[AT] slightly off topic, computer related

[Henry Miller]

You want a system where any 2 physical disks can fail and you still have
your data. These days people have had their backup fail while restoring
their data! I built myself a raid system with freenas (they sell them
pre built which is a better option), but I'm technical enough to
understand how to set it up, it isn't a simple system as their goal is
ultimate data safety and that requires they give you some complex
options that are hard to understand. 

Physical disks crash often enough to not trust them. It turns out they
also corrupt data once in a while. 

I strongly recommend an online backup, they should take care of the
reliability issues for you. My Internet connection doesn't allow enough
data for that though so I'm stuck doing it myself. 

If you are going to stick with your external drive system, at least buy
a new one every year, and put the old one in storage - in someone else's
house. That way you worst case only lose the last years worth of
pictures not everything. 

-- 
  Henry Miller
  hank at millerfarm.com

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017, at 04:45 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> I don't want to loose all of my tractor information and
> years worth of ATIS e-mails, etc.  My computer is getting long
> in the tooth and will soon need to be replaced but the main problem
> with it right now is there is just too much stuff stored on it.
> 
> I have a 1.5 TB external drive that I'm currently only using for backup.
> I'd like to partition that drive so that I can still back up to it but
> also
> create a file location for photos and archived e-mails, etc.  I'd also
> like to set the computer up to dual boot from either drive.  I'm trying
> to
> prepare for the certainty that this machine is going to crash relatively 
> soon.
> 
> If I can get all of that done I can accomplish a couple of things.
> 1, I can then clean up the drive on the computer and see if that helps
> the 
> problem.
> 2, I won't have to worry about loosing data when it crashes.
> 
> The problem is that ever since about windows XL I haven't known how to do 
> any of this stuff.
> This machine is running Windows 10 and it's really ill prepared for it.
> 
> Does anyone know of a utility, preferably free, that will help me do all 
> this stuff?
> I have literally 20 years worth of book marks carefully sorted into files
> by 
> subject and I would
> surely hate to loose all of that not to mention the pictures that can
> never 
> be replaced.
> 
> I'm not sure I am willing to slog through the process myself without the 
> help of some sort of
> utility.  Even if I knew how.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Charlie 
> 
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