Disaster

[seachnasaigh]

How big is it? It's gotta be faster but how big is it? I couldn't even find a SSD drive that was half a terabyte.

SSDs are available at ~1TB, and even more, but at 2TB+ they are mighty pricy.

high capacity SSDs

 

[quietrob]

Really sorry to hear about your problems and hopefully some of the data can be recovered. If Windows can 'see' it there is a chance that it could be connected up to another system and that might be able to read it. The suggestion to try Unix sounds a good option. I know this is just the luck of the draw but from my experience it is fairly rare for conventional hard drives to fail completely, unless, as you suggest there is a head crash or it just stops spinning due to mechanical failure.

If you do have to spend out for another hard drive see if you can afford the few extra dollers for the type recommended for NAS storage as they are designed/built to run 24/7. If you are going the SSD route I always look for the length of the warranty but I have to say I have a real bias for Samsung Spinpoints for conventional drive as I have both the 1TB and 2TB versions and they are quiet and have proved to be reliable. I also like their SSDs but that is just down to my personal experience.

As to Cloud back up I am using Amazon Drive at the moment mainly because I had free storage there as part of being a Prime member. Not enough space for a Poser/DS user but I also had a 3 month free trial for unlimited space so I thought it was worth giving it a go. If I decide not to continue after the 3 months my data is held for 90 days so I have time to move somewhere else. Is it secure? Who knows, but then that is a big question no matter who you use but one point in Amazon's favour is they are already used by one of the 3D market places. I can't remember which but I know the download links pointed to Amazon servers. They are not the only company offering the service mind so I hope other will give us their experiences. If you are unsure on your ideas being nicked you could encrypt the files before up loading.

Thank you for your sympathy. Support is real on any disaster. A setback such as mine which will require time, money (A new drive) and effort or the loss of photo's and video due to a clerks incompetence (Thanks Sprint. Sprint is a cellphone provider here in the states), support is essential. Like a baby shower. You never know what will help (Diapers. Lots and Lots of Diapers).

In this case, while I've lusted after the latest tech, in this case SSD, the capacity just isn't enough. I agree that warranty is key but that does not nothing for loss data. Loss Data in our case isn't just facts and figures. It's moments in time. It's idea's and creativity. Thankfully ALL of my idea's are on google drive and I hope just the sheer size of the people using it, makes spying on my files unnecessary. A half billion users and they are going to look at my stories? Good Luck with that.

Now the NAZ storage, designed to run 24/7? That is very useful information. Desktop computers are designed to run 24/7. Due to voltage spikes, They suffer more when they are turned on and off which can be necessary in our hot summers. If my storage can run the same as my computer that would be a definite win. The thing is, NAS storage bays are designed to store your hard drives and don't supply hard drive space. Get it? No Hard Drive space but space for your hard drives. Still, that way I could load several hard drives and have more than enough storage that would be cooled and protected from voltage spikes. I think I better start a program in which I replace all drives every four years. I do envy @StudioMartillo and getting almost 1700 years of reliable drive storage. THAT is impressive.

 

[quietrob]

SSDs are available at ~1TB, and even more, but at 2TB+ they are mighty pricy.

high capacity SSDs

Agreed. 2Terabytes of SSD storage is roughly 800 dollars. 2 Terabytes of External Conventional Hard drive storage. $69 dollars.

When I win the lottery, that first choice will be a viable option. Until then...

 

[Hornet3d]

As I understand it the one issue with SSDs is that, each time you write you are doing damage to the SSD. The same cannot be said for the conventional hard drives but I guess you could say the mechanics are wearing all the time they are spinning, but with the option to 'spin down' this can be minimised. SSDs are not as bad as they once were and I think some have built in redundancy and certainly the warranties are now a lot longer than before. I use two, one for my 'C' drive and a second to hold my Poser runtimes as these are mostly used to read files and only written to when I buy new content. The original SSD I had, which was small due to the cost at the time, I kept when I upgraded to a larger drive. It is not in use but is a sort of step back should the new 'C' drive fail.

The only problem with MTTF is they are, as they suggest, and average which should give a good indicator of the possible time before failure but any particular drive can fall either side of that average. I do know of a lot of conventional drives that have gone way past their MTTF, but it would be difficult to compare with SSDs as they have not really been around long enough have sufficient information to compare.

