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Author Topic: AMD or Intel  (Read 23695 times)

danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #30 on: May 05, 2006, 06:04:04 PM »

PookyNMR wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 19:55

danlavry wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 12:22

I would really like to have a couple of extra hard drives or even a couple of computer that will have a "mirror picture" of the hard drives I use, so that I can just "pick up and go" when the hard drive breaks down. I would be willing to "re match" the extra drives to the working drives as often as once a week.
I have not yet figured out how to do it. It would think there must be an easy way to do it.  


On the Mac there is an application that will make a working 'clone' of your hard drive, Carbon Copy Cloner.  On the PC, if I'm not mistaken, Norton's 'Ghost' will do the same thing.

I use CCC to clone my hard drives to protect against failures, thefts, etc.




Thanks,

I'll look into it. I do not need to have a copy for the Mac. It is the PC that I need.
I have nothing against the Mac. It just so happened that the much of the engineering world (certainly in electronics) has much more software written for PC's. There are many engineering things that exist ONLY for a PC.

I will take a look at Ghost. Thanks again.

Regards
Dan Lavry

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crm0922

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #31 on: May 05, 2006, 06:55:05 PM »

danlavry wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 14:22



About 16 years ago I was hit with a virus. By the time it "showed itself up", all the backups of the last few month were also contaminated. That is when I learned that backups are not always the cure all as many people think.

But of course we back up a lot. Not just for viruses, but also because hard drives "go away". It is always very time consuming to install the software, the backup data....

I would really like to have a couple of extra hard drives or even a couple of computer that will have a "mirror picture" of the hard drives I use, so that I can just "pick up and go" when the hard drive breaks down. I would be willing to "re match" the extra drives to the working drives as often as once a week.
I have not yet figured out how to do it. It would think there must be an easy way to do it.

Regards
Dan Lavry

 


If you have proper virus protection installed system-wide, there is no way an infected file should be allowed to be backed up.  Unless the virus isn't known by the AV software yet, and that is extraordinarily rare.  The probability of actually getting a virus through a firewall or from a reckless user, and then having it be undetectable is very low.  It is more likely your building will burn down.

However, we do always set up systems that update AV signatures hourly, just in case.

You could mirror drives in XP disk manager itself and physically disconnect the mirror.  Be sure to test-boot both mirrors.

Chris
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danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #32 on: May 08, 2006, 02:44:56 PM »

PookyNMR wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 19:55

danlavry wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 12:22

I would really like to have a couple of extra hard drives or even a couple of computer that will have a "mirror picture" of the hard drives I use, so that I can just "pick up and go" when the hard drive breaks down. I would be willing to "re match" the extra drives to the working drives as often as once a week.
I have not yet figured out how to do it. It would think there must be an easy way to do it.  


On the Mac there is an application that will make a working 'clone' of your hard drive, Carbon Copy Cloner.  On the PC, if I'm not mistaken, Norton's 'Ghost' will do the same thing.

I use CCC to clone my hard drives to protect against failures, thefts, etc.




I looked it up and it is probably worth the price.
But the description says: you can duplicate a drive if on the same machine, but can not do so between separate machines.

I also saw a competing software "True Image". I suspect it has the same limitation.

They let you copy files and directories from one machine to the other, which is something I was doing 20 years ago with DOS, before Windows. But they do not seem to recommend copying the applications.

Well, it is somewhat understandable, with all those dll's, registration codes, NIC id's and what not... But that would be of value (at least to me) to be able to just keep going on a second machine. I understand that there may be some software registration issues.

The question is: how bullet proof is a duplicate on the same machine?

I assume that a separate duplicate hard drive is much safer then duplicating on the same drive. If one hard drive breaks down completely, chances are that the other separate drive will still work.

But I can see some cases (though rare) where both drive can be gone, such as a major power supply failure, stolen machine...

I guess the technology is there to transfer files and a bunch of data very fast. It is more sophisticated then it was (it knows what is "new data", it is faster then in the past...)
But having a second machine ready and perfectly compatible is not a push button solution yet, one needs to install the applications as if it were first time installation...  

