It may not be politically correct to use the word "segregation" as it applies to humans, but I am using it to describe how we can separate our data into pieces that change frequently and pieces that hardly ever change.
Whether you use Windows or Mac, the operating system takes up a huge amount of space on your disk, and the vast majority of this operating system data very rarely changes at all. It may change when you apply patches to the operating system, or when you install new software packages like Photoshop, Illustrator, or Lightroom, but otherwise it is pretty stable.
User data (the stuff you put on the computer, like photos, letters, music, etc) changes a lot, however. Every time you use your computer you are potentially changing data that is kept as part of your user profile, and any files you save or delete also cause changes.
So, the issue becomes one of separating (segregating) the user data from the operating system data. Both Windows and Mac make this fairly easy to do, if you are familiar enough with the system layout. On Windows, each user has his/her own area under "Documents and Settings" where the desktop, My Pictures, My Movies, My Documents, etc, etc are all stored. So, if you are careful to keep all of your files either on the desktop or in one of those folders, it will all be easy to locate and back up, simply by backing up the Documents and Settings folder. Incidentally, this will back up everything for all users on the computer, assuming you have different logins and multiple users.
On Macintosh it's almost the same, except each user has a folder under "Users" which stores their desktop and all their other files. Since MacOS X is Unix-based, they call the user directory the "home" directory. Each user will have a separate folder under "Users", and backing up just "Users" will back up all the user home directories.
This takes care of the stuff that comes built-in, but what happens if you install more disks and store more data? Well, that's actually easier, since you know that there is no operating system data on any of the additional disks (under normal circumstances), and you should know what type of data you will be storing on these additional disks, and how often it needs to be backed up.
One thing I should mention here is the concept of redundant storage (mirrors and raid). RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) storage was not designed for backup purposes. It was designed to provide higher reliability, and to be able to withstand the failure of one or more disk drives without data loss. In a mirrored configuration, the system puts copies of your data on two disks, so if one fails there is still a copy that can be retrieved until the bad disk is replaced and the mirror rebuilt. This saves you from a disk crash, but does not prevent you from accidentally deleting your data. This is where a backup will save you. If you never make mistakes, RAID is a good thing, but it's not a complete substitute for backups.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Computers and Photography
Hi. Ken Erickson here. I'm an old hand at computers and photography, as well as software engineering, and working on all the stuff that makes the web possible. But, until now, I was never too interested in the "content" or stuff that was actually on the web.
As it turns out, the content is really a lot more interesting that the nuts and bolts of the web itself (unless you are a web designer, I guess).
This blog is an attempt to share many years of experience in troubleshooting and repairing home computers as well as helping photographers make the transition from film to digital (while producing very high quality output).
I have over 27 years of experience in commercial data processing, computer operations, and systems and applications programming. As home or small business computers get more powerful and have more storage, they can now easily surpass the capabilities and capacities of many of the room-sized computers I started out working on.
This is both good and bad. Good, because the cost keeps getting cheaper, but bad because the more you store on your computer, and the more you rely on it for everything, the greater chance there will be for a catastrophic failure that causes you to lose some or all your data.
So, before talking too much about how to troubleshoot or repair broken computers, lets take a minute and try to give ourselves the best chance of surviving problems by being prepared.
Step 1 - Be sure your computer(s) and associated peripherals are plugged into high quality surge suppressors. They don't need to be battery backup systems (unless you have a lot of extra money).
Step 2 - Be sure you have good regular backups of all your disks. What you back up is dependent on how your system is laid out, but at a minimum you should have an exact copy of your system drive that's less than a week old (newer if your system is very heavily used). Back up your data at whatever frequency works for you. If it doesn't change much then perhaps weekly is fine. If it changes a lot, then probably nightly (or more often) is better. I can't stress enough how much time good backups will save you when you have a system problem. You only need to lose everything once to believe me.
Since we are talking about backups, I should probably mention a few methods. First, if you have a newer Macintosh system (highly recommended), a large (500 GB - 1 TB) external drive dedicated to MacOSX Time Machine is pretty much as simple as it gets, and it will save you 99.99% of the time. If you are really a fanatic, you can also use a program like SuperDuper to make a clone of your startup disk on another spare disk, and then you're really covered.
On the PC/Windows side, it's not quite as simple, and there are a lot more choices, but what you should be looking for is something that will backup whatever disks or directories you select to either another drive or some other media, such as tape, CD-R, or DVD-R. The principles are exactly the same - you want a full copy of your data that you can recover in the event one or more of your hard disks crashes.
Regardless of whether you use PC or Mac, having good backups (preferably on disks) is the most effective way to go.
In my next post, I'll present some suggestions on how to segregate your active data from the computer's operating system files, so it's easier to just back up the things that change. The faster and easier backups are, the more likely they are to get done.
As it turns out, the content is really a lot more interesting that the nuts and bolts of the web itself (unless you are a web designer, I guess).
This blog is an attempt to share many years of experience in troubleshooting and repairing home computers as well as helping photographers make the transition from film to digital (while producing very high quality output).
I have over 27 years of experience in commercial data processing, computer operations, and systems and applications programming. As home or small business computers get more powerful and have more storage, they can now easily surpass the capabilities and capacities of many of the room-sized computers I started out working on.
This is both good and bad. Good, because the cost keeps getting cheaper, but bad because the more you store on your computer, and the more you rely on it for everything, the greater chance there will be for a catastrophic failure that causes you to lose some or all your data.
Backup, Backup, Backup
So, before talking too much about how to troubleshoot or repair broken computers, lets take a minute and try to give ourselves the best chance of surviving problems by being prepared.
Step 1 - Be sure your computer(s) and associated peripherals are plugged into high quality surge suppressors. They don't need to be battery backup systems (unless you have a lot of extra money).
Step 2 - Be sure you have good regular backups of all your disks. What you back up is dependent on how your system is laid out, but at a minimum you should have an exact copy of your system drive that's less than a week old (newer if your system is very heavily used). Back up your data at whatever frequency works for you. If it doesn't change much then perhaps weekly is fine. If it changes a lot, then probably nightly (or more often) is better. I can't stress enough how much time good backups will save you when you have a system problem. You only need to lose everything once to believe me.
Since we are talking about backups, I should probably mention a few methods. First, if you have a newer Macintosh system (highly recommended), a large (500 GB - 1 TB) external drive dedicated to MacOSX Time Machine is pretty much as simple as it gets, and it will save you 99.99% of the time. If you are really a fanatic, you can also use a program like SuperDuper to make a clone of your startup disk on another spare disk, and then you're really covered.
On the PC/Windows side, it's not quite as simple, and there are a lot more choices, but what you should be looking for is something that will backup whatever disks or directories you select to either another drive or some other media, such as tape, CD-R, or DVD-R. The principles are exactly the same - you want a full copy of your data that you can recover in the event one or more of your hard disks crashes.
Regardless of whether you use PC or Mac, having good backups (preferably on disks) is the most effective way to go.
In my next post, I'll present some suggestions on how to segregate your active data from the computer's operating system files, so it's easier to just back up the things that change. The faster and easier backups are, the more likely they are to get done.
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