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23 votes
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What is the most reliable and affordable form of storage medium to use as a backup drive for your computer?
I just had my backup hard drive die and while it did last a few good years, I just want to know what everyone else is using and what gets the best bang for buck.
30 votes -
Scottish company Gravitricity is using the Pyhäjärvi mine in Finland to build its first full-scale prototype gravity energy store
14 votes -
Modular storage systems?
I'm currently working on decluttering, and coming up with processes to stop clutter from building up in the future. Even after getting rid of a bunch of junk, I'll be left with a ton of stuff that...
I'm currently working on decluttering, and coming up with processes to stop clutter from building up in the future.
Even after getting rid of a bunch of junk, I'll be left with a ton of stuff that historically has just "floated around" my living space (cables, adapters, small tools, stationary, batteries, etc...).
I'd ideally want a bunch of appropriately sized containers that I can organize stuff into. I'd love for each box to be some tesselation of a standard volume, so that I can arrange and stack those containers neatly in a drawer or on a desk.
If you happen to work with 3D printing, this may sound a lot like Gridfinity, a modular open-source grid storage system. And I agree! Gridfinity's goals completely meet and shoot past what I'm looking for. But I currently have no interest in investing the money or time into buying a 3D printer and making prints. And there doesn't appear to be an obvious commercial version outside of "random" folks on Etsy.
I also considered getting a Drawer Grid like you'd see in a Maker Space. I might end up getting this if I can't find a better option, though I'd prefer a storage solution I can stuff in a drawer.
I was curious if:
- Anyone had any product recommendations that might fit the bill
- Anyone had any thoughts on the organizational endeavor itself, and if there are any ways I could be going about this better.
18 votes -
Please help me understand and manage external hdd sleep
I have an external drive (3.5" hdd, SATA) in an enclosure (usb 3) (purchased separately), connected to a thunderbolt dock (OWC) connected alternately to an iMac and a macbook pro. The HDD goes to...
I have an external drive (3.5" hdd, SATA) in an enclosure (usb 3) (purchased separately), connected to a thunderbolt dock (OWC) connected alternately to an iMac and a macbook pro. The HDD goes to sleep, and causes problems. Freezes, weird internet access problems, kernel panics.
I have done some research, and can't seem to figure out:
how to know whether it is the drive, enclosure, or computer causing the sleep, although, fiddling with various settings on the mac seemed to have no effect, although it may have increased my battery usage :(
how to adjust settings on the drive, or in the enclosure.
How to determine what the sleep behavior of prospective drives will be.
As a workaround, I tried to write a zsh script to touch the drive ever few seconds. This kinda worked, but was a struggle to figure out appropriate permissions issues and how to make it run automatically.
I welcome all guidance, pointers to resources, clarifications, incantations, well-wishes.
8 votes -
Why I spent three years designing a coat hanger
53 votes -
Toyota inks deal to mass produce solid state EV batteries with 932-mile range
46 votes -
The case for brick thermal storage
13 votes -
Western Digital refused to answer our questions about its self-wiping SanDisk SSDs. Oh, and it’s also getting sued.
53 votes -
SanDisk’s silence deafens as high-profile users say Extreme SSDs still broken. SanDisk is ignoring lost data claims. It's time to ignore the company's SSDs.
71 votes -
Saltwater batteries. A large scale environmentaly friendly energy storage solution?
10 votes -
Vertical carousel to storage tools - DIY??
Hi, I have a weird cubic space in my garage wall due to the location of the chimney and stairs to the basement. The lower edge of that cubic hole is at 41 inches (104 cm) from the floor. Its deep...
Hi, I have a weird cubic space in my garage wall due to the location of the chimney and stairs to the basement.
The lower edge of that cubic hole is at 41 inches (104 cm) from the floor. Its deep is 40 inches (101 cm). Width 39 inches (99 cm). Height 46 inches (117 cm).
Too deep for static shelves, I cannot reach the end. Too tall for sliding shelves (kind of drawer thing), I am 5'7'' (172 cm). In its current form, it is too much of a space for its practical use.
I thought that a carousel that moves shelves up and down (like in this design for shoes https://storagemotion.com/shoeselect/) but for heavier weights would be practical... I have no idea how to even name the parts to buy them, if they exist.
Also, I will appreciate suggestions for an alternative solution.
Thanks.
PS: located in Massachusetts, US.7 votes -
Germany's MAN Energy Solutions installs world's largest seawater CO2 heat pump for district heating at the port of Esbjerg, Denmark
7 votes -
Why are these external SSDs so different in price?
I'm talking about this 2 TB LaCie Portable SSD and this Samsung T7 2 TB SSD. They both have the same ~1 GB/s read-write speed, the same 3-year limited warranty, and the same USB 3.2 Gen2...
I'm talking about this 2 TB LaCie Portable SSD and this Samsung T7 2 TB SSD. They both have the same ~1 GB/s read-write speed, the same 3-year limited warranty, and the same USB 3.2 Gen2 connector. But the LaCie drive is $369, while the Samsung drive is $130.
Am I missing something? Or is it just luxury tax?6 votes -
Why millions of usable hard drives are being destroyed
18 votes -
Looking for a remote storage provider to use for storing backups
I'm looking for mountable remote storage that I can use for my backup solution at home. I'm trying to get set up with backuppc and need to be able to mount a large remote filesystem to store my...
I'm looking for mountable remote storage that I can use for my backup solution at home. I'm trying to get set up with backuppc and need to be able to mount a large remote filesystem to store my archives. I've tried renting a 1TB storage box from Hetzner, but my account was rejected (I assume because of a recent legal name change). Can anybody recommend a similar provider of remote storage that I can rent and mount onto my server?