I would be happier to have everything ready to go, minus the software licenses, to be activated when you need to change machines.

Regards
Dan Lavry
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danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #33 on: May 08, 2006, 02:57:55 PM »

crm0922 wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 23:55

danlavry wrote on Fri, 05 May 2006 14:22



About 16 years ago I was hit with a virus. By the time it "showed itself up", all the backups of the last few month were also contaminated. That is when I learned that backups are not always the cure all as many people think.

Regards
Dan Lavry
 


If you have proper virus protection installed system-wide, there is no way an infected file should be allowed to be backed up.  Unless the virus isn't known by the AV software yet, and that is extraordinarily rare.  
Chris


Hi Chris,

I do have Norton on all the machines. Yes, I assume that I am protected from the known viruses. It may be that being infected by a new virus is extremely rare, but I am not ready to take a chance. That virus I received 16 years ago was not known at the time. We sent it to both Mcafee and Norton, and it took them some time to understand it. I am sure the AV are much improved, but I receive some updates for new viruses, almost weekly.

I sure hope you are right about the virus safety level. I am still nervous about it. It was not long ago when someone hijacked my home page, and the solution did not come from my AV software.It was not too long ago when Sony installed that software that opened the door to a bunch of hackers.

Regards
Dan Lavry
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Yannick Willox

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #34 on: May 08, 2006, 04:40:43 PM »

This is not based on widely accepted info, but from personal experience.

Norton AV does NOT protect your PC from virusses.
Weekly updates are not OK.

www.grisoft.com
AVG anti-virus will give you daily updates and catches most spyware as well.

Norton is a joke, it bogs down the system and does not protect. I had 1 virus in 5 years, and Norton did not stop it. It did not recognize it even when I already new it to be a virus, and had identified the file myself.

Installing AVG resolved the problem within minutes. It instals/downloads about 25x quicker (!) than Norton AV, uses less CPU, boots quicker, uses less RAM - do I need to go on ?

Combine this with a decent (hardware) firewall (Any good router already has proper firewalls installed) and some backing up (on removable drives) and you should be 100% safe.
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crm0922

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #35 on: May 09, 2006, 03:21:29 AM »

I don't think AVG is free for commercial use.  And the update system is a little bass-ackwards.  In fact, the whole GUI is a little weird.

For network-wide protection, Trend Officescan is the best.  Trust me, I've been doing IT stuff professionally for almost 10 years.

It will update all clients on a network automatically, and it is totally transparent to the users.  It will protect your email and all that jazz too.

You must update hourly to be safest.

Norton is a raging piece of sh**.

Dan:

My suggestion was to set up engineering PC's with network interfaces *disabled*, and enable only when downloads are required.  Disable interface upon completion.  You could run a scan before and after if you wish.

I would turn off the AV protection while the PC is network-disabled for improved performance and script auto-start and scan weekly, and always start AV before network is enabled.  I would probably script startup of NIC and AV with a desktop shortcut or something.

Your home page was hosted off site, yes?  Why would that have anything to do with your local virus protection or Sony?  I'm confused.

It was probably a UNIX server that was compromised, and not by a virus, but by someone actively hacking it out.

Chris  

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kraster

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #36 on: May 09, 2006, 09:55:40 AM »

I use Avira Antivir. It too is free. It updates itself automatically and you can set it to update as frequently or infrequently as you like.

I also use the Zone Alarm Firewall. It has a handy "Stop all internet Activity" option on the taskbar icon. It allows you to shut down any incoming and outgoing internet traffic. I haven't had a Virus ever since I installed these.

I know this may not protect the entire network but for standalone machines it's a handy transparent solution.

My .02 cents
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danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #37 on: May 09, 2006, 01:03:17 PM »

crm0922 wrote on Tue, 09 May 2006 08:21


...Dan:
My suggestion was to set up engineering PC's with network interfaces *disabled*, and enable only when downloads are required.  Disable interface upon completion.  You could run a scan before and after if you wish.

