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Computer Query
03-25-2011, 09:05 PM
Hello. I finally got that new computer I was looking for last year (AMD Athlon II x2 250 Processors, 4 GB RAM, Radeon HD 6570 video card) and the thing is giving me occasional notices to prepare an emergency backup on either DVD or thumb drive. I started the process but cancelled out when I realized that the backup requires almost 12 GB of space. While some thumb drives come that big (at about $40), are there any DVD's that actually hold that much info? If not, why does it even offer a DVD as an option?
Also, I did buy StarCraft II (love it). The thing came with two guest passes (7 hours or 14 days, whichever comes first). I already gave one to a friend, but if anyone wants the other one, let me know. It also came with a pair of World of Warcraft passes, but I figure that I'll use at least one of them. Does anyone know if I can use both myself to run a single character for twice as long?
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
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I did such a backup recently for my new laptop, and the program will spread the data across as many regular DVDs as it requires. There's no need to get a DVD of that particularly overlarge size.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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As for the trial passes, I believe you can only use one on the account. You can, in theory, create multiple accounts; but you'd be restarting from scratch every time.
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The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
paladindythe
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As for the WoW accounts, they are completely seperate accounts, but if you're able to put in some time each day, you'll have explored just about all that you can in the trial within the time period.
Usually, when a system asks you to create backup DVDs, they are building a compressed re-install, so it will take less space. (Two DVDs in my experience, but it could conceivably take three.) You want to do this, as it gives you a recovery path if soming bad happens to your hard drive. You don't want to be in the situation of having to ask your manufacturer for discs out of the warranty period--they charge $20-40 to provide them.
Chris
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...I just use an external hard drive, and keep enough money on hand in savings in case a drive shows signs of going bad. That's honestly the best thing to do, IMHO.
Although if you're honestly fixated on a medium that doesn't get messed up on account of a failure of moving parts, I would recommend you get yourself a BD Burner. They're now starting to become affordable and can store up to 50 Gigs on the double-sided disks. Newegg has one for desktop units at $80.
But for the sweetest cake of them all, try to find one that has software for BD Playback bundled with it. It's always a nice bonus to be able to enjoy that aspect of BD Media.
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FWIW, the studios are screwing over the BD-Rom folks by insisting that what's bundled with the drives is old and a demo so you have to shell out about 100 bucks for software that has been gutted of functionality beyond "Og Press play... SHINY."
That is, pop a new-ish BD movie in the drive and the player goes "But I don' WANNA! You need to buy the Sony™ Blu Ray player that came out yesterday!"
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*Chiming in to basically agree with BlackAeronaut*
There are long term storage issues with write-able dvds (most won't last a full year, even some of the high end ones won't last 5).
Unless you are planning on making a monthly backup, and recognizing that you will want to store those backups in a dark/dry location, I would not recommend doing backup on optical disk.
Spinning magnetic platters may have moving parts, but I have had far fewer hard drive failures than I have had burned disk failures (I would even go so far as to say I have lost more MBs on failed CDs/DVDs than I have on failed disks)
If you have a free slot in your computer (and feel comfortable cracking the case) you can get an 750GB internal hard drive for $75.
If you don't feel comfortable opening the case and plugging in 2 cables, you can get an external hard drive that will plug into a USB 2.0 slot. (This won't be as fast, and you will pay slightly more for the same size as an internal drive)
But if you are not worried about high speed access, either is an acceptable backup solution.
I have no idea what size your current hard drive is, but you should be able to buy another one of the same (or slightly larger) at 10GB/$1.
Sorry for the rant-y nature of this post, but people should really be backing up their data.
And backups that require you to do something are less likely to happen, automated backups are best.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
paladindythe
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I read over the OP again and started reading in between the lines. You're talking about Windows Backup in Windows 7, right? Like what's been posted above, you can create a backup in an external harddrive. That's probably the best overall option.
As for off-site (in case of fire or other disaster) if you're not using much in storage ( < 5GB of stuff you want to keep), you can create a Windows Live account and use Windows Live Mesh to backup your stuff. It's free. (You also get access to Microsoft's online Office Apps)
If you really don't care about losing your harddisk (buy another and reinstall as needed, perhaps?), you can just disable the nagging, if you wish.
Chris
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Also, you can configure Windows Backup to only do the stuff you want.
In my case, if I have a massive crash and want to recover, I'm also going to want to reinstall clean. So I just worry about the folders that contain important data, and not my windows or Program Files directories.
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