27 votes -
Pour one out for HDDs because PC games are starting to require SSDs
59 votes -
Some SanDisk Extreme SSDs are wiping people’s data
10 votes -
Mälarenergi has embarked on a project to fill caverns underneath Västerås, Sweden with hot water – warmth will be sent via heat exchangers to a district heating network
3 votes -
Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla
5 votes -
Micro datacenters begin trials as commercial heating units
19 votes -
YouTube as a form of hard drive
11 votes -
No, you can’t get a 16TB SSD for a hundred bucks
5 votes -
The VHS-Decode project is an effort to improve the archiving of old analog video tapes
4 votes -
Helsinki is tapping an unexpected source of energy to heat its homes – cold water extracted from deep in the Baltic Sea
6 votes -
A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat – the Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery
5 votes -
"Brick toaster" aims to cut global CO2 output by 15% in fifteen years
11 votes -
How a Swedish company's technology is powering electric ferries – Echandia is manufacturing heavy duty energy storage systems
5 votes -
World's highest jumping robot
3 votes -
Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem
11 votes -
€2 billion underground ‘water battery’ turns on in Switzerland
15 votes -
Microsoft trying to kill HDD boot drives by 2023: Report
8 votes -
Can gravity batteries solve our energy storage problems?
14 votes -
Northvolt and Norsk Hydro will take their battery recycling joint venture to Europe later this year after the Swedish start-up opened their first plant in Norway
5 votes -
Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg has created an energy system that makes it possible to capture and store solar energy for up to eighteen years
6 votes -
The future of lithium-ion batteries
4 votes -
Help needed: slow external hard drive
I've got a 2TB Toshiba drive (formatted as NTFS) that has become very slow and I was wondering if anyone here as any ideas what the problem could be and how I could fix it. All the data I'd need...
I've got a 2TB Toshiba drive (formatted as NTFS) that has become very slow and I was wondering if anyone here as any ideas what the problem could be and how I could fix it. All the data I'd need off the drive is backed up, but I would at least like a drive to put it back on to!
In short, it became slow after I had to force power-off the system it was connected to (Pop OS installed on another external drive which I unplugged by mistake) and I haven't bothered to try to fix it in the six months since.
I've tested it on Pop and it takes about 10-20 minutes to mount, and 2 minutes to unmount and safely remove. The data itself seems fine but performance is slow, accessing a 20MB image takes several seconds and selecting the drive in GNOME Disks caused it to freeze.
The drive sounded louder than normal, especially after plugging in.
On Windows, the drive was recognised and browsable immediately, but browsing through folders was very slow - opening some folders causes Windows Explorer to freeze for a while. Some of my double-clicks were mis-recognised as click-to-rename, which took several seconds to activate and during which time Task Manager reported the average response time between 5000 and 11000 ms.
Attempting to load an audio file resulted in lots of buffering. Task Manager reports an active time of 100% (even when not loading files or folders) and the activity never exceeded 100 KB/s (and doesn't sustain it for more than a second). Ejecting the drive takes forever - after ejecting it using the tray icon, the tray icon is not removed (even though there are no other drives connected or listed) and the active time is still 100% with the indicator LED blinking non-stop. The system did not enter sleep right away after me asking it to either.
All of that to say, does anyone know what the issue could be, or how I could find and fix it? Thanks!
Edit: fixed and normal functionality restored (at least so I can check the drive a bit easier) using Scan & Repair in Windows (see my comment).
4 votes -
Turning buildings into batteries? Concrete battery storage explained.
3 votes -
High-speed laser writing method could pack 500 terabytes of data into CD-sized glass disc
11 votes -
Why lying about storage products is bad: An IBM DeskStar story
12 votes -
New Form Energy iron-air battery outperforms best lithium ion tech
11 votes -
IKEA plans to accelerate its investment in renewable energy by spending an extra €4bn by the end of the decade to build wind and solar farms
5 votes -
Electric vehicles' dirty secret: The race is on to find a steady source of lithium, a key component in rechargeable electric car batteries
12 votes -
zheap: a new storage engine for PostgreSQL aimed at keeping "table bloat" under control
4 votes -
Construction begins on world’s biggest liquid air battery
10 votes -
On WD Red NAS Drives: disclosure of Western Digital products that make use of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR)
15 votes -
Moss Landing battery storage project approved
5 votes -
How much space would it take to store every word ever said?
9 votes -
Stable lithium-sulfur battery could see smartphones run for five days
6 votes -
Hard drive dying, trying to save a VM
I have a large VirtualBox VM on an external HDD. The HDD fails the S.M.A.R.T. test. The VM still works fine, but any regular attempt to copy the VM files over to a healthy drive fails ... there is...
I have a large VirtualBox VM on an external HDD. The HDD fails the S.M.A.R.T. test. The VM still works fine, but any regular attempt to copy the VM files over to a healthy drive fails ... there is clearly already something corrupt in the VM's virtual HDD, although it is not (apparently? yet?) affecting the functionality of the actual VM.
Any suggestions on how to save the VM? Linux Mint Guest OS, Pop_OS (Ubuntu) Host. The VM is nearly 800 GB. Both regular copy and rsync fail.
Thanks,
EricPS: (and perhaps I should have led with this, but...) is it okay to ask these kinds of specific, technical, "help me with my tech-stuff" questions here on Tildes?
Update to the update ... moved update info into a comment ... will keep my progress updated in that primary comment.
Danke, y gracias to all
14 votes