Important data, bad sectors and backup practise

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Hello everyone!

Well, I need you this time. I'm getting concerned about my own practise regarding file storage. The situation is as follows:

In my family I am the one responsible for maintaining and making family photos digital by scanning them with negative scanner etc. I usually store these photos in a huge library on my C: drive on my main desktop, on the same partition as the system. I regularly perform a backup in the following way:

I simply copy all my personal files (photos, documents, etc.) from C: to an external hard drive. On that drive I always have two seperate folders with two different backups. When I copy a new backup to the drive, I delete the oldest of those two and replace it with the new one. This means that I always have a new and a slightly older backup on my external drive as well as the main stuff on my desktop hard drive. However, this means that the files on the external drive are always replaced with a potentially new version from my desktop computer. The files on the backup drive are always replaced by the same file from my desktop, sooner or later.

However, my computer is acting a bit weird and may soon need a formatting. I am starting to get scared that there may be something wrong with my hard drive. I ran a CHKDSK yesterday and found out that one image file had damaged clusters which was repaired by CHKDSK. But this made me think:

Is it a bad idea that I use the photo directory on my main computer as the base? These files are never really replaced unless I have formatted and copied back the photos from my external drive. I mean:

Is there a risk that some of those photos could get corrupted or degraded over time from all the hard drive usage without me knowing it, and then I would replace the ones on the backup with a corrupted version? Is the risk of this higher because I use this computer for all sorts of stuff everyday?

Should I always run CHKDSK before making a backup copy and will CHKDSK even notice all potential corruptions?

My computer is a 7 year old gaming PC which haven't been replaced because it is a high-end one still capable of running new stuff.

Thanks very much for reading my block of text!

 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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1. No manual backups. There are a multitude of automated ways to do this.

2. Yes, eventually you could be copying corrupted sectors., and the files that constitute those.

3. Read here for my and others backup routines.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

4. Kudos to you for actually doing backups! Most people only think about that 5 minutes after they need one.
 
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Thanks for your reply! I am looking through that thread, it's great.

I see you use a NAS and Macrium Reflect as software. So it only adds files each day that has been changed. I understand that after 14 days the original gets deleted and replaced with a new main one from the the incrementals so that the original files that has been changed gets deleted and replaced with the "incremented" versions?

So the difference between this method and mine is that is is automated and it includes all the small edits so you can go back to a stage? But what if you on the 13th day make a change to a file and you on the 15th want to go back to the stage before that, then you only have the main backup from the 14th day? Sorry to sound confusing!

But now I am so scared that some of my files are already corrupted! Will CHKDSK detect these if there are any?
 
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13thmonkey

13thmonkey

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My opinion, regardless of backups, is that the system partition is the one that is likely to go wrong in some way shape or form, inevitably this will lead to having to reinstall over it.

Additionally the system drive is quite fast moving in terms of changes, and hence a different strategy might be required when compared to things that are very stable as data sets.

Put these two thoughts together and keeping this kind of slow moving and time consuming to replace data (if it even can be) on a separate partition or disk will make life simpler in future, be it restoring the OS and programs being only a 200GB job as opposed to a 2TB job, or simply the next OS version installation being that much simpler with data being separate from system, or many other similar scenarios. (in the past 2 weeks i've had to either restore or reinstall two family systems for completely separate issues, data is separate from system, it was an inconvenience and not a catastrophe )
 
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I will buy another hard drive for my desktop so that I can have my stuff on there and only the system on C:. Reason is that I also need more space! But man, all this stuff means that storing digital photos is not that secure, a bad sector could ruin a photo just like that! Makes me panic.
 
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13thmonkey

13thmonkey

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Yep, and without checking each one, you aren't going to know, something like building smart previews in lightroom might test it sufficiently.
 
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How can I check if a photo is corrupted in any way? I don't have Lightroom.
 
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USAFRet

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Right.
I could extend that 14 day thing out to 30 days, or 6 months, or whatever. But if I haven't noticed any weirdness in the last two weeks, my eyes and fingers are broken.
In the case of any noticed drive issues, I'd go into full investigation and recovery mode. I can't image these PC's going 2 weeks without noticing something.


And also, I have anything really critical also saved on a drive offsite. In a drawer at my office. That gets rotated monthly.


Further, this is why the OS and applications are on one physical drive, and all else is on other drives. CAD, photo, video, games...all on different drives.
If the OS or its drive dies, all other data is not touched.
Easily recreatable.
And I also have 2 'base' Images from all my systems. One with just the bare OS, and one with the OS and my typical initial load of applications.
New drive, 20 minutes...back to where it was on day one if needed. No 'OS install and having to reinstall all my applications'.
Everything is already there.
 
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Great stuff! I will use your example to optimize my own routines. I will get Macrium Reflect and a NAS-server (not too expensive though!). It is time for me to do something about this. But one question: Is it true that the latest incremental backup version of a file will replace its original in the full backup when you are rolling them all into the full backup at day 14?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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No.
The image below is of my 'CAD/Video' drive. 250GB SSD.
A Full rollup was done this morn at 2AM.
But as you can see, the Incrementals from Oct 16 onwards still exist. And Macrium gives the functionality to open those Images in Windows Explorer, and copy out what is needed, just like any other folder. All files and folders, or down to retrieving a single file if desired.

hvsfOO5.png
 
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OK I will try to do all this the right way but it is really confusing to me! But thanks for your inputs and help!

But how can I know that any damage hasn't happened already to my stuff on my hard drive? Things seem normal but I'm so paranoid about it. Is CHKDSK ok? It doesn't find corrupted stuff.
 
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USAFRet

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With photos, the best way is to actually look at them.
 
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Ok so it will be clearly visible if corrupted?
 
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Nice! I was afraid I caused big trouble because I had to use reset button several times just to make the computer finally start. And when I finally managed to get it up and running I quickly copied all my files to an external. So I think I saved it all in time. I am now ordering two new hard drives, 2 x 3TB for my PC instead of this 1TB which is possibly beginning to show problems. Even though it is a Windows error and not HDD related, I need more space anyway. Wow this stuff is not easy at all when you have been diagnosed with OCD before because everything makes you doubt (and panic)!
 
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USAFRet

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Once you have the drive space, and an automated backup routine, it is easy.
It just takes a little thought and knowing other peoples experiences.

In my backup routine, the only 2 manual functions are:

1. Every Wednesday morn (or Tuesday night), power cycle the USB enclosure to wake up the 8TB drive and allow the NAS to see it.
If I forget, no problem. Just do it when I get home. The NAS will tell me "Hey, I couldn't do this. Fix it for me."

2. Copy new critical stuff to my offsite backup every once in a while. That is the 4th level backup. Major bad things would need to happen before I need that.
Fire, flood, etc.
 
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Nice, must be great to already have it all in control! Just wish I had more money because NAS servers are a little expensive for me! I am thinking about "Western Digital My Cloud Home 4TB", it is the only one I can afford! The external HDD, already have that. So I only need the NAS and Macrium Reflect.

But how do you backup from the NAS to the External HDD? It is the image file you are copying from the NAS to that HDD?
 
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