Don't Waste $1000 on Data Recovery

[CPotter]

 

Thanks to DeepSpar for sponsoring this video! Check out their RapidSpar Data Recovery Tool at http://geni.us/rapidspar

 

RapidSpar is the first cloud-driven device built to help IT generalists and other non-specialized users recover client data from damaged or failing HDDs/SSDs

Buy HDDs on Amazon: http://geni.us/sLlhDf

Buy HDDs on Newegg: http://geni.us/a196

[rcmaehl]

Backup Backup Backup. Best way to save money. Cloud storage is cheap or even free. 

[Firewrath9]

8 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Backup Backup Backup. Best way to save money. Cloud storage is cheap or even free. 

ha ha no. 

cloud storage is expensive AF

[rcmaehl]

3 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

ha ha no. 

cloud storage is expensive AF

Unless you're hogging data 1TB of backup space for ~$10USD a month is a pretty good deal.

[Radium_Angel]

A grand?

A grand is cheap.

I once charged a client $40k to get her data back from a RAIDed server that had been struck by lightning (a direct strike mind you) and melted from the hit.

 

I got the data back though. A 6TB SQL file full of mission-critical data.

 

But if you have proper backups, then you won't need me....

[Firewrath9]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Unless you're hogging data 1TB of backup space for ~$10USD a month is a pretty good deal.

i use 6.5 TB of backup and other stuff in my NAS

[rcmaehl]

9 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

i use 6.5 TB of backup and other stuff in my NAS

8TB is a one time purchase of $140. A cheap housing and NIC is ~$50-80 and Colocation depends on who you go through. Most consumers don't have 6.5 TB of data.

[JoostinOnline]

He "doesn't remember" what's on it.  In other words, it's a sex tape.

[AdmiralKird]

As a fan of the channel who enjoys your productions, and because I care, I have to say something not-super-fun of hard love.

For all that the production guys advocated to Linus to spend on five-figure RED Cameras, you guys put hardly jack TLC or baseline care into your audio recording sometimes outside of the video host(s). This isn't the first video this has happened - time and time again your editor has to supplement subpar audio quality on secondary participants with mandatory subtitles. Get a good shotgun mic attached to the camera rig and mic the participants in the shoot up if you know you're doing a 1 on 1 segment. I know there's probably a lot of 1 on 1's on the cutting room floor and such, and it's a hassle to mic other people up, but I know - freaking know - you can get better audio quality when people aren't mic'd from a decent shotgun microphone, even with high background noise that can be cleaned in Audition CC.

[ZacoAttaco]

This Yarek guy really wasn't playing along with Linus hey? Can't blame Mr. Tech Tips for trying

 

Also really enjoying the variety of content lately.

[Egg-Roll]

The guy at 50 seconds in wasn't working but staring  Get back to work 

 

Also Oh lookie... a dead green, what a surprise...

 DIE ALREADY 

18 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Unless you're hogging data 1TB of backup space for ~$10USD a month is a pretty good deal.

After 10 months you'd have spent enough money for a 2+TB HDD that you could then after year 2 buy a fire-resistant safety box for it...
https://www.amazon.com/SentrySafe-SFW123DSB-Combination-Fire-Safe-Medium/dp/B005P12F2K/ (there are cheaper ones but if you have 2TB to store the price is equal.)

 

Basically Cloud storage is still expensive if you do it right. Sure you don't have login and collect/sync but equally you're not using your internet either.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

20 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Backup Backup Backup. Best way to save money. Cloud storage is cheap or even free. 

I agree about backup, backup, backup (it's been a mantra of mine for a long time). Cloud storage, however, especially the free and cheap storage, is not a good form of backup. Free and cheap cloud storage is rarely, if ever, secure and are subject to being discontinued with inadequate notice. Before anyone suggests Google Drive or MS' One Drive, those "services" snoop through your data, especially Google (and I trust MS even less).

