Tech myth debunk thread

[Lathlaer]

15 hours ago, MadAnt250 said:

Also for comedy, here is a myth: LCD monitors are better than CRT monitors in every way.

Well yeah, there is a reason why classic retrogaming esport players are still using CRT's and it's not because they don't know how to plug in LCDs.

[RonnieOP]

19 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

In this case though, I would argue the point is what is the intent of making a copy? A backup typically has purpose, you want to have a contingency plan against data loss. Simply copying it may not have the same purpose. For example, I do CTRL + C on an image then paste it multiple times on Discord. Discord uploads each paste as a separate copy of the same image. Except it's not my intent to make these because I want a contingency plan against data loss, so it's not backing the image up.

 

You could argue that manslaughter and murder are the same thing because they both involve taking a human life. But for legal purposes they're not.

Raid is a backup for drive failures. Thus its a backup.

 

Now its not a suitable back up for all situations. I dont think anyone is claiming that.

 

But its still a type of back up.  Not sure how someone could factually argue against that.

[RonnieOP]

15 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

I recently discovered that my console peasant friends believe that playing video games and video game streaming is one of the most demanding things you can do with your PC hardware. I tried explaining to them that even a mid range PC can destroy most AAA games in high settings on 1080p and also stream them at the same time, but they still think you need a 2080ti for that or something.

 

I also know people who genuinely think that Apple products are magically faster and more powerful than PCs and androids that have the same specs. 

 

 

It kinda depends on alot of things.

 

What game and what settings.

What are the pc specs. Mid range is very broad.

What are you using to stream and at what settings?

Etc.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

27 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

But its still a type of back up.  Not sure how someone could factually argue against that.

Here's why I don't think RAID is a back up: I permanently deleted a file. Some time down the road I realized I didn't actually want to do that. File recovery is impossible because the data was ovewritten. How do I recover the file that I deleted?

 

RAID cannot help me here.

 

[MintyCMS_]

PC gaming is THE master race and ANY SICK SCOUNDREL enjoying a console game is a FUCKING DEGENERATE!!!!!! 
Like, it's better, but let people play the thing they want.

[RonnieOP]

37 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Here's why I don't think RAID is a back up: I permanently deleted a file. Some time down the road I realized I didn't actually want to do that. File recovery is impossible because the data was ovewritten. How do I recover the file that I deleted?

 

RAID cannot help me here.

 

And if you accidentally deactivate your cloud service and throw away your external drive your gonna lose the data as well.

 

Theres nothing thats fully idiot proof.

 

Doesnt mean they arent types of backups.

[MintyCMS_]

44 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Here's why I don't think RAID is a back up: I permanently deleted a file. Some time down the road I realized I didn't actually want to do that. File recovery is impossible because the data was ovewritten. How do I recover the file that I deleted?

 

RAID cannot help me here.

Say it with me now!
RAID IS NOT A BACKUP

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

And if you accidentally deactivate your cloud service and throw away your external drive your gonna lose the data as well.

 

Theres nothing thats fully idiot proof.

 

Doesnt mean they arent types of backups.

TIL "copying" has the equivalence of "backing up"

 

Good to know.

[WkdPaul]

18 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

And if you accidentally deactivate your cloud service and throw away your external drive your gonna lose the data as well.

 

Theres nothing thats fully idiot proof.

 

Doesnt mean they arent types of backups.

RAID isn't a backup in the sense of "data backup", but it's a backup in the sense of "in case a drive fails".

 

Drive redundancy isn't data backup and shouldn't be seen as such. It's a fail-safe against a drive failure. Data backup means you can erase what's on your drive and still have access to it by other means. RAID isn't that

Edited December 12, 2019 by wkdpaul

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

TIL "copying" has the equivalence of "backing up"

 

Good to know.

In a sense, yes. RAID 1, as a single solution data backup, is not going to work.

 

But using RAID as a basic backup to reduce downtime if a disk fails does have *some* merit to it, as long as the user understands that it isn’t a comprehensive backup system.

 

Bad analogy time: it’s like buying a second alternator for a truck. You can leave it in its packaging and not put any strain on it, so that if your current one fails, you have a new one, but you’re fucked if it fails on the road or if you’re in a hurry. Or you can install it to work with your current one, and if one fails, the other one keeps going; but you’re also putting strain on it.

[Mira Yurizaki]

10 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

In a sense, yes. RAID 1, as a single solution data backup, is not going to work.

 

But using RAID as a basic backup to reduce downtime if a disk fails does have *some* merit to it, as long as the user understands that it isn’t a comprehensive backup system.

Then I'm seeing two distinct usage of the word "backup"

1. Protection against data loss.
2. Protection against downtime due to hardware failure.

And while #2 can technically do #1, RAID systems are typically used as the primary data store. I don't count the primary data store as part of a data back up system.

[RonnieOP]

13 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

RAID isn't a backup in the sense of "data backup", but it's a backup in the sense of "in case a drive fails".

