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Post by mulmany on Apr 27, 2019 17:00:54 GMT -6
Just had a SSD fail on me, just as I was going to do backups. Mac can still see the drive it just wants to initialize it.
Anyone use any of the new options for recovery?
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Post by kcatthedog on Apr 27, 2019 17:02:37 GMT -6
Drag: if on Mac, no cloud back up ?
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 27, 2019 17:28:00 GMT -6
Just had a SSD fail on me, just as I was going to do backups. Mac can still see the drive it just wants to initialize it. Anyone use any of the new options for recovery? Unfortunately, from everything I've heard the word is that you can't recover an SSD. There was a thread about that fairly recently on PRW. |
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Post by nudwig on Apr 27, 2019 19:44:42 GMT -6
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 27, 2019 23:40:54 GMT -6
Well, that company says this:
A firmware update issue would be the exception. From what I've been seeing, if the drive fails in normal service it's nearly always a brick. Of course it probably would not hurt to inquire. Maybe your case is in the "middle ground".
Good luck.
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Post by mulmany on Apr 28, 2019 13:27:37 GMT -6
Well I found a software that seems to be doing the trick it is currently scanning the drive we will see if it is all usable.
Update- It found the data on the drive, now to purchase. The demo only allows 2G of recovered data.
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Post by kcatthedog on Apr 28, 2019 14:34:18 GMT -6
And the software is ?
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Post by mulmany on Apr 28, 2019 15:01:09 GMT -6
I was going to wait until I had tested the session data. EaseUS. Currently doing all of my backups. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 28, 2019 15:25:05 GMT -6
I was going to wait until I had tested the session data. EaseUS. Currently doing all of my backups. I've successfully used their software on a spinning disk. |
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Post by svart on Apr 28, 2019 15:54:58 GMT -6
So if it sees data, that means the drive is actually operational.. you know, since a true failure would mean the drive doesn't work at all..
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Post by mulmany on Apr 28, 2019 17:10:35 GMT -6
So if it sees data, that means the drive is actually operational.. you know, since a true failure would mean the drive doesn't work at all.. Yeah...the file table was gone, the OS and drive utility saw it as a new drive and wanted me to initialize it. Unfortunately it looks like the one session that I actually needed off the drive was too corrupt... The folder file structure is there and all the names but no actual .wav data. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 28, 2019 17:46:12 GMT -6
So if it sees data, that means the drive is actually operational.. you know, since a true failure would mean the drive doesn't work at all.. Yeah...the file table was gone, the OS and drive utility saw it as a new drive and wanted me to initialize it. Unfortunately it looks like the one session that I actually needed off the drive was too corrupt... The folder file structure is there and all the names but no actual .wav data. The drive knew which data you *actually* wanted, and made sure to corrupt only those folders entirely. It's one of the newer, lesser known postulates of Murphy's Law. |
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Post by mulmany on Apr 28, 2019 18:43:53 GMT -6
@the other mark williams, it is true...
I have checked almost every other file that I recovered...they all have data intact. This PT Session is void of the .wav data, but the container is there!
Very bummed... My clients not going to be to happy either. We had gone back to one old demo track and added drums, bass, and keys to it. It was in a different location and didn't get backed up after tracking.
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Post by svart on Apr 28, 2019 19:12:24 GMT -6
@the other mark williams, it is true... I have checked almost every other file that I recovered...they all have data intact. This PT Session is void of the .wav data, but the container is there! Very bummed... My clients not going to be to happy either. We had gone back to one old demo track and added drums, bass, and keys to it. It was in a different location and didn't get backed up after tracking. Damn. That's tough. Good luck. |
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Post by svart on Apr 28, 2019 19:16:56 GMT -6
Reminds me of Murphy's 2nd and 3rd laws..
1. What can happen, will happen.
2. At the worst possible time.
3. In a way that's insultingly simple.
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 28, 2019 22:20:29 GMT -6
Murphy’s Law:
A $300 picture tube will protect a 10-cent fuse by blowing first.
