modem7
10k Member
Certainly not the first time that the 'digital advantage' has been questionably used in sales pitch:
"But mein fuhrer, you should purchase our V1 flying bomb because of the pulsejet engine; it's digital, not analog."
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"But mein fuhrer, you should purchase our V1 flying bomb because of the pulsejet engine; it's digital, not analog."
Eudimorphodon
Veteran Member
Apparently when they have nothing better to do engineers sometimes like debating about whether switched reluctance motors count as a species of stepper motor or not, which, eh, I guess somewhat strengthens the case for them being "digital". FWIW, it is a pretty neat technology that's capable of making highly efficient motors both mechanically simpler than and capable of higher RPM than "normal" electric motors. (With a few trade offs, like the need for more sophisticated control circuitry than a "normal" brushless DC motor and fairly high "torque ripple".)
Although... jeeze, I wasn't expecting this to turn out to be such a rabbit hole. Apparently the google hits calling it an SRM weren't correct, because Dyson's "digital motor" *isn't* an SRM; the definition of an SRM is a motor that uses a magnet-less rotor that essentially works something like a rotary solenoid. Dyson's motor is just a brushless DC motor with a bunch of go-fast tweaks, including a *very powerful* neodymium magnet. And... wow, Dyson actually had the gall to print on their boxes that the Dyson motor doesn't have any "Carbon Emissions" because, you know, it doesn't have carbon brushes in it and therefore doesn't produce carbon dust. For heck's sake.
(The rumors of Google search going to hell are not exaggerated.)
Although... jeeze, I wasn't expecting this to turn out to be such a rabbit hole. Apparently the google hits calling it an SRM weren't correct, because Dyson's "digital motor" *isn't* an SRM; the definition of an SRM is a motor that uses a magnet-less rotor that essentially works something like a rotary solenoid. Dyson's motor is just a brushless DC motor with a bunch of go-fast tweaks, including a *very powerful* neodymium magnet. And... wow, Dyson actually had the gall to print on their boxes that the Dyson motor doesn't have any "Carbon Emissions" because, you know, it doesn't have carbon brushes in it and therefore doesn't produce carbon dust. For heck's sake.
(The rumors of Google search going to hell are not exaggerated.)
modem7
10k Member
I think salesmanship is the world's oldest profession.
"Hey Trog. The 'Neanderthal 5000' club that I sell is 10% more smoother than the competition, traveling faster through the air, resulting in a higher hit-the-target rate. Less time killing/hunting, more time with the kids. And costing only 8 mammoth tusks, it's a steal. All of the smart Neanderthals are getting them."
"Hey Trog. The 'Neanderthal 5000' club that I sell is 10% more smoother than the competition, traveling faster through the air, resulting in a higher hit-the-target rate. Less time killing/hunting, more time with the kids. And costing only 8 mammoth tusks, it's a steal. All of the smart Neanderthals are getting them."
Ruud
Veteran Member
I use an external HDD and keep it in my office at my work.
g4ugm
Veteran Member
Not an option I have, I am retired....
... also one hard drive is one coopy.....
Ostensibly its a copy of the local backup kept nearby.
Do you have friends? Do you visit them? Are they responsible enough to not lose things you ask them to keep for you?
Here's an experiment.
Buy an old hardback book.
Cut out a space in the back that's "hard drive" size.
Look up the Library of Congress catalog code for it, make a simple label with that code with a printer and some packing tape.
Stick the hard drive in there, and put it in its proper space in the public library.
I wonder how long it would sit there.
If you want a cheaper experiment, do the same thing and stick a dollar in it. Come back monthly, see how long the book or the dollar lasts.
Would be interesting.
g4ugm
Veteran Member
Sadly my friends seem to be passing rather quickly. We visit from time to time, but not often enough to keep backups up to date. Its ok creating a back up and storing it off site but keeping it up to date is another matter. Stuff gets copied to one drive as its written. It gets copied to the NAS drive weekly. I feel thats safe enough.
As for "old book" and "library" , might I ask when did you visit a library. Perhaps in the USA such things still exist, but here in the UK councils are down sizing and closing them. Any old books seem to be removed and sold, that is if you are lucky enough to still have a library. So an old book would certainly look out of place.
But again how do you keep it up to date. Its all well and good taking one backup. There are around 2000 files in this years Camera Roll. I would need to be nipping down once a week. As for printing off photos, well 2000 is rather a lot. I recently had mice in my loft. They ate quit a lot of paper but they were kept out of the NAS drive.....
