch with us ASAP!

One of the things we hate the most is to see folks who come into our shop with a bad data loss situation. We expect to see people with older Mac computers in situations where the data is lost, and no back up was in place. That happens pretty frequently, and sadly it often happens WITH a back up that was either NOT in use, or UNTESTED. As computers age so do their hard drives, so think about replacing your drive with a larger, faster, and more robust drive BEFORE your drive starts to fail. Just because your computer is newer does not mean that your hard drive is without risk, in fact you might be in even greater risk in the first 30 days of use with a new comouter. See our website: www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info

Now that Leopard has been out for almost a year, we’re starting to see customers who never set up Time Machine, set it up once then turned it off, or some how messed up the configuration. With Leopard and Time Machine it makes it really easy to have an affordable and reliable back up that really works in place. While in most instances it’s a case of set it and forget it, it is wise to test your Time Machine and/or Time Capsule back up. Pick a file at random from a few weeks ago and do a test recovery. See what happens and make sure you understand how to pull old files off of your back up system.

It’s also not a bad idea to make sure you know how to recover from a Time Machine back up and a total hard drive failure. We suggest testing your back up (Time Machine or any other back up program you may be using) and doing a test restore of your entire back up. It’s best to do this on a separate machine, and not tamper with your working machine, but you should know how to get back on your feet again if the unthinkable happens. If you need help getting a backup and disaster plan in place, call your local MacMedics office.

This week a nice lady with a 1 year old infant came to see us after being referred from the Apple Store in Annapolis (Thanks to the Apple Store for thinking of MacMedics again!!). She was in a really bad situation, as her drive that was installed in pretty new machine was making a terrible noise. We tried to recover her data, but the hard drive was too badly damaged to get a copy of the data. All she wanted was the pictures of her baby. Totally understandable. We’ll be sending her drive off for a clean room recovery evaluation.

Losing pictures is one of the things that hurts the most. One easy way to ensure you always have a back up is to “burn” a CD of your new pictures as soon as they are imported into iPhoto. As soon as they are imported, they are all right there, just highlight them and burn them to a CD right then and there. CD media is so cheap, there’s no reason not to use a CD and just make a back up on the spot. The mistake that people make, is that they will plan to make a back up later, or wait until they have enough data to fill a CD or DVD. Even if you DO have a hard drive based back up, pictures are too precious not to double protect. There is no reason NOT to have more than one back up. Use the extra CD or DVD you burn as a way to start an off-site back up, give them to your parents or to a neighbor for safe keeping. Trust me, it sounds over protective, but right here in Severna Park a close friend of MacMedics had his house burn to the ground, and he lost everything including all of his hard drives, and all of his pictures. We went though the pictures we took of our kids playing soccer together, and looked for any instance where we had pictures of his daughter playing with ours.

Also, this week we had 3 back-to-back cases of the Seagate 7.01 firmware failure. This type of drive failure make data recovery impossible. If you have this drive take steps to replace it now! It appears that as these drives age, they are even more prone to the failure they are famous for. MacMedics STRONGLY recommends proactive replacement of this drive immediately! If you have questions on the best way to do this, call or e-mail your local MacMedics office as soon as possible. A new drive can be as little as $119 and most come with a 5-year warranty.

If you need a system for designed for backing up your data (or help recovering lost data) get in touch with your local MacMedics office or give us a call at 1-866-MAC-MEDICS

The MacMedics office in Millersville, MD will securely erase your hard drive and responsibly recycle it for you free of charge. Drop off your hard drive, sign a data destruction waiver, and we’ll take of the rest. If you drop off your hard drive, iPod, or older Macintosh computer for data destruction, we’ll give you a coupon for $10 off an iPod repair, or $25 off the price of a new Mac.

James Wiebe of Wiebetech recently gave us Drive eRazer that we are using to perform this service. This little device will erase drives to Department of Defense security standards.

Drive eRazer

A New Year is a great time to turn over a new leaf. Many folks make resolutions to eat better, exercise more, and generally take better care of themselves. We hear you; our resolution is to drink less coffee. The point here is don’t forget your computer when making plans for the New Year. Nothing breaks our heart more than to tell someone that his or her data is gone. If you don’t have a back up in place now, this is great time to get one. It does not have to be expensive, complicated, or hard to understand. Simple fact is that hard drives die, it’s not a matter of if, and it’s a matter of when. When your drive checks out, make sure your precious data is backed up. We can install an extra hard drive so you can always ensure your data is in two places for as little as $99. Having a simple automated back up is great way to go, but you can take simple steps on your own as well. For example, when you import photos into iPhoto take the time to turn around and burn that data right to a CD-ROM right then and there. Don’t wait for enough photos to accumulate so you can fill a CD. Media is cheap, and isn’t it worth a dollar to make sure you have your photos backed up. While you’re at it take a moment to back up your e-mail data to a DVD or CD. It’s even helpful just to duplicate your e-mail data and move it to another part of your hard drive. E-mail data is frequently corrupted and often overlooked as data that is important and needed to be included in your everyday back up.

Check out our webpage at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info. Check it now and take steps to prevent data loss!