HiveWire 3D Store Officially Closing at the end of Jan 4th (Midnight US Mountain time)

[eclark1894]

Darn... I didn't get the chance to shop here much because of my issues with the 'net.

Good news is that the forum will stay, and you can still buy Hivewire stuff at Renderosity. So keep in touch.

 

[Alisa]

Now that we are fast approaching D-day, I wonder if my My Downloadable Products from my Account can be transferred to my Account at Renderosity, and also whether I can get my upgrades there after you close. I have the same login and password at Rendo. I am really glad that the forum will continue as usual.

Ken Gilliland's products, yes - the rest no. Take care to download all of them and make backups.
Or you will have to buy them again at Renderosity ...

We do not yet know about ANY products. Please
a) back up your products
b) make copies of your orders.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

My understanding from conversations with Renderosity was that they were going to "try" to transfer sale records. That doesn't mean they be 100% successful, or even be able to do it at all.

Translating data from one system to another is tricky business.

That is why I said, I'd expand my transfer program to include HW purchases to anything that might fall through the cracks during my store move. So yes, screen capture your HW account "My Downloadable Products" just in case.

 

[Miss B]

We do not yet know about ANY products. Please
a) back up your products
b) make copies of your orders.

I'm wondering about the "make copies of your orders" item in your suggestion Alisa. I have a speadsheet for every 3D store I've ever purchased items from, including the name of the product, invoice number and date of purchase. Is that not enough? Do I actually need a screenshot of each and every purchase order?

 

[Alisa]

I would either make copies of your actual orders OR, as Ken mentions, screenshots of your downloadable products.

I know you'd never would, but people could just make up an invoice number, right?

 

[Dreamer]

What about the emailed receipts from the store?

 

[Miss B]

I would either make copies of your actual orders OR, as Ken mentions, screenshots of your downloadable products.

I know you'd never would, but people could just make up an invoice number, right?

Hmmmm, I think Ken's suggestion might be easier. Thanks for the reply.

Oh, and you're right about the invoice number, though they would've had to have purchased at least once so they could get the format of HW's invoice numbering system. Though the one screenshot I attempted, had my name and address listed, though someone "could" just not include that in the screenshot to make it smaller.

 

[Alisa]

I would think the email would works as proof but l just don't know where the proof would be needed, or what they would require. When other stores closed, I just made copies of everything I could.

 

[Hornet3d]

With the store closing it makes sense to download and back up everything you can and take copes of emails and receipts to be doubly sure. What really surprises me is the number of people that do not do this anyway. If you have a slow connection then it is better to download and make a back up copy at the same time content is purchased. With large sized drives being relatively cheap it does not have to cost the earth to back up.

If a single drive or installation failure results in data loss of any sort it really is an own goal.

 

[Ken1171]

With large sized drives being relatively cheap it does not have to cost the earth to back up.

That's what I thought, until my main 4TB backup drive died a couple of weeks ago. This is the 3rd large drive I have lost in 3 years. I thought Western Digital drives should be reliable, but now they started making cheaper "Green Label" units that have a 25% chance of total failure in the first 12 months. Are they cheaper? Yes, but that comes at a high cost. Ironically, my older drives, older than 15 years, are the only ones that seem reliable, but they are not large.

I have tried a 4TB Seagate drive, using it very sparingly, like backing up once a week, and it has also died in the first 14 months. My 2TB Samsung backup drive died in 2 years. A Toshiba 2TB died in 3 years. Western Digital sells the same drive in "Black Label" version, which is claimed to be reliable, but costs over twice the price.

I wouldn't count on cheap large drives to backup anything these days, no matter who makes them. Drive manufacturers now sell reliability separately, at a higher cost.

 

[Rae134]

I know I should but I never kept any of my emails and between storms and not being well I haven't been able to grab the invoices (there are sooooooo many lol) I wish there was an easy way to get them all in one go

 

[eclark1894]

That's what I thought, until my main 4TB backup drive died a couple of weeks ago. This is the 3rd large drive I have lost in 3 years. I thought Western Digital drives should be reliable, but now they started making cheaper "Green Label" units that have a 25% chance of total failure in the first 12 months. Are they cheaper? Yes, but that comes at a high cost. Ironically, my older drives, older than 15 years, are the only ones that seem reliable, but they are not large.

I have tried a 4TB Seagate drive, using it very sparingly, like backing up once a week, and it has also died in the first 14 months. My 2TB Samsung backup drive died in 2 years. A Toshiba 2TB died in 3 years. Western Digital sells the same drive in "Black Label" version, which is claimed to be reliable, but costs over twice the price.

