Do external hard drives make sense in the cloud-storage era?

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LANGALIST By Fred Langa With effectively infinite storage available online, is there any point to storing files and backups locally, on external hard
[See the full post at: Do external hard drives make sense in the cloud-storage era?]

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jkwatson, ibe98765, abbodi86, SueW, jpaterjr, OscarCP, lmacri, windbg

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I can believe that cheap generators produce dirty outputs, but I’d be surprised if they are square waves. The output from any standard generator is, by the nature of the device, basically a sine wave.

However, I can think of one way this might not be the case. If the output of the actual electromagnetic generator is passed through circuitry to regulate the voltage and cycle it’s possible, indeed likely, that, at least for cheaper systems, the circuit uses Pulse Width Modulation. For those who don’t know, this basically switches between extremes of +Ve, zero, and -Ve voltage, but fast enough that a load such as a motor doesn’t notice. By selectively changing the width of the pulse, the average voltage over a short period (much shorter than the AC cycle time) approximates to a point on a sine wave.

My electric motor control knowledge is a couple of decades old, but this seems more likely than a stepped output, though putting a suitable capacitor on the output of such a circuit, conjunction with a load, would approximate to steps.

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ibe98765

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Regarding “Uninterruptible power, small generators, and “dirty” electricity” part of the blog, are you speaking about normal gas engine powered emergency generators where the generator is a rotating one? These generators don’t produce square wave or stepped waveforms. However, the waveform may be far from sinusoid and the frequency is not constant. I found with fast googling a video where an old generator was tested: https://youtu.be/I2-3dyBHlhc?t=1530

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wavy

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Modern “cheap” generators use power electronics to produce the output from very cheap mechanical generator/alternator. Electronics are cheaper than good mechanicals, but good electronics that produce nice sine waves are more expensive than cheap electronics…
You get what you pay for.

cheers, Paul

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After reading the article I tried to google power conditioner and line conditioner but only found surge suppressors and inverters. Does someone have a source or product recommendation?

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Re: blocking data on USB:  rather than keeping track of a special non-data cable, wouldn’t it just be easier to use a “USB condom” to block data transfer?  Then it’s always obvious when you’re protected.  See e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T0DW3F8

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jkwatson, ibe98765, windbg

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Another hack filter is to carry a USB backup battery pack. That’s the only thing I connect to untrusted community power. Then I charge devices from the battery.

(I don’t trust anything from Amazon until I verify the vendor and product.)

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Agreed.  I’ve been doing this for the past few years.

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I like to keep everything local

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Charlie, Alex5723

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I’ve got a 2 Gig HDD in my Win 7 desktop, which also holds a 1.5 Gig HDD for backup, which gets backed up onto an external 2 Gig USB HDD.  I have plenty of room locally.  My Linux Mint laptop gets backed up to a thumbdrive.  Yes, external hard drives make very good sense in this day and age IMO.

Even astrophysicist Carl Sagan when speaking astronomically used Billions, not Trillions.

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One thing that is really cheap in this day and age is one megabyte of storage capacity in an HDD or an SDD. Why go to the Web to store one’s stuff? Well, if one is moving around a lot and has a mass storage device 80% full and most of the stuff needed to work or whatever is in a backup device, then maybe one would use the Cloud to store some of the stuff needed while one is not using the computer at home. This not being the case, then why bother to pay rent for storage space on a disk in someone else’s server out there and hope this is never breached by some unfriendly party, as it seems to happen often enough these days?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Douglas, wdburt1, Fred

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OscarCP wrote:

One thing that is really cheap in this day and age is one megabyte of storage capacity in an HDD or an SDD. Why go to the Web to store one’s stuff? Well, if one is moving around a lot and has a mass storage device 80% full and most of the stuff needed to work or whatever is in a backup device, then maybe one would use the Cloud to store some of the stuff needed while one is not using the computer at home. This not being the case, then why bother to pay rent for storage space on a disk in someone else’s server out there and hope this is never breached by some unfriendly party, as it seems to happen often enough these days?

And if so stored, in the us or eu or xx or who-keeps-track?, it’s a whole lot easier to control for the mass-survailance parties.

* _ ... _ *

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In this day and age why would anyone put their trust in the cloud? I’ll take responsibility for keeping my stuff safe. I’m certainly not going to give that responsibility to what I’ll bet in some circumstances is a 20 year old unpaid intern who forgets to set a security parameter(s).

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wdburt1, David F, Charlie

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giving my data to cloud storage is roughly the same as giving it to a random person on the street whom I do not know. It is based on the belief that “if I give somebody my information, they couldn’t possibly misuse it. Could they?”

Laughable, but pathetic.

I have 3 2.5″ sata 3 6Gbs HDs and a nvme that I use for off-site backups. It is SOOOOO easy. A Unitek sata to USB3 adapter is fast – 110MBs+ .

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Charlie, Douglas, wdburt1, Fred, OscarCP

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[Charlie]

My 2 Terabyte external USB hard drive is a WD My Passport Ultra that is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket.  So it, and the thumbdrive easily fit into an emergency grab bag.

Note:  My aged memory is showing.  Where I referred to the size of the HDD’s being “Gigs”, I meant it to be Terabytes.  Sorry for any confusion it may have caused.  I was only able to edit this post.

Even astrophysicist Carl Sagan when speaking astronomically used Billions, not Trillions.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Charlie. Reason: Change Gigs to TB

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USB sticks are great but only write at 4MBs – takes a long time to grab a 75GB Macrium image. That’s why I use 2.5″ sata3 6Gbs or nvme devices. It’s so easy to keep all my various off site backups current. 10 min and done!.

eggs. basketS.

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I have a UPS connected to the grid. Big city so very few failures. I would not expect any affordable generator to produce a clean enough output to allow the UPS to go back to line. Remember, UPSs are designed to not allow anything other than a clean sine wave.

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OscarCP

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a wrote:

UPSs are designed to not allow anything other than a clean sine wave.

UPSes are not all the same. Paying for a decent online unit will guarantee nice clean power to your equipment no matter what your mains is providing.
See this online APC unit as an example: https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-SRT-1000VA-120V-LCD-rackmount-w-kit-6x-NEMA-5-15R-outlets/P-SRT1000XLA

cheers, Paul

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“decent online unit” I agree with this – a cheap UPS is no place to cut corners because if it does cut in it can damage delicate things like modems, routers, ssd’s, let alone your computer. The one I have at the moment (had it for a while) is an APC HT 1000. Now that I am back on win I should reconnect the usb cable to it and monitor it and make sure it feels okay.

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Somewhere I read the Rule of Three Backups: One set on external hard drives connected to your system, one set on portable hard drives stored offsite, and a cloud backup service in case the portable hard drives are stolen or destroyed.  The portables are included mainly so you are not totally dependent on the cloud service in the event the system and its connected external drives are stolen or destroyed.

I found a new way for a portable hard drive to fail the other day.  On a 5TB Seagate the USB port never gripped the cable very tightly, and it finally began making only an intermittent connection.  The rapid interruption of the connection, without properly ejecting the device, renders the Win7 computer unable to recognize any connected device until it is rebooted, so troubleshooting is very difficult.  I guess I will have to take a sledgehammer to it.

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Remove the hard drive and use it in a generic one that costs only a few dollars?  Usually some prying is needed.  Look on youtube for disassembly of a similar model.

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wdburt1

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