Totally deverstated.

[axle01]

About 5 months ago my 27” Mac went on a go slow strike so I took it to my techy and he upgraded the hard drive to a 1T SS hard drive, so all good.

He advised to upgrade the backup hard drive to the same so I replaced the 500gig to a 1T SS hard drive, so all good again.

2 weeks ago it went on a complete walkout strike, to cut a long story short the internal 1T SS hard drive and the backup 1T SS hard drive has been wiped clean meaning I have lost everything.

Every photo I have taken since the start of the digital age, my kids, my grand kids, all my timelapses, waterdrop photos,,,,,,you get the idea,,,,,,approximately 180000 photos.

Unfortunately I dumped the original hard drive that was replaced 5 months ago thinking I wouldn’t need it.

To make things worse I never won the 40million lotto last night, I was counting on to get me out of dept.

Al

[ameerat42]

(I moved your thread.)

1. That'd leave a bad taste, for sure!
2. Don't touch anything - ie, write to either drive in any way (deletion = a write).
3. For less than you didn't win at Lotto, take drives to a data recovery place to
determine if there is anything left that they can recover.

4. [Consider this not said.] NEVVA chuck out a drive if it's still useable and you haven't
backed up the data. - Copying it to the new drive only is not backing up.[/Consider this not said.]

- - - Updated - - -

5. Let's hope the likes of AK, JK can shed more light...

- - - Updated - - -

6. https://www.google.com/search?client...ices+townsvill

[Mary Anne]

So sorry to read this Al I feel for you I also lost a lot of images 5 years ago, never again did I store my precious memories on my computer.
They are removed to three external HDDs every week. I often wonder if the Cloud is more safer.
Do hope some of our clever Members can help you here.

[axle01]

I

(I moved your thread.)

1. That'd leave a bad taste, for sure!
2. Don't touch anything - ie, write to either drive in any way (deletion = a write).
3. For less than you didn't win at Lotto, take drives to a data recovery place to
determine if there is anything left that they can recover.

4. [Consider this not said.] NEVVA chuck out a drive if it's still useable and you haven't
backed up the data. - Copying it to the new drive only is not backing up.[/Consider this not said.]

- - - Updated - - -

5. Let's hope the likes of AK, JK can shed more light...

- - - Updated - - -

6. https://www.google.com/search?client...ices+townsvill

Thanks mate I’m going out to see the techy this arve to see what can be done.

Al

[Glenda]

Damn that's terrible and I can only imagine the loss you are feeling.

Were you using time machine with your iMac? Apparently it automatically backs up files from the computer. I must admit I don't but I do have two external hard drive back ups for important photos.

[axle01]

Damn that's terrible and I can only imagine the loss you are feeling.

Were you using time machine with your iMac?

First thank you and I’m sure yes but hopefully I will get answers this arvo.

Al

[Gazza]

Bugger!

[axle01]

Bugger!

Yeah I was counting on that 40mill.

Al

[Geoff79]

Very unfortunate and a horror to even contemplate. Good luck in your recovery operation!!

[axle01]

Very unfortunate and a horror to even contemplate. Good luck in your recovery operation!!

Thanks mate.

Al

[Brigitte]

fingers crossed for you that something can be rescued.

[Saph]

That sucks also i hope your techie is good and can use recovery software right also you only ever need the ssd for your main drive for the o.s and main programs (internet, editing software.) you can use mechanical's for the second drive because a ssd will wear out faster then a mechanical drive due to the nature of how they are built (ssd's are just a bunch of chips on a board and a mechanical is a set of disks that spin with a read head that goes over the top.) also thats a bit of cash for 2 drives when you can get a 4tb nas drive for the same as a 1tb ssd.

I can vouch for hard drives over ssd's because ive had one running 24/7 for nearly 5 years now or 1745 days and 22 hours without failure.

[John King]

I'll get back with some thoughts on this. Just out of hospital after a couple of day procedures.