You don't, you simply have it on a coarse rotation (once a month, once a quarter, etc.). You take the drive, make a "backup of your backup", swap it out with the old one, and then, later, you'll make the copy on the current drive. Rinse and repeat.
It obviously doesn't save everything. But losing 1/2/3/6 months of data is a far cry from losing years of data.
A simple example happened to a relative. One of their power strips shorted out and started a fire in their home. They were low risk by all measures, but I guess it's even recommended that you swap out things like aging power strips (I'll tell you what, I swapped my old ones after that).
It wasn't a kitchen fire, it wasn't a mistake, a wayward mind of an older person, or anything like that. It was just life taking a turn for the worse.
History is filled with best intention backup strategies going foul. Great bar stories to raucous laughter. But it wasn't our data, so it's funny to us.
Back in the day, we did some odd thing, flipped some strange bit, and it turned out our dutiful VMS backups were blank. "Oh, yea, that's a bug." Gee thanks. Then the sysop Did Something, and the machine cratered. We lost a LOT. We had 10 people supplementing our 2 normal people rekeying data for weeks.
Another time, we brought up putting UPS in our rack at the data center, they said "Oh, no no no! We have back up generators, we're on the same grid as the fire station so immune to brownouts and things like that. You don't need a UPS, so don't install them."
The power strip (there it goes again) on the rack died. $2 part. Black rack. "Thanks a lot."
That, too, is life taking a turn. Best intentions.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to take precautions if we can.
If none of the plans appeal to you, that's fine too. They're simply suggestions that maybe others haven't thought of that can be a low barrier for some to help thwart what can be a rather ugly disaster.
g4ugm
Veteran Member
History shows that when you do this, it gets forgotten. Nothing breaks if you don't do it, so it gets pushed to one side. In order to be effective for normal processes need to be automated. How many people die because they don't change the batteries in their smoke detectors. This will be much lower on the list.
Loosing recent data only is also not good. Recently changed is what is important. I need the download of this years insurance policy, to claim for the fire damage, not the one that expired last month...
My stuff goes to Onedrive as I create it. So its unlikely I would lose any thing....
... where is your stuff backed up? is it in the garage like my NAS box where a lightening strike would take it out?
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Tapes were made for that sort of thing. Comparatively inexpensive. In the 1970s, I wrote a running audit program for a transaction-oriented database. In the 1980s, at the end of the day, I'd grab a tape out the week's rotation and back up the important stuff to 9-track on our VAX. It didn't take long. At the end of the week, the box of tapes made its way to a warehouse and was exchanged with the oldest set.
We never lost more than a day's work.
So why in the 1970s only record transactions? Because the database was huge, spanning many disk drives. If you back up transactions, you never have to take the system down for backing things up, because you have a running log of what was done and by whom. I went through a few scuffles with the design team who didn't understand why one couldn't simply rely on periodic incremental backups.
We never lost more than a day's work.
So why in the 1970s only record transactions? Because the database was huge, spanning many disk drives. If you back up transactions, you never have to take the system down for backing things up, because you have a running log of what was done and by whom. I went through a few scuffles with the design team who didn't understand why one couldn't simply rely on periodic incremental backups.
Yes, but a total system failure would need a starting point (known state) to rebuild from with all the transactions after that point.
NAS boxes are great until you get hit with a ransomware attack that encrypted all your files a month ago and your NAS has those infected files as well.
I always figured a quarterly full backup archive followed by incremental backups of what changed in between with a real time mirror in a different building/location.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Sure, the idea was that a complete database backup (disk-to-disk) was done during weekly downtime (usually in the dead of night between Saturday and Sunday.
If you try to take live backups while the system is up, you're hard put to get a complete picture when (a) the hardware is relatively slow and (b) the database is very large. If you've got a transaction log, you mount the last backup and re-run the transactions. We also had a "test" mode where you could update the database, but all updates would be diverted to separate volumes (we called it "write divert"), so the original data is unaffected.
A typical installation was 4 mainframes coupled through shared bulk core and 144 shared pack drives. A configuration nightmare for the early 70s. The idea was that any module/task could run on any available system and even be shunted to other systems in case one went down. Lots of tape drives going unused during all of this, so the idea was to mount blank logging tapes on several drives and cycle through them. Even all of the unit record equipment was shared between the mainframes, as well as the remote links.
If you try to take live backups while the system is up, you're hard put to get a complete picture when (a) the hardware is relatively slow and (b) the database is very large. If you've got a transaction log, you mount the last backup and re-run the transactions. We also had a "test" mode where you could update the database, but all updates would be diverted to separate volumes (we called it "write divert"), so the original data is unaffected.