I would turn off the AV protection while the PC is network-disabled for improved performance and script auto-start and scan weekly, and always start AV before network is enabled.  I would probably script startup of NIC and AV with a desktop shortcut or something.

Your home page was hosted off site, yes?  Why would that have anything to do with your local virus protection or Sony?  I'm confused.

It was probably a UNIX server that was compromised, and not by a virus, but by someone actively hacking it out.

Chris  



Disabling the NIC is a good idea. For the most part, when possible, I have been updating application software by requesting it in CD form from the software vendor, and scanning the CD for viruses.

The home page was off site a couple of times, we are changing servers. But I did have the forum hacked, and we are now paying much more attention to staying current with the forum software updates. No one knows how it was hacked, I know that a lot of forums with that unix software were hacked.

I am sorry to hear your "rating" of Norton, because we have bought it for about 10 machines. What do you like? Mcafee?

Regards
Dan Lavry  
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PookyNMR

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #38 on: May 09, 2006, 01:32:00 PM »

danlavry wrote on Mon, 08 May 2006 12:44


The question is: how bullet proof is a duplicate on the same machine?

I assume that a separate duplicate hard drive is much safer then duplicating on the same drive. If one hard drive breaks down completely, chances are that the other separate drive will still work.

But I can see some cases (though rare) where both drive can be gone, such as a major power supply failure, stolen machine...

I guess the technology is there to transfer files and a bunch of data very fast. It is more sophisticated then it was (it knows what is "new data", it is faster then in the past...)
But having a second machine ready and perfectly compatible is not a push button solution yet, one needs to install the applications as if it were first time installation...  



Hi Dan,

That's too bad that there is not as complete of a solution on the PC.  With CCC, I can make an exact clone of my hard drive and use it any where.  I can easily boot up a clone of my G4 tower on my G3 laptop.  Everything is perfect and exact, including software authorizations.  (Obviously some device drivers would need to be installed if the machines had many different peripherals attached.)

While my experience with Ghost on the PC is limited to a single backup that we restored (we're primarily Mac here), it has seemed to work well.  I know some others who swear by it, but I don't have enough personal experience to give it a full endorsement.  

I would definitely put the Ghosted partition on another drive in case of physical failure.  I would even suggest using some sort of portable / removable drive for the mission critical stuff and storing it in a separate location.  Using 2 BK drives you can always have one backup in another location while the other BK is with you and just keep rotating them.

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Nathan Rousu

danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #39 on: May 09, 2006, 05:32:23 PM »

PookyNMR wrote on Tue, 09 May 2006 18:32

danlavry wrote on Mon, 08 May 2006 12:44


The question is..


Hi Dan,

That's too bad that there is not as complete of a solution on the PC.  With CCC, I can make an exact clone of my hard drive and use it any where.  I can easily boot up a clone of my G4 tower on my G3 laptop.  Everything is perfect and exact, including software authorizations.  (Obviously some device drivers would need to be installed if the machines had many different peripherals attached.)



I just got off the phone with Acronics tech support. The software is "True Image", and the tech pointed me to the corporate version 9.1 universal work station with a universal restore.

The idea for backing up my laptop is to have an external drive (connection such as USB 2.0), and send a "complete image" there.
Say I do it once a week. So one day my hard drive crashes, and I replace it with a new one. Then I restore everything, including the applications, operating system and so on...

That is ok because the computer is the same machine, thus no confusion such as "where is the video, where is the IO port....".  The problem in moving applications from one machine to another is just that, the hardware configuration is different, but that recovery software should overcome the issues because the machine stays, except for the hard drive.

So is it worth it? It may be, because the one thing that breaks down with use is a drive. Of course, if anything else goes, it will take time to repair or replace.

So what is the HD precentage failure, compare to all the failures? I would think it is high.

Regards
Dan Lavry
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crm0922

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #40 on: May 10, 2006, 09:26:01 AM »

Hard disk and PSU fail most often in a PC.  Laptops can be more varied in their failures.  The screens have been known to be temperamental.