Al, I sincerely hope that your online backup was working. Any news on this?

[arthurking83]

Firstly, I don't know nuth'n about macs and how they work(internally) .. but the likelyhood that both SSDs have lost their data is about the same as getting struck by a gamma ray burst!(
That's pretty a much an infinitesimally small possibility BTW! .. close enough to zero to not make much difference.

Although as said, I dunno how Macs work, but if a HDD dies or goes down, it doesnt' take another with it.
And the chance that the (new)drives both went down at the same time ... see the gamma ray strike above!

Most likely what's happened is that the interface on the motherboard for the drives has been corrupted in some way.
For both drives to go down, dunno of that means the SATA system has been corrupted, or what.
But most likely the drives themselves, or the data on them should be fine.

If Mac has crashed in some way, and taken down the data on the drives ... forget the drives ... get rid of Mac!

As an aside, you should never backup data onto the same device as the data resides on.
ie. instead of a second SSD, should have had an external storage system of some type. Most likely being a run of the mill external drive(I no longer trust them fully!) .. and better a cheap NAS device.
Only issue with cheap NAS is their transfer speeds .. not quite fast. In fact very much slow!
But this isn't a real issue other than when the time comes to do full backups, or full restoration of the data, and that total data equates to close to a terabyte of it.
Their slow speeds for the usual backup purposes isn't normally noticed.

On the comment of HDD over SSD durability .. SSDs win every time.
One: I won't ever trust Seagate HDDs ever again. I have 4, all dead. That's a 100% failure rate 3 in the last 3-4 years. In terms of reliability see Western Digital.
Other than the one WD drive out of my sons laptop, zero failures. I think at last count I have about 12 of them. Quite a few from maybe 10-15years ago(250 Gb, maybe a 750Gb, some 1 Tb models I think .. can't really remember)
They all have old data on them, and are simply too slow now to reuse. But if something still works, it's hard to get rid of it.
The laptop HDD was mashed. Son reckons he didn't hit the laptop, but I know he did. And had he not hit it, it'd still be working.
Of my modern WDs, 4 4tbs in my QNAP NAS box, 5 in and around my PC(desktop) internal and externals, 1-4Tb drives.
None have failed and all get used more than any other drives. Samsung no longer makes HDDs, but they're good too .. I have two

SSDs. I have about 5 or so all told. Two on my desktop, one in my PC tablet, one (now) in my son's laptop. Usually Samsung(fast and cheap), I think one Kingston. (so make that 4 not 5)
Never a problem. The Kingston is probably my most used storage device. It has chewed/cycled/stored/restored/deleted more data than, than most of my other HDDs have.
I use it for cache, and for storing my current years photos. Every year, I store my images on there, then early in the next year, they get stored onto the NAS and various drives on my PC(that's why so many).
SO this Kingston has probably cycled through at least 3Tb of data in the time I've had it running in my PC. I do check it every now and then, never a problem with it.

I've recently had some issues with USB connection to my external drive(a WD HDD), so I've now removed it as an ext drive and placed it in the PC box instead.
It's purpose is not 'backup' just quick access as I go back through my images and add more keyword data, or maybe re edit.

A few years ago, my sister received a ransomware attack. Kind'a like a virus, but not a virus, it was an attack in the sense that all her files got encrypted. And to decrypt them, the bad guys(keeping the language family friendly here!) .. they demanded money to decrypt them.
File types were basically all that you could imagine. pdfs, docs, jpgs, most raw file types .. etc.
So if you ever receive a ransomware attack .. you'd better be prepared. Basically it's worse than losing data because the data is still there .. you just can't get it.

NAS was my solution. remote location(ie. off the computer) and one of the storage devices is not accessible by the PC. If the computer can't see it, then no one can .. hence the ransomware can't either. That is, it's always there, but basically invisible. Can only access it via the NAS login interface.

