how often do you guys format and reinstall your OS

Indeed

-> You can even add drives via USB if you don't care about speed

 

Just remembered something... -> and had to dig it out.

If you really want everything on discs
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Edit:
Or you just invest 50 Dollars a year http://www.backblaze.com/

 

i don't bother with all that jazz, i just using a nice image restore program...and viola! that's all there is to it. : )

 

does that save your terabytes of recordings? or do you just burn each bluray twice? if so, you spend WAYYY too much money.


oh wait, you're not clutch, with the tons of tb of storage. you're the audio guy

 

haha i just make copies of the os's when i feel they are perfect, any audio data or midi files are on separate partitions or on separate drives, so when i restore i don't touch docs or user files. So i don't worry about them! that is ok isn't it?

 

if you have some form of backup if a disk goes byebye with your audio and midi files on it, then yes. else, not really

 

that's true...i do just that. thanks for checking...

 

That's nice. Thanks, not a bad solution if you have one or two PC's.

In my case I have four PC's I need to backup, so $200/yr, still isn't bad, but over three years that's $600, I've had my WHS for two, and spent about $700 on it for 9TB of storage now, and am not limited to internet speeds, all gigabit ethernet. So something to consider. You can obviously go cheaper if you don't need that much storage. I only use about half that even with data duplicated.

 

That setup with all them hard drives scares me, I hope that cooling is enough. I used to run a linux file server out of an old socket 370 celeron. Drives eventually died on me and I didnt have enough left on the machine or hanging around to make it worth keeping.

Was a fun way to learn about linux though, speaking of during my reimage I saw an empty ext3 partition on the laptop, 30GB of space yay lol.

Probably not worth mentioning but that is one thing that kills me a tiny bit. I keep all my photos duplicated locally and that not including edit storage. I used to participate in challenges that sometimes require an untouched original files. So in addition to the backup off machine I keep em both on machine for quick access. Things like Nikon Transfer actually change timestamps, etc. I rename the files to the date time and subsecond so that there is never a duplicate file name. Last thing I need is a file renamer causing a dq.

 

Judging by the ventilation of the case and fan setup it should. A recent 4RU server i built only had 2 fans between 16TB (RE4-GP's). It runs about 28c~ in a 20c AC'd room.

Wish i had one of those red boxes. Clever and efficient design

 

Many of you guys suggested abt using virtual machines for testing software installations.......So which program do u guys prefer to run virtual machines

 

I use VirtualBox. It's free and robust and well supported. You obviously will need the DVD or ISO of the OS that you want to install, and product key if you need it activated longer than 30 days for most Microsoft products.

 

btw, htwingnut, you know CrashPlan? i've installed it on my home server, it allows to backup a) into the cloud b) onto another pc (nice if you have a family without home server) or c) and that's the awesome part: to other pc's over the internet.

so you can get out-of-house-backups without relying on some foreign corporate cloud storage. i set my friends home server up to back up his important stuff to mine, and vice versa. it's awesome (the missing link imho that made home server perfect, as in absolutely save, and still independent on any businesses and cloud solutions)

 

6 months with my G73 and W7, I formatted like 2 weeks after I got it. Haven't done it since, still as fast and efficient as it was months ago.

 

Same here. Did a clean install from a clean ISO I created from the thread generously provided by whoever made it.

Since then no need to do any reformatting. But then even with XP I only did it once a year. I don't see the need as long as you are careful when uninstalling to remove everything and run CCleaner once in a while.

 

Have been running Vista RTM that comes with the notebook from day 1, only do regular windows update(so now is SP2), i.e. never reinstall or reformat anything for 3.5+ years. Expect it to last for another 1-2 years.

The previous Dell i2500 has been running XP(immediately replace the ME after I got the machine) for 7+ years without re-installation before the power cord connector broken(and no way to replace it).

 

Thanks for that +1, I'll have to try it out. I keep meaning to set up a simple WHS at my parents house with old hardware. They don't need much space, but I could obviously use it. They are about to buy a new computer and if I can convince them to use the old computer for WHS then I'm golden. I really don't need much either, probably less than 1TB for my most important files. Probably use a 1TB I already have for WHS and two 2TB drives for data. I've got 9TB on my WHS right now.

