DanZemke

hemsteadc, I think we agree on both counts. Calcium chloride is a salt that consumes moisture and eventually (in a humid environment) morphs into salt water. Salt water is corrosive - not friendly for electronics. Lou's cat litter suggestion specifically said silica gel and warned about calcium chloride. Silica gel is sort of like a sponge. It collects the water until it's saturated, but doesn't turn into a corrosive liquid. Like a sponge, the water needs to be removed before it can collect more water. For sponges, we squeeze the water out. For silica gel, the moisture is usually removed by heating it. I don't know how much the Walmart packets cost, but for me, I suspect building my own equivalents from silica gel cat litter wouldn't be worth my time. Especially since, unlike calcium chloride, silica gel can be conveniently dryed out.

Carlos, Nice rant, but I remain unconvinced. fpmtngal's new approach of keeping her archive drives at her sister's house seems like a good one. Cost effective, good enough and probably more importantly, simple. Some day, maybe we can have a face-to-face conversation. I suspect I would enjoy that. BTW, I'm an IT expert too. Hired on with IBM straight out of grad school and retired from IBM several years ago.

OK, perhaps I'm out of date on cloud storage and access pricing. As a mobile only user (like the OP), where would you suggest I store 3 TB of data that costs less than $350 for two years? On edit: neglect to include the annual safety deposit box cost - corrected.

My impression is that most are, but the silica gel implementations are much more effective than those based on clay. I suspect the confusion here is that Lou was thinking of silica based cat litter and you were not. Here's an example (one of many - the only reason I picked this one, is that it has silica in it's top-level description). https://www.amazon.com/Mattys-Pet-Stop-Clumping-Lavender/dp/B075JQPV1Z/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=pets+cat+litter+silica&qid=1559234228&s=gateway&sr=8-7

I suspect you haven't looked at the cost of actual hard drives recently. So you may have given well-intentioned advice that no longer holds. Or you may have underestimated the quantity of her storage needs. "When I get home I’ve copied the working files to an older 5 bay RAID device, set up with 2 drives mirrored and the 5th drive by itself" It sounds like she needs terabytes of storage, not gigabytes. Let's try a specific example. 3 TB of data, for two years, stored in a safe deposit box. Solo18 says her safe deposit box costs her $75 a year. Let's use $100/yr for this example. A 4 TB drive seems like a reasonable choice to store 3 TB of data. Let's assume fpmtngal wants to store two copies. One in Las Vegas and one at her sister's place. The two 4 TB drives will cost about $150. https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-SATA-3-5-Inch-Desktop-ST4000DM000/dp/B00B99JU4S So for year one, the off-line storage approach would cost her $350. For year two 3 TB of redundant long-term storage would cost her $175 per year. For this use case, do you still think that online-storage is cheaper? On edit: I didn't include the safety deposit box annual cost in the two year example.

Wise decision. The least expensive solution and a way to strengthen bonds. 🙂

Howdy Dave, It sounds like you already know what to do. Opioids can be a real blessing, for a short period of time. My intension was not to lecture, but to suggest that shorter use is better than longer. More importantly - best wishes that all goes well. Dan

"Nasty crap." Henry, I was in the hospital for 2 months after a motorcycle accident and got addicted to a morphine derivative (Demerol). I vaguely remember I wasn't able to cope with small irritations. A pull-up bar on a chain for a guy across from me was swaying and I couldn't stand it. Apparently, I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. And I vividly remember a doctor asking me if I enjoyed the needle. It took a second for me to understand that he was asking how addicted I was. Fortunately, I didn't have any positive association with the needle. He suggested tapering off with an oral version. I instantly, and angrily replied - Keep That Shit Away From Me. It wasn't some kind of moral outrage on my part. I was terrified at how the drug had affected me. After a few day, I was OK. Yes, Nasty.