Reason I moved the ext drive to an internal drive was the device itself(the actual ext box) was playing up a little. Will sort that, but not imperative for now.
The point above is that if you want safe data, you need the data to be remote. That doesnt' mean in another location, it simply means off the computer that you usually access it from.
Even an external drive is better than both storage systems being on the computer. Computer doesn't matter if it's a PC or Mac or a Linux setup .. just that if you want true safety for it, the backup needs to be 'remote'.
So for example, the backup data on an external HDD needs to be switched off more often than not, and only powered up and connected when required(ie. read/write cycles) .. not just on all the time.

And I strongly recommend(or actually URGE) folks not to rely on auto backup systems.
I did that once and paid a small penalty for it, and lost about 20 or so raw files due to corruption.
Normally I do backups as often as I can, without thinking about it .. just like everyone does, but the important yearly photo backup routine is an arduous one(for me).
Firstly I check that every image and file isn't corrupted, then back it up to the NAS drive that I can access via the computer.
Only after I find that this one is OK, not corrupted, do I then backup the accessible one on the NAS to the other one that the PC can't see.

It all sounds complicated, but in reality it's not! it's very simple for non tech people to achieve. Two simple, easily accessible software to do it. Freesync and Chrome. That's it.
Reason for so many hard drives and backups is simple. I started with the typical hard drive in the computer. Wasn't enough so got larger hard drives.
I then got to the stage where I had spare HDDs, so used them for other purposes .. they became external HDDs. and so on and so forth.
But if you want proper safe data storage(and for me this means my old business accounting and receipts and stuff for the next few years too) .. you need remotely accessible storage .. even cloud storage if you require it.
But cloud storage for me was a totally impossible option. 1Tb upload would take a few years to achieve. Hence, NAS was the best way to go. I get a good 60-70Mb/s access to it, and it's like cloud .. and no one can access it for their own purposes.
Like Google or M$ or Apple allowing themselves the option to sell your images for their profit .. and whatnot!

You can get half decent NAS boxes for cheap(say $150 for a nice two bay version) a single drive NAS box is a waste I think too .. I recommend anyone not too .. two bay as a minimum.
After no 1 NAS, I finally settled on No2 NAS .. my QNAP. Only got this model due to it's multimedia capabilities too tho .. cheaper models exist.
Whack in a couple of WD Red HDDs, and you should never ever lose any data .. ever! If you do, it's due to leaving it all to itself to do automagically .. always better to do things manually.

Sorry for the long post .. lets say "been there, done that" syndrome.

SUMMARY:

1/. I'm 99.9% sure you haven't lost any data.
2/. get rid of the Mac get a properly built PC(ie. not a Dell/HP/Acer/etc .. get a good quality shop/service to build you one.
3/. get a cheap NAS box for properly secure storage if you value the safety of your data. A 2 bay plus two 4Tb WD Red drives will last you a good few years without issue.

[axle01]

Thanks Saph, John & Arthur, I waiting for him to ring, I’ve given him the original 500gig back up hard drive hoping he can restore something off that then I’ll look for someone else to have a look at it.

Al

[Oakley]

Sorry to hear that Al and not into the tech thing but I'm sure in this day and age they will find your photo's so let us know and heres hoping for you ......

ps. I think you have more chance of getting your data back than winning the lotto

[Bensch]

Wow, really sorry to hear, hopefully the data can be recovered.

Not that it helps for the lost photos, but what I normally do is use Google Photos to keep a copy of all mine.

I upload a jpg copy of all photos to there, and if my hard drive (and backup) ever goes kablooie at least I will have a jpg backup of those memories.

If you select high quality (as opposed to full size) they offer unlimited photo storage.

** standard disclaimer, not affiliated with Google, etc. just personally use them.

[jamesmartin]

All I can say is that really sucks!!!! Hope you can get them back

[axle01]

Get my computer back on Monday, he says he has recovered most,,,,,,we’ll see what that means on Monday and the cost?????????

Al

[ameerat42]

Ye$. And see here: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...age-amp-backup