 

Good, paid cloud backup services, on the other hand, are secure and reliable. Your data is encrypted befoire it leaves your computer and the good services give you the option to hold the encryption key yourself. They have multiple layers of antivirus and antimalware protection, are physically secure, and have backup power and airconditioning systems in case of plant support system failures. I recommend Backblaze, followed by Carbonite, for most people.

 

The two main downsides of cloud backups is cost (you have to pay a monthly or annual fee) and the need for a broadband connection with resonable speed and a high enough monthly data cap to ensure you will not incur data use overage penalties.

 

Advantages include being located offsite and safe automateed backups (the latter due to versioning).

 

If you use a cloud backup service, you should also have an onsite backup drive. Never depend on only one backup.

 

20 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

A grand?

A grand is cheap.

I once charged a client $40k to get her data back from a RAIDed server that had been struck by lightning (a direct strike mind you) and melted from the hit.

 

I got the data back though. A 6TB SQL file full of mission-critical data.

 

But if you have proper backups, then you won't need me....

This, and the video, are perfect examples why maintaining backups is far cheaper and far more reliable than depending on data recovery to recover data from a failed drive. Keep in mind that not all data recovery attempts will succeed.

 

Keep in mind that RAID is NOT a backup; it is redundancy. All redundancy does is protect from drive failure. Data can be lost from far more disasters, such as viruses, natural disaters, theft, user error, etc. than just drive failure. Only multiple backups can keep data reasonably safe from those.

 

Btw, recovering data from lightning barbecued RAIDed server drives is quite impressive.

 

20 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

8TB is a one time purchase of $140. A cheap housing and NIC is ~$50-80 and Colocation depends on who you go through. Most consumers don't have 6.5 TB of data.

Excellent suggestion. Even better is to have more than one backup drive. Ideally, for data to be reasonably safe, it should exist in three places. For most people, this means on the computer, on an onsite backup drive, and on an offsite backup drive (a good, paid, backup service can be used as an offsite backup). Backups need to be updated as frequently as possible (you can't recover data if it hasn't ben backed up).

 

I do NOT recommend automated backups. If data gets corrupted by malware, user error, etc., the errors will also get backed up.

 

1 hour ago, Egg-Roll said:

...After 10 months you'd have spent enough money for a 2+TB HDD that you could then after year 2 buy a fire-resistant safety box for it...
https://www.amazon.com/SentrySafe-SFW123DSB-Combination-Fire-Safe-Medium/dp/B005P12F2K/ (there are cheaper ones but if you have 2TB to store the price is equal.)...

I do not recommend using a fire resistant safe to store HDDs of any kind. The fire retardant they use create high humidty inside the safes which can casue damage to the contents unless they are aired out freequently, usually an hour or so every two weeks. Also, small safes like that are easily stolen, even the heavy ones bolted to something.

 

A safe deposit box at a bank is far safer.

 

Btw, I felt Linus' video was excellent. The most important thing people should take away from it is, unless you are willing to risk permanantly losing data from a failed drive, do not attempt data recovery on your own; turn it over to a pro. Also, not all data recovery attempts will be successful. It's far better to be proactive and keep your data backed up rather than depend on being able to recover data from a failed drive.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Btw, recovering data from lightning barbecued RAIDed server drives is quite impressive

Thank you. I did DR as a profession some years ago. I've recovered data from systems that were total losses from fire, rain, chicken grease (don't ask...), wine, formatting, etc. and none of those were cheap....

[Egg-Roll]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

chicken grease (don't ask...)

Asking.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

A safe deposit box at a bank is far safer.

And cheaper actually, since you can hold multiple drives in one box. The downside with this is accessibility.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The fire retardant they use create high humidty inside the safes which can casue damage to the contents unless they are aired out freequently, usually an hour or so every two weeks.

This I did not know, which is also good to know  Wonder if putting in a pound of rice in a cloth would combat this.

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Asking.

I knew you would....

 

The client dropped his laptop into a chicken fryer at work. What it was doing anywhere near the fryer I have no idea, but he did....