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Post by mulmany on Apr 29, 2019 19:41:44 GMT -6
Talked to the client today... He was gracious and stated "well, I guess it wasn't suppose to be on this album". That takes the weight off.
Question is do I try and exercise my warranty on the drive or just reformat and move on.
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Post by dankin on Apr 29, 2019 20:28:17 GMT -6
Talked to the client today... He was gracious and stated "well, I guess it wasn't suppose to be on this album". That takes the weight off. Question is do I try and exercise my warranty on the drive or just reformat and move on. What brand of ssd was it? I had one die a few years ago that was my OS drive. No warning at all. |
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 29, 2019 21:35:06 GMT -6
You should never use an SSD drive as a backup because they are unreliable and fail without warning. At least 90% of the time they fail they are unrecoverable - you really lucked out here.
After you recover what you can on this drive you should mark the drive bad and not use it for anything important because there is no telling when it might fail again - and the odds are you would not be so lucky. The fact that it did what it did is most likely a sign that one of the or more of the "cells" in the drive is failing and losing its ability to hold a charge over time.
You should always use a spinner for backups and archival storage.
Edit: when a mechanical drive fails more often than not it's sometyhing mechanical that prevents one or more heads from trackling reliably - the rest of the time it's a glitch on the media which can be worked around with a low level format. Since SSDs use capacitive storage that uses an array of "cells" on the chip that are determined at the factory a reformat doesn't eliminate flaws in the data structure - the bad cell will always be there, rewriting doesn't cure the problem.
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Post by mulmany on Apr 30, 2019 11:11:45 GMT -6
Talked to the client today... He was gracious and stated "well, I guess it wasn't suppose to be on this album". That takes the weight off. Question is do I try and exercise my warranty on the drive or just reformat and move on. What brand of ssd was it? I had one die a few years ago that was my OS drive. No warning at all. It was an OWC 6GPro, so I have a 5year warranty. Not sure what that exactly means. This was set as a work drive. I always use multiple small drives for this reason. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. I use HDD as backup drives. |
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Post by Blackdawg on Apr 30, 2019 11:24:01 GMT -6
Something you should look at while your overhauling your backups is Carbon Copy Cloner.
It is a fantastic piece of software to setup auto backups for multiple drives to multiple destinations. Would recomend checking it out. Setting up something like that can save your bacon later in situations like this.
For instance I use it like so:
Main drive
RAID 1 array
RAID 2 array
Backup external
I use RAID 1 for all recording.
Carbon copy auto back ups to the RAID 2 and external drive. ITs also setup so that it keeps ALL files even if I delete them from RAID 1. Once stuff is full. Add new drives to the backup RAID and external. Keep working.
Works great. I do an auto back up every day at 1 am. But you could do more often.
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Post by m03 on Apr 30, 2019 11:52:57 GMT -6
You should never use an SSD drive as a backup because they are unreliable and fail without warning. This is terribly inaccurate. As long as your backup isn't plugged in 100% of the time and actively being written/read continuously for years during that time, it's objectively superior to spinning disks in the reliability department. Even if it was being actively used continuously, it's probably comparable reliability-wise for the first ~3 years or so. I can say that confidently as someone involved for many years with distributed systems with large volumes of storage of every type imaginable. |
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Post by ericn on Apr 30, 2019 12:15:15 GMT -6
What brand of ssd was it? I had one die a few years ago that was my OS drive. No warning at all. It was an OWC 6GPro, so I have a 5year warranty. Not sure what that exactly means. This was set as a work drive. I always use multiple small drives for this reason. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. I use HDD as backup drives. Send them an email, they have always been very good with warranty claims and service. |
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Post by svart on Apr 30, 2019 13:14:41 GMT -6
You should never use an SSD drive as a backup because they are unreliable and fail without warning. At least 90% of the time they fail they are unrecoverable - you really lucked out here.
After you recover what you can on this drive you should mark the drive bad and not use it for anything important because there is no telling when it might fail again - and the odds are you would not be so lucky. The fact that it did what it did is most likely a sign that one of the or more of the "cells" in the drive is failing and losing its ability to hold a charge over time.