 

Drive redundancy isn't data backup and shouldn't be seen as such. It's a fail-safe against a drive failure. Data backup means you can erase what on your drive and still have access to it by other means. RAID isn't that

Your basically splitting hairs on what should be defined as a back up.

 

For me. Drive failure is basically my only real concern for my data. So raid is a backup for my data thats on that drive. 

 

Like i said. Raid isnt a backup for every situation but that doesnt mean it isnt a backup. Ive never heard someone say that backup has to mean you can delete something and still recover it.

[RonnieOP]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Then I'm seeing two distinct usage of the word "backup"

1. Protection against data loss.
2. Protection against downtime due to hardware failure.

And while #2 can technically do #1, RAID systems are typically used as the primary data store. I don't count the primary data store as part of a data back up system.

But we are talking about what is or isnt a myth. Not what you personally consider is or isnt a backup.

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Ive never heard someone say that backup has to mean you can delete something and still recover it.

Just because you never heard someone say it doesn't mean it isn't true, considering:

 

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-how-to-the-importance-of-data-back-up.html

Quote

Worse, the Internet harbors many potential threats to your data. Things like viruses and Trojans don’t just steal your data. In some cases, they erase it.

 

There’s also the threat of ransomware. That’s when a hacker puts a virus on your computer that encrypts your data, making it useless. You may have to pay a ransom in order for the hacker to unencrypt your data, with no guarantee that he or she will do so. If you have a current backup of your data, this is less of a worry. You can just wipe your hard drive and restore it to your latest backup.

 

http://kb.winzip.com/kb/entry/12/

Quote

A data backup is the result of copying or archiving files and folders for the purpose of being able to restore them in case of data loss.

 

Data loss can be caused by many things ranging from computer viruses to hardware failures to file corruption to fire, flood, or theft (etc). If you are responsible for business data, a loss may involve critical financial, customer, and company data. If the data is on a personal computer, you could lose financial data and other key files, pictures, music, etc that would be hard to replace.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup

Quote

In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", whereas the noun and adjective form is "backup".^[1] Backups can be used to recover data after its loss from data deletion or corruption, or to recover data from an earlier time

 

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/articles/data-backup/

Quote

Backup is the process of creating a copy of the data on your system that you use for recovery in case your original data is lost or corrupted. You can also use backup to recover copies of older files if you have deleted them from your system.

 

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Then I'm seeing two distinct usage of the word "backup"

1. Protection against data loss.
2. Protection against downtime due to hardware failure.

And while #2 can technically do #1, RAID systems are typically used as the primary data store. I don't count the primary data store as part of a data back up system.

For me, I have to see what the entire setup someone is using looks like.

 

But I agree that RAID isn't going to protect against data loss resulting from anything other than the other disk in the RAID config failing.

[The Torrent]

20 hours ago, Kisai said:

Just to muddy this.

 

I have a 4K screen. It runs at 200% scale. So the question is, do I have a 3840x2160 pixels displaying 1920x1080 pixels or do I have 3840x2160 pixels displaying 3840x2160 pixels that has been scaled up? For those who haven't used HiDPI screens, the latter is truer. If I run something that has native 4K, it's running 4K, not 1080p HD. YET

 

I have a 1920x1080 screen cloning the 4K screen because it's a display tablet. So follow the logic here, It's a 1080p screen cloning 4K resolution at 200%. So "subpixel" rendering is what is going on here, but it's kinda just hilarious since it's the inverse effect of running 1080p on 4K.

what about when applications are run at weird scales like 150 percent? As they sometimes seem blurry. For example, a 17inch laptop i used to have 1440p display would sometimes display some burry things which werent used to 1440p and 150 percent scaling.Whats going on then?

[RonnieOP]

7 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Just because you never heard someone say it doesn't mean it isn't true, considering:

 

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-how-to-the-importance-of-data-back-up.html

 

http://kb.winzip.com/kb/entry/12/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup

 

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/articles/data-backup/

 

Again. Im not saying raid is a backup for every situation.

 

But it is a backup. For drive failures it is a backup.  

 

Do we agree that raid works as a backup for your data in the event if a drive failure? I think we do. So hows it not a backup?

 

If your worried about accidentally deleting your data or a virus deleting it then no raid isnt going to help with that. Doesnt mean its not back up.

 

I personally like raid because my only fear is a drive failure. Ive never had issues with a virus deleting my data or with accidentally deleting jt.

[Windows7ge]

2 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Raid is a backup for drive failures. Thus its a backup.

 

Now its not a suitable back up for all situations. I dont think anyone is claiming that.

 

But its still a type of back up.  Not sure how someone could factually argue against that.

I think it's more a matter of a choice of words. RAID (Excluding RAID0) is redundancy, it's resiliency, it's fault tolerance, not inherently a "backup". If you want to count parity data or RAID1 as a second copy of data then yes it's technically a "backup". Just an improperly implemented one.