I wouldn't count on cheap large drives to backup anything these days, no matter who makes them. Drive manufacturers now sell reliability separately, at a higher cost.

Actually, I think I read some where that large drives tend to fail more often. Not MUCH more often, but more often.

 

[Ken1171]

Actually, I think I read some where that large drives tend to fail more often. Not MUCH more often, but more often.

It's impractical to make backups in small drives. Personally. I wouldn't buy anything larger than 4TB. That's already too many eggs on a single basket, and these disks keep dying on me.

 

[Kerya]

Any ideas whether our purchases of Dawn, Dusk, the Hivewire Horse and it's races are going to be added to our Renderosity accounts?

 

[Harimau]

Thank You all for all the useful advice - Much appreciated

 

[Hornet3d]

That's what I thought, until my main 4TB backup drive died a couple of weeks ago. This is the 3rd large drive I have lost in 3 years. I thought Western Digital drives should be reliable, but now they started making cheaper "Green Label" units that have a 25% chance of total failure in the first 12 months. Are they cheaper? Yes, but that comes at a high cost. Ironically, my older drives, older than 15 years, are the only ones that seem reliable, but they are not large.

I have tried a 4TB Seagate drive, using it very sparingly, like backing up once a week, and it has also died in the first 14 months. My 2TB Samsung backup drive died in 2 years. A Toshiba 2TB died in 3 years. Western Digital sells the same drive in "Black Label" version, which is claimed to be reliable, but costs over twice the price.

I wouldn't count on cheap large drives to backup anything these days, no matter who makes them. Drive manufacturers now sell reliability separately, at a higher cost.

I very much take your point regarding cheap hard drives, I used the term relative as to meaning much cheaper than a few years ago. Personally, like you, I never use anything bigger than a 4TB drive and buy the more expensive 'NAS' rated versions.

Over twenty plus years I have amassed a very large amount of content, I dread to think of the total cost over the years but I would not be surprised to find I could buy a high quality family or sports car for the same but then I am not alone. I know from discussions in the past that others have collections of about the same size and bigger. The collection is housed on a 1TB SSD that should carry a three year warranty but the whole runtime is also backed up to a 4TB NAS Unit and also synchronized via Acronis True Image to their web storage facility. The core content such as Dawn is also backed up to archival rated 'M' disks. This is the actual runtime folder so if there is a failure I should be able the copy to a new disk and just point Poser at that, no zips, no downloads just a straight copy. As I am neurotic over backups I also keep a copy of all the downloaded zips and all Poser scenes on a separate 4TB Drive which is backed up in the same manner as the runtimes.

The biggest cause of my neurosis is from working in a computer shop and seeing data lost on a daily basis but the term data makes it sound valueless. Think about university files created over years and still being added to, gone, pictures of happy times with family and friends that are no longer with us, gone. That makes losing a few thousand dollars worth of DS or Poser content look slightly less important, it is, but it is still a loss that will cause no end of grief.

 

[Alisa]

I would ask that everyone please be very patient right now. There are a lot of things Lisa has handled that we are going to need time to sort out.

Again:

Back up all your products.
Make copies of your invoices or screenshots of your purchases.

 

[Ken1171]

The biggest cause of my neurosis is from working in a computer shop and seeing data lost on a daily basis but the term data makes it sound valueless. Think about university files created over years and still being added to, gone, pictures of happy times with family and friends that are no longer with us, gone. That makes losing a few thousand dollars worth of DS or Poser content look slightly less important, it is, but it is still a loss that will cause no end of grief.

I agree. However, drives cost (in average) about 2-3X the US price here where I live, where availability is rather scarce. A single 4TB drive costs more than the national average salary for a whole month of work, so it's not for everyone. I was lucky to have one, and now it's gone. I just have to be creative.

For everyone here who is downloading your purchases, or for CAs, your products, make sure you backup in at least 2 separate drives if you can. Large drives got much cheaper nowadays, but they are not as reliable as they used to be.

 

[eclark1894]

I remember when I bought my first 100 MB drive. Never thought I would need to buy any more memory. Little did I know that file sizes would also get bigger.

 

[Hornet3d]

I agree. However, drives cost (in average) about 2-3X the US price here where I live, where availability is rather scarce. A single 4TB drive costs more than the national average salary for a whole month of work, so it's not for everyone. I was lucky to have one, and now it's gone. I just have to be creative.

For everyone here who is downloading your purchases, or for CAs, your products, make sure you backup in at least 2 separate drives if you can. Large drives got much cheaper nowadays, but they are not as reliable as they used to be.

My bad I tend to forget for some people that availability and pricing is very different to my experience in the UK, with prices like that there is no way I could rum my backup routine as it is.