Welcome Back :)

[confucy]

Originally posted by Jim
I thought I was keeping a copy of everything when I downloaded the entire site, 3 times/day. Little did I know that the mysql database was located someplace else on the server

All I really know now is, it will be a cold day in hell before it happens again.

Jim, unless you have a technical genius watching every little thing on your board, IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN!

I lost a hard drive two years ago, and of course, wasn't backed up. I still cry in my milk about my lost email and programs. I could spend $1500 and get my material back. I am still considering the option after all this time.

I don't understand why entire boards are lost. Somebody made a big mistake. Didn't pornojunkies lose their entire database a few months ago?

Cleo, thanks for your words of wisdom regarding the server information.

Oh well! Everyone needs a fresh start now and then.

[Romeo]

I'm back too!

[Cleo]

Confucy welcome back to the new old board.

Being a computer consultant I see way too much lost all the time to HD crashes.

The only way you know for sure if how you are backing up is working correctly is to restore to a different computer and see if everything is there and working.

If it isn't in two places then it either is lost or will be lost since there is only two types of hard drives, those that have failed or those that will fail.

[rollergirl]

Welcome back.. it was so bleek without you.

[manslayer]

at least registeing only takes a minute.

[SomeCreep]

Sorry to hear about the crash GG and Jim.

Hello everyone

Nice to see the board back up.

[Extreme John]

Hey I managed to weezle two of my employee's lazy ass's into the board on a consistant basis now too, little bastards. |afro|

[Sumrpal]

Originally posted by Extreme John
Hey I managed to weezle two of my employee's lazy ass's into the board on a consistant basis now too, little bastards. |afro|

LOL - now that's what I call good emplyee relations.

Hi Dravyk

[FoZzI]

Glad to see its up and running again


[Edit] oh, did i mention: Iron Maiden "Wildest Dreams" out the 1st September

[brave]

hey you're back and I'm re-registered and you have the coolest emoticons anywhere!

funny I just got back from the hair-dresser and I actually look EXACTLY like |afro| thought I'd go Retro- at my advanced age that can be very dangerous to my surroundings.

Cleo, I've been using off-line backup for years, do you ever recommend that?

and my mail washer seems to be working against the flood of viral-spam, still have to get it to work on multiple accounts without crashing but I'll take that problem over the alternative any day!

happy hump day ...........

[Cleo]

Cleo, I've been using off-line backup for years, do you ever recommend that?

I have no idea what that is, but anything that keeps your data in two separate locations is good.

The graphic design shops that I'm a consultant to generate hundreds of gigs of information each week. Tapes are still used a lot, but FireWire drives are starting to replace tapes as the preferred medium and DVD disks are being used for archiving jobs.

[brave]

This is what I use, Cleo

http://www.connected.com/

[bret]

none of those solutions will work for a db driven application (or any other application which requires files to remain open). only time you can backup is if you take your db offline.

Jim (or anyone else for that matter), invest in 2+ scsi drives and a raid card. if 1 hd goes down, the mirrors will not only keep your data intact they will also keep your site alive.

also the beauty of a hot-swapable application you can remove one of the harddrives pop it into another box (or the same box if you have yours setup for this) backup the data to your preferred medium and boom, a whole disk image backed up not only on multiple hds but also on a media you can take off-site for increased protection.

you can run ide / serial ata / firewire / software [raid] but SCSI [raid] is still the most efficient to date.

with the cost of a 36GB scsi drive hovering around $200 you can't afford not to do it.

did i mention the mirroring is real time 24/7 dont mistake it for a backup, which it is not, but it sure as hell lets you sleep easier at night.

[natalie]

Ahhh its back.. this is my morning read, goes in the obsessive must do list.. coffee, cigarette, read GG board ... my coffee and cigarette were very lonely
But yippee!!! Its back |blowkiss|

[Cleo]

Well it is off site and that is good. Seems a bit pricey for the amount of info that you would be backing up. Not to mention you can't back up that fast over a DSL or cable line. How long will it take you to retrieve it?