fpmtngal, I agree with Mark and Jack that backing up some data to a remote server (cloud storage) decreases the risk of loss, is convenient, and can be a wise tool to include in your backup approach. And I agree with you, that for mobile photographers, syncing terabytes of raw images to cloud storage is not an effective solution for most. I did try CrashPlan for a few months, but decided it wasn't worth the hassle for me. At the time (on a 1 Mbs DSL Link) it would have taken me weeks to complete the sync. I'm an Adobe beta tester, but stopped actively participating in discussions on their forum about two years ago, when it became obvious, that their intent was to move to a cloud-only model for Lightroom. IMO, mobile DSLR RAW shooters and cloud storage are not a good marriage. Lou's suggestion is a good one. I'd like to add that the desicants need to be periodically dried out or they will become ineffective. How will you know when they need drying out? The most common approach is to buy beads infused with a dye. The most common dyes indicate that they are still working by their color. There are two dominant types: Blue and Orange. Both turn clear when they are saturated with moisture. My understanding is that the blue dye is poisenous, but it also appears to be the most popular indicator. I don't lick my disk drives, or lenses, so that wasn't something I was concerned about 🙂 My primary motivation wasn't disk storage. Mine was that I noticed fungus growing on an interior element of a very old Canon 300mm F4 L lens I own. I ended up buying something that is more durable and convenient. Yes, it costs more, and the additional up-front cost won't be worth it for many. That said, I bought 3 Ruggard PDC24-BB boxes and am very satisfied with them. I have no connection with B&H (except as a customer) or Ruggard. I'm just providing an opinion about a product I'm very pleased with. Well-sealed, strong, and with a very convenient gel bead recycler. Here is the review I posted October of last year: "Best Dry Box without the need for continuous power I've used two of these for a couple months and have ordered a 3rd. I first experimented with an air-tight tub for half the price of this one and bulk desiccant placed in an old vitamin bottle with holes drilled in it. The inexpensive tub hinges were a molded part of the base tub. Inferior design for long-life because after many open-closes, the hinge part fails. And having to refresh the desiccant by pouring it out into a baking sheet for the oven, baking it, and returning it to the bottle is cumbersome. The cartridge with an integrated heater, that just needs to be plugged into a wall socket for 3 hours is much more convenient. Also, as you may know, the desiccant doesn't wear out. There isn't a number of recycles limitation. Yeah, the heating coil or it's connections may eventually fail, but that's a low probability potential failure for 1000 recycles. And it's much more convenient to just plug the cartridge into a wall socket than deal with a home brew solution using an oven. But these are for storage, not shipping containers." Here's the link to reviews on the box/gel-cartridge (including mine): https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1377861-REG/ruggard_pdc24_bbs_portable_dry_case_24.html/reviews Dan

Hi, I have some of your concerns too. I'll finally be hitting the road (full-time) this year, but will have fewer space constraints (40 ft 5th wheel). Photography is also a hobby of mine, and I too, have thought a lot about file storage (Canon CR2 RAW files). I also have ripped music and DVDs that I don't want to lose. I currently use 4 TB drives and will probably migrate to 8TB ones in a year or two. Some observations/opinions: The cost of storage continues to decline, and probably still will over the next decade. Best practice is to store copies in at least three locations (e.g. truck, trailer and ?) The real-time redundancy of RAID isn't very useful for folks like us. 100% uptime isn't a big priority. But mirroring does automate a type of backup, which can be convenient. How to know if a file has been damaged (e.g. bit rot) or mistakenly deleted? I've chosen to hash all of my photos and periodically (once a quarter) check that they are still valid. Unfortunately, the utility I use (CORS Checksum), is only available for Windows. I assume/suspect there is something available for Mac's. Assuming some of your drives are 1 TB or less - replace them. For archive storage, the larger 3.5" drives (which usually require a power source separate from you computer) are almost always a better choice. At higher capacities, they tend to be less expensive per unit of storage and more reliable. If by "swamp cooler", you mean an evaporative cooler for low humidity environments, I don't think that's a good idea for electronics. Better to constrain your backup activities to cooler mornings where heat, for a reasonably vented enclosure should not be a problem. I chose to give up my printer many years ago. I print a PDF to a USB stick and take it to my library, Staples, Office Depot ... But I only tend to have an actual need to print a dozen pages a year on average. So this wouldn't work for folks with frequent printing needs. Best wishes

docj, I also have a Verizon 8800 that occasionally stops providing data too. My symptoms appear to be like yours. No data provided to any connected device, but connection maintained with multiple devices. Rebooting the 8800 fixes it. I use my 8800 every day, and in my case, the failure to provide data is not correlated with my billing cycle. Alas, I have not been able to perceive a pattern. It smells to me like a code bug, rather than a hardware problem. Unfortunately, one that will be difficult to track down. I've resigned myself to accept required reboots a few times a month as a minor annoyance.

That was about how long it took me too. I also purchased their new hotspot (8800L) and had them activate it along with the new prepaid unlimited plan. BTW, the new hotspot looks very similar to the 7730L except it has a light gray case instead of a black one. It's also slightly larger and has a much cleaner design. The only external ports are the USB C port and the 2 antenna ports. Minor difference is that the caps for the antenna ports pop-off rather than having a slender thread of plastic retaining them. The antenna ports are of the same type as the 7730L and the batteries are identical (same part number). I verified that my new 8800L works, but haven't taken the time to configure it or play with it yet. I'm hopeful that I can tether it to my Synology router.

I can't and I am (no longer) a "My Dakota Address" customer. I'm not "unhappy about the complete lack of answers". It is what it is. Terry and her company is out of business. Digging for tawdry details isn't likely to do me, or anyone else any tangible good. I have not seen any indication of intent to rip-off customers. I spoke with Terry yesterday and my only regret is that I did not convey my sympathy, for what is probably a VERY difficult challenge for her. I honestly do not care about the details - it's over. I, like everyone else, that was one of Terry's customers, will have to find a way to move forward. It's an unfortunate speed-bump for all, but not cataclysmic for me, and I suspect most others. I'm disappointed the business failed, but sincerely wish Terry well. Dan