 

[quietrob]

MTTF - Mean Time to Failure for those didn't feel like googling it.

That is true about doing damage to the SSD (Solid State Device) each time you write to it. But shouldn't the same be said for any integrated circuit be it a flip-flop or a simple inverter or even the hard working CPU. The real issue is indeed reliablity. As you said, we have thousands upon thousands of hours to quantify how long a Hard Drive will last. They probably last a little longer in Alaska and less near Panama. But SSD is fairly new and like any new technology will get cheaper every year. Sooner or later the Chinese will do a chip dump when it suits them and the price will plummet or some bright boy will invent something more reliable, cheaper while defeating Moore's Law yet again.

In the meantime, I'm just like everyone else. No one wants a 486 running Windows 98 and a floppy drive to run Poser or DS. They want the leaner, faster model. It's what the hungry crowd wants. I remember looking at phones when this chickaroo minces in and says, "I'm bored with my phone. I want something new." While I'm not bored with my computer, I'll take the chance on the newer technology. SSD is the way to go. No moving parts, baby...but only when it's bigger. Bigger is better, isn't it?

I'll keep researching to see if LINUX can read my drive and duplicate the file structure and copy it to a new drive. If possible, test the old drive in an enclosure in case it's the power supply that's fried, the new enclosure will supply the necessary amps once the drive is removed from it's box could be 4 Terabytes of storage. Good for another 4 years.

@Hornet3d net Is your SSD Sata so they are compatible with today's mommyboards?

Time. I remember buying my SLI crossfire graphic boards for my system. I bought them from my boss so I could play games. I still remember his classic words. "Trust me, Robin. 4 Meg for your graphic boards will be all you'll ever lead."

Sorry if it's a useless post. Until I get my Poser running again, I'm running on half a brain.

 

[Deleted member 325]

couple questions:
•Can you hear the external devices motor? Do it's operating lights come on?
•Have you gone into MY COMPUTER>MANAGE>STORAGE>DISK MANAGER? Could you post a screenshot of what it shows when you highlight the disk that is acting up?
•Have you tried a different USB port? Cable?
•Which version of Windows is this happening on?

 

[Hornet3d]

MTTF - Mean Time to Failure for those didn't feel like googling it.

That is true about doing damage to the SSD (Solid State Device) each time you write to it. But shouldn't the same be said for any integrated circuit be it a flip-flop or a simple inverter or even the hard working CPU. The real issue is indeed reliablity. As you said, we have thousands upon thousands of hours to quantify how long a Hard Drive will last. They probably last a little longer in Alaska and less near Panama. But SSD is fairly new and like any new technology will get cheaper every year. Sooner or later the Chinese will do a chip dump when it suits them and the price will plummet or some bright boy will invent something more reliable, cheaper while defeating Moore's Law yet again.

In the meantime, I'm just like everyone else. No one wants a 486 running Windows 98 and a floppy drive to run Poser or DS. They want the leaner, faster model. It's what the hungry crowd wants. I remember looking at phones when this chickaroo minces in and says, "I'm bored with my phone. I want something new." While I'm not bored with my computer, I'll take the chance on the newer technology. SSD is the way to go. No moving parts, baby...but only when it's bigger. Bigger is better, isn't it?

I'll keep researching to see if LINUX can read my drive and duplicate the file structure and copy it to a new drive. If possible, test the old drive in an enclosure in case it's the power supply that's fried, the new enclosure will supply the necessary amps once the drive is removed from it's box could be 4 Terabytes of storage. Good for another 4 years.

@Hornet3d net Is your SSD Sata so they are compatible with today's mommyboards?

Time. I remember buying my SLI crossfire graphic boards for my system. I bought them from my boss so I could play games. I still remember his classic words. "Trust me, Robin. 4 Meg for your graphic boards will be all you'll ever lead."

Sorry if it's a useless post. Until I get my Poser running again, I'm running on half a brain.

You make a good point about integrated circuits and they all fail eventually due to many factors. I think the subtle difference is that the write process actually damages SSD as it is written to and, as this is the case, they can predict with some accuracy when a SSD will fail, assuming no other factor is involved. As such, they have a defined life that can be predicted which is maybe not so precise with other integrated circuits. In truth this does not bother me with SSDs I am more concerned with USB sticks which people use so much, they to have a given number of writes and I suspect are written to far more than the average SSD. Again not a problem if the user is aware of the limitation but unfortunately many are not.

