OT: Apple Mac computers

[whisky-dave]

OS X, better than sex.

Well I guess that's the only think you can't say about the Mac, but then again depending on your preferences ;-)

[John Rumm]

You see the difference is, I have to give real world advice to people that they will actually use. I could suggest they implement a multi generation backup strategy to different media sets and keep some offsite in a secure facility, while keeping others locally in a data safe. Maybe they could even keep duplicate standby hardware ready, and images of critical systems etc.

How often do you suspect most home and small business users are actually going to do that, or even be prepared to make the investment necessary? (go on, have a guess, its a nice round number).

The reality is most people are reluctant to run a backup at all if it is going to require a change of storage media during the process. This is one reason why an external drive, or NAS based backup solution is that much more effective than options such as optical media.

You stated the the user *will* lose their data. This you state as an absolute fact (as usual) and yet it is not only unsupportable, but actually highly improbable.

If a user has no backup mechanism at all, then there is a very good chance they will lose some or all of their data at some point.

However, if they have (and use) a facility like time machine, then the chances of them losing their data are reduced to almost nil.

Well those are in the wrong order. Number one cause of loss is user error - that dwarfs all the others combined.

Next would probably come Software Errors and hardware faults, although malign software probably ought to be in that list as well.

Theft is probably next, and finally fire/flood/alien abduction/Terrorist plot last.

A solution like time machine will guard against all but the last few quite effectively - it may not be perfect but is is "good enough" in most cases. If the user can be persuaded to run two backup drives and swap one for the other every so often, then a reasonable level of protection is also offered against the last three.

Note also that the vast majority of users will survive a lifetime and never experience fire or flood related loss of data.

[stuart noble]

All you big IT fish flapping around in this small pond gets very tedious. The OP has very sensibly buggered off

[Rod]

It isn't always the absolute cost of memory. I thought your references to a machine with a maximum capacity of 40 would have highlighted that?

[dennis]

8<

If your target market is old P120 computers I think you may have a problem developing .net applications (unless its a mobile).

[dennis]

OK so they only lose all their photos and maybe their accounts, nothing important.

They only lose all their account information and vat stuff, nothing to worry about they can declare bankruptcy easy enough.

Well if they don't understand what happens when they lose all their stuff they aren't going to do backups are they? And if they aren't told about the problems with copying stuff to a hard disk and the probable failure modes they aren't going to invest in a proper backup system are they?

Its down to education, you are not educating them.

Really, tell that to someone who has lost all their pictures or see how many companies have gone down the drain after losing their accounts.

No it isn't almost nil, you just think it is.

Who said they were in any particular order? Anyway I bet a lot of people lost all their data in the floods last year and a lot more would have had to get a specialist data recovery firm to get their data off that USB drive they copied it to.

I wonder how many stop to find their NAS drive in a fire?

Ah yes well there is always the fault that occurs during the backup that screws up both the original data and the copy, I wonder why some people only have one backup copy and think its safe?

Theft is a good bet if you are like some and use time machine to put the copies on a disk in the same machine. Not so if you remember to put your copy in a safe.

Its only good enough if nothing happens.

Tell that to the ones that have had a fire or flood.

Backups are about planning for the worst not for something you think might happen.

[The Medway Handyman]

Commit charge is 533M/919M Can't see anything about physical memory.

[The Medway Handyman]

It gives me a list I din't understand :-(

[Dave]

RAOTFLMAO

I do hope that what you have written above is not copy write protected, I would like to use it :-)

Dave

[Dave]

Yes, but always remember that you have to click on the Start button to shut down a windoze computer ;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Dave

[John Rumm]

Sorry your not making sense again. You seem to think I am advocating they do not back up at all. Quite the reverse - I am advocating they use a backup strategy that is painless enough for them to actually use it.

A 100% perfect backup solution that is never used is pointless.

Sadly, many do realise what will happen, only they believe it won't happen to them.

Some realise what will happen, but believe that while the consequences are undesirable, they are not going to cause them enough inconvenience to make implementing a better system worthwhile.

Hard drive backups are now the industry standard front line backup solution, with tape and optical handling longer term archiving. As long as you understand how to use a hard drive system correctly, then it is a proper backup system.

Hard drive solutions also scale well these days.

Like you would know...

You seem to be advocating irritating them rather than leading them to a workable solution.

You said, if they are using a backup system like Time Machine that they will lose all their data. I was pointing out that was far from certain, and in reality quite unlikely. I was not suggesting it was a complete solution, but is it vastly better than none (where I would agree, there is a good likelihood they will eventually lose data)

No, I have the data here, collected over many years. A multi generational backup, working behind the scenes, automatically archiving files will reduce loss caused by user error, hardware and software error to very close to nil.

You did... "Lets start with fire..."

A few may have done. Of those I expect 99%+ had no backup strategy at all.

A USB disk based copy is not fool proof, but it would have reduced the chances of loss greatly, and quite possibly to something approaching nil if there was more than one, and they had the sense to keep a copy elsewhere.

Not many. Then again if you access it via VPN over the internet and its in a secure data centre, it probably is not going to catch fire, and if it does, its unlikely to do so at exactly the same time as your home PC goes up in flames.

On a smaller scale if its in the detached garage, then it should be ok as well.

Some will. Personally I always teach people not to destroy their only backup copy while making a new one. This is where things like Time machine or Retrospect score well - they keep as many previous versions of files as storage space permits, which makes recovering to a non corrupted version simpler (while still being able to potentially salvage more recent data from newer copies)

I don't think many would advise backing up to a second internal drive for anything other than short term imaging solutions. However a second copy on an internal drive will deal with losses from drive failure quite well.

A handful of external drives can be used very effectively.

Its also good enough if most bad things that can happen do happen.

Can you think of a scenario it won't cope with if the user has a small number of target drives that are used in weekly rotation. Each has a full system backup plus incremental backups going back a few years, and at least one of the drives is kept off site at all times?

I am sure they would be aware they are in a tiny minority, and most won't have lost data as a result. (most USB drives go through the washing machine and work just fine afterwards)

No, planing for only the worst is an inadequate solution. You need to allow for the worst, but also create a system that copes well with what is likely.

For example, Taking a complete drive image the end of every week could be considered planning for the worst - after all it will let you recover from a major disaster. However it is a poor solution to get back a copy of a document that you just overwrote because you forgot to do a "save as" rather than save.

[John Rumm]

Well that tells you that you that at the time you were looking you had used all the RAM available (and then some[1]). So adding extra RAM will probably speed up the machine a bit if that represents a typical or light loading on the computer.

(The physical memory bit is further up the window in the middle just under the "Page file useage history" graph)

[1] When windows runs out of real memory is starts shuffling bits of programs and user data about into a temporary file on the hard drive - a process called paging. This allows it to create an illusion of having more memory that it really does ("Virtual Memory"). However due to the speed difference between hard drive access and real RAM chips, the system slows down quite a bit when this happens.

[The Medway Handyman]

You are welcome. Some years ago I compiled a booklet of put downs & heckler gags for magicians, it sold quite well. I have lots more :-)

[The Medway Handyman]

John, you are a genius! I understood every word of that!

Should I go the full monty 2 gb for £28?

[dennis]

Are they all as stupid as you?

[Dave]

Care to enlighten us more?

Dave

[Dave]

Denis, you are digging too fast. Give up before the darkens falls.

Dave

[tony sayer]

Good idea ... a bit of extra memory is one of the best and simplest upgrades to most any PC any idea how much is in there Dave?...

[tony sayer]

Yes!...

[John Rumm]

And not so long ago you had to drag your disk into the trash can to eject it on a mac ;-)