You should always use a spinner for backups and archival storage.
Edit: when a mechanical drive fails more often than not it's sometyhing mechanical that prevents one or more heads from trackling reliably - the rest of the time it's a glitch on the media which can be worked around with a low level format. Since SSDs use capacitive storage that uses an array of "cells" on the chip that are determined at the factory a reformat doesn't eliminate flaws in the data structure - the bad cell will always be there, rewriting doesn't cure the problem.
SSDs have much lower failure rates than spinny drives with one caveat, lifetime. Nearer the end of their expected lifespan, they develop errors in the cells faster than HDD's do on their platters, however JUST LIKE HDD's, they have "spare" areas allocated to replace failing cell blocks. However in SSD's and unlike HDD's, cells aren't written over simply because the data changes, cells are written sequentially until the drive is "full" and only after that are cells re-written. This greatly reduces the wear the cells see. Also unlike regular HDD's most SSD's pair with drivers that continuously monitor the health of the drive and report when cell failures start to occur. And with HDD's, it's not nearly as simple as "low level format" because most format utilities also run sector scans that map out and avoid bad areas unbeknownst to the user. In fact, most HDD's ship with bad sectors from the factory but are flagged during the first disk initializations and formatting. During operation an OS might flag the area as "bad" but it just means that it's missing the expected bits from that area, which is the same as what happens in a SSD. A LLF might make it recoverable, but then it might not. A blanket statement about LLF fixing all HDD issues is misleading at best. Also, the majority of non-damage HDD failures are not mechanical, but firmware and latent manufacturer defects. Power surges and/or power supply issues are next, and then heat, then internal mechanical failures like headcrashes. The main takeaway is that under normal usage SSD's are much faster and more reliable than HDD's, but after around 5 years their lifespan significantly diminishes. It's also worth noting that their development is still ongoing and their cell technology is changing quickly while HDD technology has been mature for quite some time. There was a time when HDD's were seen as unreliable and TAPE was still the most reliable way to store data. |
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 30, 2019 13:23:07 GMT -6
You should never use an SSD drive as a backup because they are unreliable and fail without warning. This is terribly inaccurate. As long as your backup isn't plugged in 100% of the time and actively being written/read continuously for years during that time, it's objectively superior to spinning disks in the reliability department. Even if it was being actively used continuously, it's probably comparable reliability-wise for the first ~3 years or so. I can say that confidently as someone involved for many years with distributed systems with large volumes of storage of every type imaginable. I beg to differ. SSD drives use capacative storage, which can go bed just sitting on the shelf, unused. Granted, the odds of it soing that in the short term aree low - but a backup drive sahould be long term storage. A magnetic drive won't go bad over time sitting on a shelf, an SSD will.
And a distributed system with multiple redindancies is a very differtent thing than a backup in a small studio system. Everybody I know on the more professional forums like PRW asgree - SSDs are great for work disks because they're so damn fast, but don't use them for long term storage (backups) and always back up your work to a spinner. The only form of long term storage that rivals a magnetic hard drive is well cared for 2" tape - as long as your 2" isn't one of the types that had binder problems. Magnetic drives eventually go bad from wear, as they're electrto-mechanical systems. SSD srives go bad from "electronic rot" - there is no mechanical wear factor, which gives them an edge for short term work with many rewrites and erasures.
You're more likely to have long term problems with interface compatibility/obsolescence than with disk failure with a magnetic drive. And if the problem is with the electronics on a spinner it's a simple matter to swap in the driver boards from another drive of the same model - which you can't do with an SSD.
Also, magnetic drives have a much higher probability of being recoverable. With a magnetic drive if you have a real problem you can go in with a utility like Steve Gibson's "Spinrite" and recover stuff that your typical recovery tool (which just gathers data from sectorts marked as "unused" or "unreadable") won't even recognize as data - stuff that's several generations gone. With an SSD you can't do that because once it's gone it's gone - there are no "ghosts" hanging around haunting your platter. Spinrite accesses your disk on the rawest. lowerst level of magnetic domains - way below the level of OS readability. That does not exist with an SSD.
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