A typical installation was 4 mainframes coupled through shared bulk core and 144 shared pack drives. A configuration nightmare for the early 70s. The idea was that any module/task could run on any available system and even be shunted to other systems in case one went down. Lots of tape drives going unused during all of this, so the idea was to mount blank logging tapes on several drives and cycle through them. Even all of the unit record equipment was shared between the mainframes, as well as the remote links.
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g4ugm
Veteran Member
The trouble with Ransomware is it can lie dormant. So even tape backups are not always useful. For home users they are expensive and challenging to manage.
OneDrive does have some Ransom Ware protection but I still think RansomWare is my biggest risk...
I dunno, my smoke detectors complain loudly when its time to change the batteries, and they're also hardwired. Hard to imagine anyone able to suffer their incessant chirping.
That said, its been more than once when the detector was yanked off the ceiling and placed on the table, disabled, waiting for new batteries since they don't seem to have the grace to know what time it is when they start whining at 2am. Not sure how many have then had subsequent tragic fires after that.
What history also shows is that if something is important to someone, they'll make time for it. If its important to you to maintain an offsite backup, of any duration, folks will do it. Make a mark on the calendar, make the trip, whatever. If it's not important to them, they won't.
Like I said, shoving a hard drive into a sealed case and tossing it in the backyard covers a vast amount of catastrophic loss scenarios. Flooding being the most likely scenario. Most folks don't live in flood areas.
I also don't know about fire proof safes. Fire proof safes are designed to prevent the contents from reaching the point to burn paper, but I think that environment would be too hot for a drive. If a fire proof safe would work, that could handle a lot of the scenarios too.
To be blunt, if you can download it, you can get it back. You should always be able to retrieve stuff like that from the insurance company. Truth be told, there are very few official documents that can not be readily replaced. That said, if you lose your birth certificate, drivers license, and all of your other forms of ID, it can be a real bear to recover them. Not impossible, it takes some time, but its a bear. And recovering your ATM card can be challenging. Though its actually easier to recover a credit card, call the company up and say you lost it and they'll send you a new one -- assuming you know your CC # of course.
But, for example, the Birth Certificate, it's hard to get one without a credit card. It's hard to get money without your ATM card, or your check book. Thankfully my money is managed by several parties, all of which personally know me (including my bank), so hopefully that will not be an issue for me. But it did happen to my brother, who was locked out of his bank for a couple months. It was horrible.
Mine? I use Time Machine locally, and BackBlaze for offsite. Worst comes to worst, they charge me $140 to send me a hard drive, and I'm pretty sure that's just a deposit. But even if its not, its still a pretty good deal in my eyes.
BB will back up anything and everything connected to my main machine, I use sync thing to replicate my wifes notebook to a spare drive area so BB can hoover it up. I think I'm at about 1 TB now backed up.
And, yes, I use these because they're set and forget and work in the background.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
I use a fireproof safe in the garage. The idea being that I can toss it in the car before I flee. If you want a real fireproof on-site safe, consider one embedded into the concrete slab. Be prepared to part with many quatloos. My neighbor owns a house with a fallout shelter in a sub-basement. (The original owner was a bit paranoid and had the cash to build it). Foot-thick lead-lined walls with a hermetically-sealed heavy steel door. He could probably operate a cyclotron without anyone but the electrical utility knowing about it. (No danger of flooding as we're 1000' above sea level).
g4ugm
Veteran Member
Well if you still have your Smartphone my bank Santander has ways to obtain cash without a card.
How to withdraw money without a card
We explain how to withdraw money with a code or without a card using your mobile phone at Banco Santander's contactless ATMs. Find out now!
www.bancosantander.es
this is the Spanish banks version but the UK one works the same....
... BackBlaze looks a good cloud provider. Sadly as I am in the UK posting me a disk might be challenging, but definitely a great option ....
krebizfan
Veteran Member
One drawback of cloud based backups is that they will happily upload altered files filling the entire backup with encrypted files before the ransomware goes live. One Drive supports file history but it requires files to be accessed one at a time. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb...onedrive-159cad6d-d76e-4981-88ef-de6e96c93893 The other cloud backup vendors seem to do similar actions. Great if the phone just broke and a quick restore to a new phone is needed; not so useful if one needs an older backup set that hasn't been modified by ransomware.
g4ugm
Veteran Member
Microsoft OneDrive has Ransomware detection and allows the complete drive to be recovered.....
Ransomware detection and recovering your files - Microsoft Support
Learn about the automatic ransomware detection built in to OneDrive and how you can restore your OneDrive if something goes wrong.
support.microsoft.com
... most ransomware tries to delete previous versions.....