 

Vista got me into a bad habit of reinstalling my OS often, about every 1.5 months because my software would stop working and only a complete reinstall would fix it - the time to reinstall was less than the time I'd already spent trying to fix the problems. Since going back to XP, I've realized that "as needed" is a much more sane option when your OS and software are cooperative. I reinstalled at least once in '08 due to still being in the habit of reinstalling, a couple times in '09 due to trying out XP 64-bit, and the most recent time was a fortnight ago after 14 months with no problems, to upgrade to XP Pro from XP Home for the MUI. It was then that I really realized that if nothing's wrong, it's not worth reinstalling a working OS. I probably would have been fine with the in-place upgrade instead of a complete reinstall.

I second the VirtualBox recommendation. It may not be the best option out there, but it's pretty good and the price is right (free). I've had quite good luck with Linux (except KDE 4.0 through 4.4 with Intel Virtualization Technology enabled), and good luck with Windows XP or later, as well as OpenSolaris (not as much with regular Solaris), with VirtualBox.

Eventually there probably does come a point where a complete reinstall is worth it, and I'd bet my parents' old computer (a 7.5-year-old XP desktop) is well past that point, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that, absent any Vista SP0 style issues or nasty viruses, that point won't come until at least 2 years have passed, maybe more.

 

Almost never. Got myself a backup in case of hard drive failure, and that's about it.

cheers ...

 

have fun getting them save. i can't stand knowing my parents might lose data and i'll have to fix it (which is impossible). even while it might not be my fault, i'm the pc guru, so it's my job to fix it. ergo: whs at every place where people WILL ask me for help (and crashplan where ever whs is overkill, then they backup to mine).

mine is 5.5tb right now, but my dads one is huge (he records hd stuff with his cam and from tv). i can't save everything if their house would burn down, but at least the important parts.

 

Same here, between family calling up every time i turn around, to back when i was in school where my name was "Hey dude this computers not working" everyone calls on you.

Thats the problem especially when money isnt there. You can build a nice on site storage but where the money for off site? Getting yourself or even worse someone else to pick and choose whats important is very hard as well.

My first hard drive crash ever, all I wanted to save was 50 mb of data LOL. I had a 512 and a 2GB and I thought for sure the 512 was the one dying so i save everything to the 2GB and the damn thing died. Times have changed drastically but I still have that Quantum Fireball as a paperweight and a reminder.

 

It's not impossible as long as the disk is still intact - i.e. in one piece, it just is horribly expensive
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Just curious, how fast is your internet connection ? As that amount would take quite sometime even on say 100Mbps link and that is something I can find in Asia like Japan/Korea/Hong Kong.

 

I reinstall as necessary. Last time was November 2009. Been through a few different laptops since then but I've just been swapping out the SSD so no reinstall was needed.

 

i only backup about 60gb out of it, takes around a week for first backup. that's my most important stuff.

if the target backup is somewhere you can drive to, you can do the firsttime backup onto a portable disk and bring it over. then, the backup is only the changes => not that long.

mine is 20MBits/s down and 2MBits/s up. so the upload takes quite a while indeed.

 

that's why i deploy whs where i can. and crashplan back home to me, for the most important stuff.

 

When i need to, when i realize it starts getting really slow and sluggish.

Usually every year or so.

 

Re-Install when needed. Just had to do one last month, due to some prob's.


Cin...

 

With XP and Vista....every 6 months

With 7....every year

 

Would imaging/cloning work as well as reinstalling W7 to fix slowdown issues? Sucks to have reinstall drivers and programs and reconfigure settings.

 

If you have a "good image" - yes.
Although it shouldn't slow down in the first place

(at least not continuously, it can slow down from "clean install" to "all software installed" - but then it should be pretty stable)

 

Not sure if the defrag matters much with certain types of images. But before you make your image after you install and configure everything heres what I do. Delete all the old system restore files, sometimes save about 10GB there, obviously if your install is the way want it you wont be rolling anything back. Then defrag the installation that way when the image is restored its already done. About the only time i ever defrag anyways is after making a clean install with everything on it, its the time when i see the most fragmentation.

But yeah after u copy an image back to the drive its exactly the way it was when u made the image.

 

unbelievable, my fun dual boot partition for internet acted up yesterday and i'm careful user.
something to do with a godamn ibm power management dll file not loading up at desktop and stopping the programs loading up on my taskbar..then freezing?!

So i restored an image back up from dec 12th via EASEUS Todo Backup Home.
All good now...ahhh life is good. haha