From the Lounge: Simple and cheap data backup and storage

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BACKUP By Paul Tannard It’s axiomatic that the only good data-backup system is one you actually use — often and consistently. There are many opt
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Mick Mickle, Elly, philomel, geekdom, woody

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I’d like to add to the list of software tools to use for disk monitoring.  I’ve been using Stablebit Scanner (https://stablebit.com/scanner) for years to monitor and test internal and external HDDs on computers and servers.  I highly recommend it.  Stablebit Scanner monitors SMART data, health of physical sectors, and file integrity.  Scanner will alert you to warnings from SMART, and can periodically read every sector and alert you to unreadable sectors. I have the program set to scan once a month and email me any warnings.  (If you have multiple disks pooled using DrivePool, another Stablebit product, an added benefit is that DrivePool will automatically migrate data from a disk that Scanner detects as going bad to another disk in the pool.)

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Cybertooth

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Stablebit Scanner is $30 per machine and has some nice features for showing SMART data, particularly on USB, and the notification of which file(s) may be corrupt is very useful.

Definitely worth considering.

cheers, Paul

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Mick Mickle

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Thanks for this detailed and helpful article, Paul.

I was glad to see you mention Hard Disk Sentinel. I’ve used it for years and became a Pro member because I was so impressed with their support. Whenever I had an issue, Janos would get back to me within a day with helpful suggestions. I am sure I use a very small portion of its capabilities, but definitely appreciate knowing it’s keeping an eye on my hard disk every day.

Linda

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satrow, Paul T

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[Paul T]

After trying a few hash generators to verify the data on disk, I decided they were all way too slow for GB backup files. Instead I crafted a read only utility in PowerShell to read the files from disk, with no other overhead. The result is a read speed well in excess of 50GB/minute on internal SATA disks, making it a relatively quick process to check your entire disk.

The utility will read all files under the provided disk / folder, either by editing the file or entering the disk / folder when prompted.

cheers, Paul

Edit 1/2024
Added a simple batch file to run the PowerShell script without having to jump through MS hoops.
Extract both files from the ZIP.
Run ReadAllFiles.cmd (Windows Command Script) by double clicking it.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Paul T.

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AlexEiffel

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