Without doubt SSD s are the way to go, the only limitation at this point is the one that you have already referred to and that is the cost at the higher capacities. I use my SSDs wherever I want speed, such as program launch and the loading of content and materials in Poser. For pure storage and back up I revert to conventional in the form of a couple of 1 and 2Tb Samsung drives as these are a fraction of the cost of the SSDs at the moment. The 1TB drive is over 5 years old and came from a the build before the one I am using and the 2Tbs are about three years old. They are quiet in use thanks I think, in part to the fluid bearing system, and all have been reliable so far. If one was to fail now I would replace like for like but I can foresee a time in the not too distant future where even here SSDs would be the prime choice.

Time does move on, memory for my old Playstation 2 were 8Mb and I still have a few cards for a digital camera that are 16Mb. Even the cards for my present camera are only 4Gb but as that gives me over 1000 images per card it is not really a restriction.

Not a useless post at all but I do hope you get your Poser up and running again soon. I have spent the best part of the week getting everything backed up to the cloud but I am now getting withdrawal symptoms and I really need to find the time to do a render.

 

[StudioMartillo]

These are good points about the differences between HDDs and SSDs. Now I'm thinking it would be best to use my free SATA 3 bay for an HDD and put all my working directories there. Like the Scene files, all the Lightwave directories because it's all my own creations, and the documents and scripts etc. that I write. Found a Seagate 320GB HDD for 40US. That seems like a good setup. Everything that doesn't get changed or re-written will stay on the WD Blue.

 

[Pendraia]

Sorry to hear this Rob...I take it you tried Bonnie's idea of renaming the drive and it didn't work? I had runtimes go missing when the computer decided to rename some of the drives with different letters/names and I was able to rename them and get them working again.

Hope you get it sorted...

 

[Faery_Light]

My brother had his external refuse to show on his computer.
He thought he lost everything on it.
But I took it to my laptop and was able to save everything to a folder on my website.
Then tried again to get his computer to show it was ther but it would not.
So we got him a new external and I put all the files I saved in my folder to it, now he has all files back.|

I uses 1and1 .com and pay 7.99 a month for unlimited space and I think it a fair price.
That is the one who hosts my Web Sites and I store tones of stuff there just for safe keeping.
A good ftp program like Filezilla (free) lets me upload to any directory I've created there.

Now my work for the products I do here are being stored there.

Please excuse my typos, tired and hands hurt.

 

[Miss B]

Glad to hear you were able to save everything for your brother, and that he's back in business with the new external.

 

[Faery_Light]

I was thinking maybe quietrob could try something like that too.
It hurts to lose stuff you work hard on.

 

[Miss B]

Oh I know. I depend on my external for backups, but you never know when that will fail, as it's just as susceptible as the internal hard drive of your computer.

 

[quietrob]

These are good points about the differences between HDDs and SSDs. Now I'm thinking it would be best to use my free SATA 3 bay for an HDD and put all my working directories there. Like the Scene files, all the Lightwave directories because it's all my own creations, and the documents and scripts etc. that I write. Found a Seagate 320GB HDD for 40US. That seems like a good setup. Everything that doesn't get changed or re-written will stay on the WD Blue.

That's probably a mistake I made. I have 3 runtimes.
Poser 9 and Poser Pro 11 which is basically bare with the exception of the content provided by the software. It's only a few gig in size and is located on my C: Drive (which is also my main drive)

For Nostalgia purposes my second runtime is built on my Poser 7 runtime and contains everything from when DAZ provided Exe's to install content to my zips which I got from Rendo, Poser World, Hivewire 3D and several defunct Poser sites. This was my main runtime where I did all my work. It's not just the content I bought over the years. It also contains, the hundreds of textures I did because I wanted something a little different. It is located on the failed external drive (F)Regaining the content isn't going to be that difficult though some freebies are no longer available. I even had content that the creators lost! I keep EVERYTHING. It worked for Einstein (according to the miniseries) so it should work for me as well. P.S. I had no idea that Einstein liked to indulge in the ladies. Like most men, he found out there is no such thing as free sex. Back to the description.

