Tag-Archive for » Backup «
The Other World – Episode 37
Thursday, November 17th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
Category: The Other World
Take It from a Tech: RAID ≠ Proper Backup
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011 | Author: OWC Stephen
I thought that today I would try to clear up a misconception that I encounter fairly often on the topic of data storage. I’ll start with a couple of examples:
Say a customer is looking for a RAID solution like the NewerTech Guardian MAXimus to store their important information. It’s a fantastic product and certainly a wonderful solution for your backup or main storage, but here’s the important part: when I ask the customer if this is going to be a backup or their main storage, the response I sometimes hear is, “Well it’s a RAID, so doesn’t it back itself up?”
Another scenario that I have seen, unfortunately, is this. A customer calls in because their RAID has failed, and they are extremely distraught because all of their critical information is on it—tax documents, raw footage for a movie in production, irreplaceable family photos, dissertations, you name it. I’ll ask, once again, if this was their main storage or a backup, and I’ll hear back, “Well it was a RAID. That was the whole point!” Article Continues…
Category: Tech Tips
AirPort Apparently Not The Best Place For Time Machine
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.
We’ve gotten a couple of emails from readers wondering how to get Time Machine to work with an AirPort.
Well… theoretically, getting the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour on a long stretch of tarmac would probably be fairly straightforward. Take a base 0-60 time of 8.8 seconds, factor acceleration curve for 60-88mph, account for deceleration while swerving around the occasional 747, and you’ll need about …
… What? You meant using Time Machine via an AirPort Base Station?
Oh.
That’s something completely different – and a lot easier to talk about.
The Theory
In early 2008, Apple introduced Time Capsule, which essentially combined an AirPort Base Station and a 500GB-1TB hard drive. At first glance, replicating this setup with a AirPort Extreme Base Station would seem to be fairly simple.
First, you attach a drive (such as a NewerTech miniStack, which stacks nicely underneath) to the USB port on your Base Station. Then, mount it on your desktop like you would any other remote drive. Finally, select it as your TimeMachine backup disk and let it run. After the initial (lengthy) backup, Time Machine will mount the drive remotely when connected to the network, run its backup, then disconnect – just like with Time Capsule.
The Reality
Category: Tech Tips
Apple Further Restricts Upgrade Options on New iMacs
Thursday, May 12th, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael
Since Late 2009, there’s been a well-documented issue with the iMac line. If you upgrade the hard drive, the fans can start spinning like crazy. The fans at high speed are loud, mainly unnecessary, and have caused a lot of headaches for DIYers everywhere.
The reason the fans spin this way has to do with the iMac’s method of hard drive temperature sensing. Prior to 2009, sensors were placed outside the hard drive to gauge how warm the drives were – if they got too hot, the fans turned on to keep everything nice and cool. This method was simple, effective and made changing, exchanging, or upgrading the main hard drive a relatively simple task.
With the release of the Article Continues…
Category: Fresh from Apple, Tech Tips
Make sure your data is safe for World Backup Day!
Thursday, March 31st, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.
It’s probably pretty safe to say that we here at OWC are pretty enthusiastic about backing up. Nothing can wreak more havoc on your stress levels than discovering that your irreplaceable data has disappeared forever due to a hardware or software failure. While the adage “There are two kinds of people with hard drives: those who have had a failure and those who will,” still rings true, the trick is to be prepared and that’s something we’ve promoted heavily over the years.
That’s why we were surprised when we heard about World Backup Day; we’re not above celebrating somewhat off-beat “holidays” here at OWC, but this event promoting something we wholeheartedly believe in somehow escaped our attention.
Well, we are no longer remiss observing this movement, and we’re not the only ones. The folks over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) are holding a contest today, March 31, in observance of World Backup Day and we’re helping out by furnishing a couple of NewerTech StoraDrive cases, a couple of Voyager S3 drive docks and a 1.0TB Mercury Elite-AL Pro Storage Solution as prizes. After all, if you’re going to back up, you better have the gear needed for such a purpose.
So head on over to TUAW and enter the contest…that link and the first giveaway is scheduled to go live between 11:00-11:30AM ET. We hope you win. But even if you don’t, though, you can’t lose by celebrating World Backup Day – today and every day!
Category: Random Thoughts & Topics
Price Drop on GMAX “Quad Interface” is Better than Flowers & Candy
Friday, February 18th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
In a (slightly late) celebration of Valentine’s Day, we’re giving you a double-dose of Price Drop love, and because such a large part of love is safety, this “extra” price drop is the award winning Newer Technology Guardian MAXimus. It’s the perfect way to keep your cherished digital snapshots and love songs (along with less-endearing things like spreadsheets, reports and emails from your boss) safe and sound.
The NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 FW800/400+eSATA+USB2 ‘Quad Interface’ solution is a hardware RAID 1 ‘Redundant Mirror’ which automatically keeps your data backed up in real time to protect against a hard disk failure. Should a drive ever experience a malfunction, normal data operation continues seamlessly. If the malfunction is a recoverable ‘soft’ type, the Guardian MAXimus will rebuild the mirror (also without data interruption) automatically. If the disk failure requires a drive to be replaced, once the new drive is installed. the Guardian MAXimus will automatically rebuild the Mirror while you use it.
In addition to the benefits of Hardware RAID 1 Mirroring, these solutions are fully certified for Audio/Video, Backup, Graphics, Music, General Data needs and more! Article Continues…
Category: Press Releases, Product Spotlight
The Other World – Episode 18
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
Category: The Other World
Transferring your data to a new drive.
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 | Author: OWC Chris S.
Every so often, someone will ask me about transferring data from one drive to another. Whether they’ve just upgraded the hard drive in their computer or they’d like to make a backup of their drive, there’s often a question of the best method of making a copy of their data.
As OWC Angela brought to light here amongst the OWC Blog team, the most common way would be “cloning”—a process which many people know nothing about.
In case you’re one of those who don’t know what that is, simply put, “cloning” is the process of making an exact copy of the data from one drive on another. The result is a bootable drive with all the information and preferences as the original.
This process is very handy if you want to:
- Make a “snapshot” of your hard drive at a particular point in time or interval as part of your backup plan.
- Set up many computers with identical settings and software (such as in a computer lab)
- copy all the data from your boot drive to another drive Article Continues…
Category: Tech Tips