You can pick up a box of 100 CD for $40 or less. That gives you 68 gigs of storage.

For that matter you already have web space.

[brave]

my nightly backups allow me to omit jpgs and so with only backing up that day's changes it goes very quickly and I've only had to Retrieve my entire system once and that was fast, too.

but what did you mean 'for that matter you already have web space'?

[Bonkers]

Although I haven't posted before. I'm glad the board is back up. Would have hated to lose one of my daily reads. Good thing is I'm one of the 200 who remained in the database. Improved my chances of winning the $500.

Bonkers.

[Linkster]

Greenie...Quick send out the Newsletter while we still have a chance

Glad to see that things are progressing back to normal - and maybe make things easier in the long run with the new setup

Im checking also for a solution...I know we have some for Oracle, that will allow a full backup of the DB while its online without locking files down. Ill let ya know what I come up with. The swappable raid idea is a tried and true solution that major databases use (of course they're on Windows boxes so you kinda have to with the failure rate) as well as some clustering setups similar to the mirror solution mentioned but with duplicated shared drives

[Extreme John]

Looks like everyone is learning from the GG&J issue, good stuff even in celebration we learn, for instance I learned, thats why we just ordered more boxes for backing things up and changing the way we handle certain area's and domains.

[bret]

RAID is a hardware solutiion, completely OS independent.

*edit*
there are software raid solutions, but these are very inefficient in comparison with their hardware predecessors, I believe (don't quote me) the graph of speed vs. number of requests per time is exponential (logrithmic, depending on how you do the graph) vs much more linear on a hardware solution.
*edit

the core of my web presence is on x86/WinNT(2k) boxes. Only my images and pure html (or other HIGH speed dependent applications) are served off linux boxes, and it is not that the windows 2000 boxes can not compete with the linux boxes, they are just have too much on their plate to be able to serve anything that requires 0second speed.

[Cleo]

Originally posted by brave
but what did you mean 'for that matter you already have web space'?

Brave if it is working for you and is reliable then that is all that matters.

What I meant by you already have web space is that if you keep the stuff that is on your local machine on your web server and the stuff that is on your web server on your local machine then it is in two places and this solution costs nothing.

For my personal backup I use Data Backup X with a 120 gig FireWire drive and also archive to DVD disks that I keep someplace else then my home office.

My clients use Retrospect Workgroup with either tapes or FireWire drives and archive to DVD. Again it is important to have copies kept someplace besides the machines your are backing up.

Setting a mirrored RAID is also a good solution, but you are fucked if your data becomes corrupt since you don't have multiple backups to restore from. Basically a mirrored RAID only is good from a hard drive failure, but combined with other backup strategy can be hard to beat.

[Extreme John]

I remember a time when we never backed any of our data up, we arent the best at it on our office machines, some of them have multiple backups running though (graphics, etc.).

[bret]

ok. i really need to unsubscribe from this thread.... i think my settings are set to subscribe by default (might be time to look at those)...

anyway, i hate to sound like a raid freak, but raid also offers the option of a parity disk (where a drive is dediicated solely to checking againt data corruption and other such mishaps)... and like i said, raid is not to be subsituted for backing up but when coupled with a proper backup system offers GREAT benefits for open file applications, just the abilitiy to be able to remove a disk from the array and backup from that would allow you to make a perfect backup without interruption of the system.

obviously there are many solutions, but uness you are a making huge (maybe 10+ million) a year, most of them are out of our reach.

[Greenguy]

FoZzI - I went & saw Iron Maiden last summer - they palyed for 2 hours - I knew 2 songs: Iron Maiden & Run To The Hills - every other song started with or ended with "this is off our new album"

Bret - my raid card here at home crashes once a week - LOL

[bret]

oh my god.

must be a SIIG . time to trade up for a new 160 or 320 adaptec

ok. i really am unsubscribing now.