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SSD drives - beware!

bradhusick

Active member
I just lost 2 of my 3 weeks of travel photos because my Intel SSD (X-25 80GB) completely failed. It just up and died, no warning, no possibility of recovery. I even took it to the Apple Genius Bar and none of their tools could get it to mount. I travel with a LaCie rugged external drive and had backed up just 1/3 of the way into my trip. Next time I back up nightly.

I am going back to spinning drives in my MacBook Pro. When they fail, there's usually a way to get at least some of the data back.

Caveat user.
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Good heads up ..I would have had the same problem. I have the intel 160Gb ssd and have assumed its bullet proof....back to immediate backups.
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
No matter what I use, I try to carry enough cards to keep all my images in card too until I get home. It is fairly cheap insurance.
-bob
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Was this a older Intel drive because it might of needed a firmware update which i had to do with my 2 Intels when they first came out. After them they where shipped with the new firmware update. I think March was when I got mine
 

Don Libby

Well-known member
WOW! Thanks for the heads up. I was actually thinking of replacing the second drive on my laptop to a SSD. I just spent a week out in the weeds and did a nightly backup onto two separate WD Passport 500 GB drives.

Don
 

bradhusick

Active member
Was this a older Intel drive because it might of needed a firmware update which i had to do with my 2 Intels when they first came out. After them they where shipped with the new firmware update. I think March was when I got mine
This was an original drive without the update, but as I read the boards, this problem is still going on with the newer drives.

All drives can fail, but the SSD drives fail more catastrophically than spinners. I think I will be buying more SanDisk SD cards. I have never had one of those fail. And I will do backups to the MacBook and an external drive.
 

Terry

New member
Brad,
I bought a device called Nexto after watching one of the other workshop participants go through her back up routine.
The Nexto is like a pared back Epson or Hyperdrive (hated it). I think it is faster and you don't have to use up another port in the copying phase (I only have one firewire and didn't want to daisy chain the drives).

So, in Iceland I loaded nothing to the laptop (SSD) and only to the back up hard drives. I ended up with about 69gb of files.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/613210-REG/Nexto_DI_ND270500G_Nexto_eXtreme_500GB_.html
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
All drives can fail,
ABSOLUTELY -- and IMO to be properly prepared, one must assume a critical drive WILL fail!

but the SSD drives fail more catastrophically than spinners.
Again true, but not necessarily always. But often (fortunately) you do get advance notice with spinners like excessive heat, squealing or stuttering behavior. [/quote]

I think I will be buying more SanDisk SD cards. I have never had one of those fail. And I will do backups to the MacBook and an external drive.
You can back-up your OS and most programs minus iTunes, photo and video libraries on a 32GB card, so IMO not a bad idea -- Snow Leopard may be fatter than Leopard though... I sometimes carry an external drive with my MBP backed up to it via Carbon Copy Cloner. The reality is I don't keep critical data on my MBP other than Quicken and a few documents, so most any time I can rebuild by cloning from my desktop which is fully backed up daily. (I back Quicken and docs up to some online storage I have.)

Cheers,
 

Terry

New member
Jack -
Snow Leopard frees up 7gb from Leopard. They actually skinnied it down. Most of the improvements in Snow Leopard are back end to streamline programming etc. not user interface....hence the cheap pricetag.
 

bradhusick

Active member
Brad,
I bought a device called Nexto after watching one of the other workshop participants go through her back up routine.
The Nexto is like a pared back Epson or Hyperdrive (hated it). I think it is faster and you don't have to use up another port in the copying phase (I only have one firewire and didn't want to daisy chain the drives).

So, in Iceland I loaded nothing to the laptop (SSD) and only to the back up hard drives. I ended up with about 69gb of files.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/613210-REG/Nexto_DI_ND270500G_Nexto_eXtreme_500GB_.html
excellent. i will buy one. thanks.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Jack -
Snow Leopard frees up 7gb from Leopard. They actually skinnied it down. Most of the improvements in Snow Leopard are back end to streamline programming etc. not user interface....hence the cheap pricetag.
Cool, then we can keep a small iTunes library too!
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Something to think about . I never keep real data on the machine itself unless I am directly working on at the moment , everything is off loaded to other drives. If I ever fail than it is just a simple reloading of the OS system from a backup I do weekly. When traveling I have a LaCie with a spinning 7200 drive that is partitioned in two. One partition is a OS backup so I can always boot from or reload from, Partition two is for raw data files. So when traveling every night I download to desktop and upload to La Cie for backup of the raw files. Something to think about in there is the two partitions for a external travel drive 250 gbs is plenty of space keep 70 for the OS and the rest for backup. But I never keep the original system more than anything but the OS and just daily working stuff. Carbon cloaner has a nice setup to schedule backups. I know Jack and I use this all the time

And Yes you could keep the OS on a 32 flash thumb drive or even a CF card. I am actually looking at getting some 64 gb flash thumb drives . Get 2 one for OS and one for data backup. Very small and can keep in your pocket.
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Very interesting topic(too bad about the circumstances). Wonder how we will feel about this in a year. M8 to M9 about 2x;Nikon d3/d700 to Sony a900/nikon d3x about double; MF (40MP) about 4X? Typical extended shoot= 2-3000images. archieve 25K per year?

Growing just a little faster than the technology ..if the sweet spot is one size below the largest . e.g like 1 TB drives are with 2TB just being introduced.

This is what the tech guys call "upward migration".
 
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