A boring post, but it’s what I felt like writing about. You at least get some links to commentary on Walmart (from a Harvard economist no less), and the evils of Sony.
Driving the female readership away… whatever the size of the female readership of this blog, I’m sure this post shall cause their eyes to glaze. And maybe male ones too. I’m sure Sony will enjoy it, and seeing as how he’s pretty knowledgeable on computing, he’d have probably solved my problem in a fraction the time.
So, I’ve got the unenviable task of backing up about 400 GB of data in my home office. I really should just buy a 500 GB drive, and do a copy overnight, but company policy forbids that. (There are actually good reasons; it’s pretty vital at times to have backups that are genuinely ‘frozen in amber’ and that can’t be readily modified).
So off I started, cursing the fact that I’d leant my lovely Plextor drive (the Rolls-Royces of optical drives, IMO) to someone else. Maxell media, NEC drive, here we go.
Oh. 90% failure rate. That’s really, really bad. CRC errors. Never saw that before on DVD’s I’d just burned.
Pull out the old forensic toolset, take a look at the media blocks on the DVD+R’s. Sure enough, after tracking the codes down, they’re semi-fakes. (They may be ‘legal’ fakes, entitled to carry the Maxell name, but they sure weren’t made in Hitachi-Maxell factories).
I got stuck with ‘fakes’. From Best-Buy in New York (and some in Ontario no doubt too). Thank you, Best Buy.
Out I journey in the hinterlands. Where does one acquire nominal archive-grade DVD+R’s at 930 at night? Ah, thank you Sam Walton. Yes, Wal-mart.
I don’t much like the place, though I do actually think there’s pretty sound evidence that they are a company with a rather positive impact for the poor.
Of course, the only choice, other than the now-infamous Maxell is Sony. Sony. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Well, I need the job done. And maybe the spirit of Akio Morita lives on. Maybe. OK, I’m rationalizing, but it’s 9:55, and I’ve got backups to do.
80% failure rate. Better, but still very, very bad. Check the media blocks, and they are real. (or the best fakes ever).
And then it hits me. I’ve been using 8x DVD+R’s for years now. But I just finished off the last of my stock, and bought 16x ‘Maxell’s’ (and now Sony’s).
It’s not the DVD’s. Or at least mostly not. It’s probably the drive. I’ve only ever burned 16x DVD’s with the Plextor, never the NEC.
Sure enough, a quick firmware upgrade later and I’m up-up-and-away.
And I felt dumb. All this time it was the drive.
Then, I tried out the ‘fake’ Maxell’s. 15% failure rate. The Sony’s? 0%.
OK, my approach of suspecting the disks wasn’t so stupid after all. Wrong, but not totally wrong.
And probably serendipitous, since, in a hurry to get the backup done, I’d have just ignored a 15% failure rate and reburned.
So that’s my boring tech story of the week (and probably the month if not the year).
Got any boring tech stories of your own?
But finally, who’d have thought Walmart would be a better place to buy computer paraphernlia than Best Buy? Go figure. (Apologies to non-American readers who’ve never heard of Best Buy; it’s a large US electronics chain.) I think everyone has heard of Walmart, by now. Sadly.
-wolfe