More and more information ends up being stored on attached storage systems. Remote hard drives with USB, FireWire or LAN connection as well as full-blown multi-disk NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices can keep terabytes of data.
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Posts in category How To Guide
Data Recovery from NAS, USB and Other External Storage Media
The Drawbacks of NTFS and the FAT File System: Part II
If NTFS is such a great file system, why isn’t it used everywhere? The drawbacks of the NTFS file system include lack of interoperability, considerable overhead and overall complexity. Let’s look at each individual issue.
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Data Integrity and Recovery in FAT and NTFS File Systems: Part I
Choosing between FAT or NTFS for preparing a new media is usually a no-brainer. Big disk? Format it with NTFS, as Windows will probably not allow putting a variation of the FAT system there. Memory card? FAT. But what about the less obvious choices, such as choosing the perfect file system for a large USB flash drive, an external disk, NAS or external RAID storage?
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Data Loss and Recovery from USB Flash Drives
USB flash drives are used every day to carry information. Pictures and videos, copies of work documents and music files are the most popular types of data placed on a USB drive. However, the increased portability of information comes with the increased risk of data loss.
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Tips for Protecting Information against Data Loss
Protecting information against data loss takes more than building redundant storage or copying documents to another hard drive. Having a concise backup and recovery plan is what’s needed – and lacking in many organizations, let alone private computer users. This article talks about some measures needed for adequately protecting your data against accidental loss.
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Data Backups: Also Not a Perfect Panacea
The previous article discussed the principles and limitations of redundant RAID arrays used to build a fault-tolerant system. With RAID arrays not being a guarantee of data integrity, what is? Common belief is that regular backups are a perfect solution. Indeed, a carefully thought of and properly implemented backup policy will get you close to perfection – but not quite the absolute safety touted by backup apologists. This article discusses the benefits and limitations of regular backups in achieving the ultimate safety and accessibility of your data.
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Redundant RAID Arrays: Not a Perfect Panacea
Designing and implementing the optimum storage system is an often underestimated challenge even in large organizations storing and accessing humongous amounts of information. More often than not, companies implement a single RAID array, considering its redundancy a guarantee of data preservation. More often than not, this is not the case.
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Data Recovery: Beyond Software
In the previous article named “When Data Recovery Software Will Not Help” we were discussing situations when software can do nothing or very little. In this guide, we’re looking at ways to handle a situation of a physically failed hard drive containing important information.
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Making and Keeping Your Backups
No matter how reputable the manufacturer of your CD and DVD-R media is, how well the recordable CD/DVD media is made and how properly you store it, one day it will eventually fail. Sooner or later. If you have valuable information to back up, do not rely solely on your burned CD/DVD media. At very least, use different brands and make backups often – then you’ll be increasing your chances of reading back information from at least one of the several copies. Have multiple backups ready; if possible, make a second backup on another hard drive, network location, cloud or webmail service. READ MORE »
Shelf Life of Recordable CD & DVD Media
The shelf life of recordable CDs and DVDs burned at home using a DVD burner is limited. Do not confuse recordable media with commercially manufactured (pressed) CDs and DVDs such as software, music or movies you can buy in stores. There is a big difference. If properly stored, pressed DVDs can last pretty much forever. Not so for DVDs that you burned at home. Most recordable media uses organic dye to actually keep bits of recorded information. The organic stuff will be deteriorating with time, making reading these discs increasingly more difficult. Media deterioration occurs with time, slowly increasing the chance you won’t be able to read data from CDs and DVDs that you burned after a few years.
Some manufacturers claim their media is good for 10, 30, 50, or even 300 years. “Archival quality” is a frequently used (and heavily misused) term. No one lives for 300 years, and the technology has not been around for the last half-century, so verifying these claims is pretty much impossible. There are, however, known and well-documented cases of recordable media failing because of premature deterioration of the organic layer.
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