My DAZ Library is located on my other external drive (E)It's where I let DAZ control my content whether it's DRM'd or not. It contains many duplicates such as Aiko 3, Vicky 4, Kids 4 because when DAZ decides to control your content, they don't mess around. It's not bad. I sit back and let DAZ install away. DRM ends after a year I heard and I've no issues with DRM. Also it makes sure the DSON scripts work properly. I've never had a problem importing the DAZ Horse 2 or Genesis products. With over a thousand items, the computers do a good job keeping track of everything.

I kept the majority of my storage on Drive E simply because it's so huge. 4 Terabytes and I used maybe a third. This includes PZ3 better known as Poser Scene Files.

However, I also kept some Poser Scene Files on the failed hard drive. I was working on a illustrating an epic poem, "A Scholar's Tale" when this hard drive failed. It's clear that I need more storage. I do have another storage drive, perhaps 700 G. It's the one failed once, lost a file named Runtime and took me about a year or so to regain ownership of the files.

@StudioMartillo Don't make my mistake. The first free paycheck you get, get the largest honkin' External Drive you can find and back up those files! I did well in storing everything but I didn't back up my runtimes or PZ3 files and am now paying a terrible price.

Documents and Scripts, I keep on my google drive account. I can access it from my phone which means I can work on documents anywhere. I wrote 3 chapters waiting for my turn at DMV. (Joined AAA, the next year. My wait time went from 5 hours at the DMV to 15 minutes. It's totally worth it.)

I do keep a copy of everything with my WORD lookalike but it isn't portable. Hmm, I wonder if we won the lottery? It would make Data Recovery so much easier.

 

[quietrob]

couple questions:
•Can you hear the external devices motor? Do it's operating lights come on?
•Have you gone into MY COMPUTER>MANAGE>STORAGE>DISK MANAGER? Could you post a screenshot of what it shows when you highlight the disk that is acting up?
•Have you tried a different USB port? Cable?
•Which version of Windows is this happening on?

In order.
I can feel the hum. Impossible to tell if the heads are seeking, though it feels like it. There is one light, it is blue but it's blinking. A Blinking light is not a good thing. It should be solid (not blinking).
No. I've seen it from Windows Explorer. It should say Hard Drive F and be listed as an External Drive in my system tray. It is not listed in my system tray at all. (That place where your time and date are located on your toolbar). In Windows Explorer It is listed as a local drive that I can NOT access.
Yes, I've tried a new USB port. No Joy. New Cable, no. That is doubtful. I put them in one place and left it there. I didn't move anything around except to dust when company is coming over.
I am using windows 10. What version of windows are you using, @KageRyu ?

Here is my repair plan.
One, gain an External Hard Drive of similar size. This drive failed and may do so again so I must copy everything and move it to a safe location.
Two, gain an HD Enclosure with a bridge port. From what I've read, the blinking light is indicative of a power failure. A new enclosure may solve my problem right away. It will also provide a fresh power source though I did try a new power cable of similar amperage.
Three, install Linux. Supposedly it is much more forgiving of failed drives and may allow access to the directory including letting me copy over files. Issue. I've heard that it won't exactly replicate the file structure. That is a HUGE problem. What good is data if it's not organized?
Four, if Linux can see the data, start the swapping. I'm no longer working in an electronics shop so testing the power board is difficult. Even more difficult without a schematic and a golden standard (The Same board but in working order so I can see device outputs. All useless if the technology is SMT as I suspect.

I am taking suggestions because as far I can tell everyone here is highly intelligent and like rokket, probably smarter than me.

 

[quietrob]

My brother had his external refuse to show on his computer.
He thought he lost everything on it.
But I took it to my laptop and was able to save everything to a folder on my website.
Then tried again to get his computer to show it was ther but it would not.
So we got him a new external and I put all the files I saved in my folder to it, now he has all files back.|

I uses 1and1 .com and pay 7.99 a month for unlimited space and I think it a fair price.
That is the one who hosts my Web Sites and I store tones of stuff there just for safe keeping.
A good ftp program like Filezilla (free) lets me upload to any directory I've created there.

Now my work for the products I do here are being stored there.

Please excuse my typos, tired and hands hurt.

I hope your hands feel better!
I noticed a couple of things. 1and1.com is located in Germany. Are you from Germany?
Next, I couldn't find any archiving at all. I think it's only for website hosting. Are you storing your poser/daz files there? If so, How?