 

...and apparently didn't notice for some time. Needless to say the whole machine smelled of rotten chicken grease and melted plastic.

Boy did that DR cost him.....

[TechkNighT]

Whats is the model and brand of the white HDD dock that Linus is using in 13:45, scenario numbuer 4?

 

Thanks in advance!

TechkNighT

[Lady Fitzgerald]

5 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

I did DR as a profession some years ago.

I had guessed that. Still impressive. 

[aezakmi]

On 30/08/2018 at 4:26 PM, Firewrath9 said:

ha ha no. 

cloud storage is expensive AF

not to mention it needs a fast connection that's also expensive AF

[Egg-Roll]

7 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

I knew you would....

 

The client dropped his laptop into a chicken fryer at work. What it was doing anywhere near the fryer I have no idea, but he did....

 

...and apparently didn't notice for some time. Needless to say the whole machine smelled of rotten chicken grease and melted plastic.

Boy did that DR cost him.....

Fun fact, you never ask the internet to never ask, because while likely it won't be done here (I did it for fun ), someone somewhere will want to hear the story... IMO I'd of been more interested in how someone got wine on a drive and destroyed it over something that seemed so obvious. When I first read the comment before replying, the first thing I thought was fryer lol... Didn't think laptop tho, I thought maybe a external unit...

[Radium_Angel]

9 hours ago, Egg-Roll said:

IMO I'd of been more interested in how someone got wine on a drive and destroyed

It was a laptop, and the client, a lady in her 40s, had been "camming" with some...err...."clients" when she spilled a bottle of wine into her laptop, and was..."involved" in certain activities and hadn't noticed until her system went down.

 

[Radium_Angel]

10 hours ago, aezakmi said:

not to mention it needs a fast connection that's also expensive AF

And that's the real killer. Ok, so I might be able to get 4TB of storage "in the cloud" cheap (might mind you) but getting my data there is certainly not cheap.

At that point, it might be cheaper to physically mail them a 4TB hard drive and let them upload it locally.

 

Never mind the privacy issues of course, that's a topic for another story.

[PraveenRamanujam]

On 8/30/2018 at 9:12 PM, CPotter said:

 

Thanks to DeepSpar for sponsoring this video! Check out their RapidSpar Data Recovery Tool at http://geni.us/rapidspar

 

RapidSpar is the first cloud-driven device built to help IT generalists and other non-specialized users recover client data from damaged or failing HDDs/SSDs

Buy HDDs on Amazon: http://geni.us/sLlhDf

Buy HDDs on Newegg: http://geni.us/a196

This video genuinely saved my bacon. I had an external drive fail when I used it on a Windows computer. The disk kept showing as local disk and the computer kept freezing every time I tried accessing the drive. I tried most of the usual trouble shooting steps and with no success, decided to seek help from a "professional" hard drive recovery center here in the Netherlands since I don't have access to another computer running a different OS nor an external SATA USB adapter or something so that I can test the connector itself.
Admittedly, I only spent 30 euros for a diagnostic service not a full fledged recovery. Despite me telling them that I suspect a file partition system error or something along those lines, even after 5 days, the "professional" service wasn't able to apparently diagnose anything and advised me to send it to a clean room recovery service. I was not ready to spend 500 euros on this. I had pretty much resigned to the fact that whatever data was on it, it was no longer mine.

Out of nowhere, this video tells me to disable automatic windows volume mounting and boy, I cannot express the joy I felt when I was able to read this RAW disk and recover all of my data successfully and better yet, be able to read the disk from Windows' disk management and repartition the whole thing. Now I have all my data back and also a fairly usable back up backup drive.

 

I guess I'm just trying to say thanks for doing what you guys do and as much as I am now inclined to support @LinusTech either through a flloatplane subscription or a merch purchase, I am sadly not in a position to throw around money. But once again, a big thank you from me for this video and all the other videos in general. Huge fan!

 

Praveen.