Trend OfficeScan is the best AV software for a network, IMNTLBFHO.

I believe the coporate version of Norton Ghost supports imaging the entire drive onto another network drive automatically.  At one time I think it could reboot onto a small DOS-clone partition and blast that onto a network share somewhere.

Norton Ghost is *not* a piece of sh**.  True Image may be well better, I have heard of it.  I have never used it, though.

Why not just buy a second laptop drive, use Ghost (or something like that) to make a baseline image it from your original drive?

Both would have to be installed in a desktop machine (adapter required, it's cheap).

Then use NTBACKUP (built in XP) incrementally onto your external USB 2.0?

You could install the spare drive, and recover NTBACKUP file over top of changed files on the system in an emergency.

BootItNG is a free disk image package, although it probably costs something for commercial use (if you use it for all PC's).  You could probably use it for the initial duplication.

Chris
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PookyNMR

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #41 on: May 10, 2006, 12:14:49 PM »

danlavry wrote on Tue, 09 May 2006 15:32

So is it worth it? It may be, because the one thing that breaks down with use is a drive. Of course, if anything else goes, it will take time to repair or replace.

So what is the HD precentage failure, compare to all the failures? I would think it is high.



I think it is worth it.  Your time is valuable and these utilities have the potential to save you a lot of time should an HDD failure, data loss, etc occur.  

I agree with you that the ratio of hardware failures seem to lean heavy toward the HDD side.  I'm sure everyone here has had at least one HDD fail.  I agree with Chris that laptops can be prone to screen failure.  But replacing a screen (provided the manufacturer uses the same scrren) should not be a problem at all.

Currently I have yet to find a better / faster / easier and more convenient backup method than the 'drive cloning' that can be done with applications like Ghost or CCC (mac).

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Nathan Rousu

danlavry

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #42 on: May 11, 2006, 04:07:13 PM »

crm0922 wrote on Wed, 10 May 2006 14:26

Hard disk and PSU fail most often in a PC....  
...Why not just buy a second laptop drive, use Ghost (or something like that) to make a baseline image it from your original drive?

Chris


"Trend OfficeScan is the best AV software for a network, IMNTLBFHO."

Thanks for the recomandation. What is "IMNTLBFHO"?

"Why not just buy a second laptop drive, use Ghost (or something like that) to make a baseline image it from your original drive?
Both would have to be installed in a desktop machine (adapter required, it's cheap)."


I was looking for the simplest solution. Removing my laptop drive? It almost sounds like I should buy another laptop and install all my applications, then move the data. I guess there is no "one push button" solution Sad

Regards
Dan Lavry  


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crm0922

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #43 on: May 11, 2006, 11:57:45 PM »

danlavry wrote on Thu, 11 May 2006 16:07


"Trend OfficeScan is the best AV software for a network, IMNTLBFHO."

Thanks for the recomandation. What is "IMNTLBFHO"?



It is basically a Fletcher-ism that involves cursing. Wink Suffice it to say, the intended meaning is "In My Not-So-Humble Opinion", a joke on "IMHO" that people have been abbreviating "In My Humble Opinion" with for years.

Quote:


I was looking for the simplest solution. Removing my laptop drive? It almost sounds like I should buy another laptop and install all my applications, then move the data. I guess there is no "one push button" solution Sad

Regards
Dan Lavry  



There is no push-button solution.  However, most modern laptops can have the drive removed by removing something like 1 small screw and sliding out a drive bay.

See what Norton Ghost can do, some versions were pretty automatic, but their support of USB 2.0 and/or firewire might be suspect.

Chris
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chris haines

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Re: AMD or Intel
« Reply #44 on: May 19, 2006, 08:08:30 AM »

Peter wrote on Thu, 13 April 2006 15:13

 Though steinberg stuff doesn't work with Hyperthreading.





Cubase definitely runs better on my machine (3.2P4) with much more CPU capacity when HT is engaged...My UAD-1 card, however, chokes, crashes, acts funny, kills my Cubase session, etc...depending on its mood.  UA said i need to disable HT to use their card reliably.

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