 

If telling people RAID is not a backup puts them in a mindset that makes them assemble proper backups even if by definition RAID creates two+ copies of your data which technically mean it is a backup then it may be to the benefit of everyone just to push the notion that it isn't. It's to the best interest of everyone who wants to protect their data.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Quote

Do we agree that raid works as a backup for your data in the event if a drive failure? I think we do. So hows it not a backup?

Considering the industry seems to define "backing up" as storing a copy of the data in a separate data store to cover the scenarios of data loss, data corruption, and needing to revert to an earlier state, and RAID only covers one of those scenarios, I don't count RAID as a data backup solution. The connotations of backing I'm also getting is that one believes their data at some point in time is worth saving off. So I can make a copy of what I want at that point in time and shuffle it elsewhere so it can be used in the event that data is desired again.

 

Even if you don't have a problem with malware or accidentally deletion, someone else may. Telling them all they need is RAID 1 to keep their data safe, they don't perform a backup solution (as defined above), and they somehow get hit with a problem that destroys their data, well, so much for RAID 1 keeping their data safe.

[RonnieOP]

6 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Considering the industry seems to define "backing up" as storing a copy of the data in a separate data store to cover the scenarios of data loss, data corruption, and needing to revert to an earlier state, and RAID only covers one of those scenarios, I don't count RAID as a data backup solution. The connotations of backing I'm also getting is that one believes their data at some point in time is worth saving off. So I can make a copy of what I want at that point in time and shuffle it elsewhere so it can be used in the event that data is desired again.

 

Even if you don't have a problem with malware or accidentally deletion, someone else may. Telling them all they need is RAID 1 to keep their data safe, they don't perform a backup solution (as defined above), and they somehow get hit with a problem that destroys their data, well, so much for RAID 1 keeping their data safe.

I never said that people should be using raid only for backups. Im not encouraging anyone to do anything.

 

All im saying if that raid is a backup. If one drive fails you raid will protect your data. 

 

So again. Since everyone knows the raid saves data in case of drive failure....its 100% a backup.

 

Not the only backup you need or should use. But factually it is a type of backup. Nothing you have said has shown the raid isnt a backup for drive failures.

[WkdPaul]

1 hour ago, RonnieOP said:

Your basically splitting hairs on what should be defined as a back up.

No , I'm not.

 

RAID isn't a backup, like I said, it's redundancy.

 

RAID won't protect you form viruses, malwares or cryptolockers, etc.

RAID won't protect you form mistakes (people DO delete files by accident).

RAID won't protect you from data corruption.

 

All of the above will replicate the problem to all drives in the RAID.

 

 

I have a backup solution, the first step is to copy the files on a RAID array (the array is part of my backup system, but the drives where the data is mirrored is NOT a backup, it's a Fail-Safe in case of drive failure), the second step is to do an incrememtal cloud backup, last step is to copy only specific "life-or-death" types of files to 2 different off-site and cloud storage.

[Mira Yurizaki]

25 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Nothing you have said has shown the raid isnt a backup for drive failures.

I never argued that anyway.

 

The point I'm arguing is RAID doesn't count as a data back up method, which again, I feel is defined considering what the industry thinks is a copy of data to cover the events of data loss, data corruption, and needing to restore data to a previous version if needed.

[RonnieOP]

5 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

No , I'm not.

 

RAID isn't a backup, like I said, it's redundancy.

 

RAID won't protect you form viruses, malwares or cryptolockers, etc.

RAID won't protect you form mistakes (people DO delete files by accident).

RAID won't protect you from data corruption.

 

All of the above will replicate the problem to all drives in the RAID.

 

 

I have a backup solution, the first step is to copy the files on a RAID array (the array is part of my backup system, but the drives where the data is mirrored is NOT a backup, it's a Fail-Safe in case of drive failure), the second step is to do an incrememtal cloud backup, last step is to copy only specific "life-or-death" types of files to 2 different off-site and cloud storage.

I never said RAID would protect you from everything.

 

Raid backs up your data in case of a drive failure. Making it a type of backup. Nobody is claiming its the best type of backup that will cover all scenarios. 

 

But raid is still a type of backup. Theres literally no way to deny that raid is a type of backup.

[RonnieOP]

7 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I never argued that anyway.

 

The point I'm arguing is RAID doesn't count as a data back up method, which again, I feel is defined considering what the industry thinks is a copy of data to cover the events of data loss, data corruption, and needing to restore data to a previous version if needed.

This discussion started when someone said raid being a backup was a myth. Thats what im commenting on. Raid is a backup. Its a backup in case a drive fails. its not a back up for virus issue or deletion. but its still a type of backup.

 

So raid being a backup type is not a myth.

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

This discussion started when someone said raid being a backup was a myth. Thats what im commenting on. Raid is a backup. Its a backup in case a drive fails. its not a back up for virus issue or deletion. but its still a type of backup.

 

So raid being a backup type is not a myth.

At this point we're arguing semantics and what's the common lexical usage of the term "backup"

 

So here, I'll throw you a bone. Yes RAID is a type of backup method, a hardware failure backup method. But also RAID is not a type of backup method, a data backup method.

 

Hm. It can and can't be at the same time