 

[Deleted member 325]

I am not real familiar with Windows 10, but I have fair experience with Windows 7, lots of experience with Wndows XP, NT, 2000, 98, and 95.
I am unsure how to get to the disk management area of Windows 10, they have moved everything around.

It sounds like it may be either something got messed up in Windows Registry pertaining to this drive, or something happened with a read/write and windows may have corrupted the drive. Both are likely recoverable, but not easily, and not without software.
It also could be the driver became corrupted and you may simply need to re-download and reinstall the necessary drivers for your USB. What you describe was actually a very common issue with Sandisk USB sticks on Windows 8 right out of the gate and required either updated drivers, or a tool to identify them properly to windows - while your drive previously worked, so I am thinking something got corrupted or damaged somewhere ( Windows likely thinks the drive is not-formatted or similar).

*edit*
Found a tutorial to get to disk management in Windows 10. Go in here and see exactly what it shows the drive as and try to open the drives properties:
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of

 

[Bonnie2001]

I suppose once it's in memory it still comes down to the CPU and GPU processing power with little page file use.

Yes that's it. SSD won't affect rendering speed. Programs will start and and save stuff faster, but rendering is all down to CPU and GPU power.

 

[Hornet3d]

Yes that's it. SSD won't affect rendering speed. Programs will start and and save stuff faster, but rendering is all down to CPU and GPU power.

Spot on, I use an SSD for the program and another SSD for the runtimes in the theory that the program will lunch quickly and the scenes and texture will load faster when starting a render, after that is it in the lap of the CPU or GPU.

 

[Hornet3d]

I hope your hands feel better!
I noticed a couple of things. 1and1.com is located in Germany. Are you from Germany?
Next, I couldn't find any archiving at all. I think it's only for website hosting. Are you storing your poser/daz files there? If so, How?

I am based in the UK and used 1+1 for web site hosting and they seem good. Gave up on the web site but if I decided to try again I would go back to 1+1.

Storage wise I have two versions of Poser installed, I count Gave Dev as a corrupted Poser 2014, Poser 2012 and 2014. Both access a single runtime folder that dates back to Poser 6. In addition I have a WIP folder that holds the work I am am doing and work that goes back to the previous year. Each year I achieve the oldest year and start a new year folder. I addition to my runtimes I have all the downloads in either the Daz .exe form or the zip files. These are stored in a folder for each year with sub folders for each month. I have a database which I add to with every new purchase that gives details of the content including the date it was purchased and therefore I can go back to the zip with ease.

Poser 2014 and 2012 and my Database Program are on my 'C' drive (SSD), backed another SSD not connected, to the NAS, stored on DVD and in the cloud.

All of my runtimes are on drive 'E' (SSD) which is a physically separate disc, backed up to an external HDD (only connected for backup purposes), the NAS, and stored in the cloud.

My WIP folders are on drive 'K' a HDD with the present year backed up to an M-drive on the motherboard, backed up to an external HDD (only connected for backup purposes), the NAS and stored in the cloud.

The Zips and a copy of the database data, are on Drive 'H', another HDD, backed up to an external HDD (only connected for backup purposes), the NAS and stored in the cloud.

Finally I have another folder that keeps copies of the characters I have created, along with textures used, as I could never recreate them 100% if they were lost. The folder is housed on both SSDs and backed up in the same manner as the other content on the SSDs.

See, I told you I was paranoid about data loss.

Cloud wise I am using Amazon Drive but I have found a bug, or it least to me it is a bug. Once you have uploaded your data, if you sync that data the Amazon Drive app will then download it all again to a sync folder on your 'C' drive. I only discovered this when I got a 'drive running out of space warning'. Just as well I did not panic because I found out that the sync works both ways so if you delete the data from the sync file on the computer Amazon Drive will delete it from the cloud. Now I can see instance where you would want both way sync but I don't want it and I cannot set it up to do one way my only option therefore, was to remove the svnc entirely. Another but is that, while it gives the option to set you sync folder on another drive it does not seem to accept the redirection so you are stuck with drive 'C'. In fairness to Amazon I have not gone back to them to complain because, from other reports they are already aware of what some regard as a problem and I can live with the workaround.