Problems with backup to USB for B2 2T

[David Mednicoff]

Hi, all

I have owned a B2 since October, and have been rather busy backing up my CD collection. As of now, I have ripped just over 3000 CD’s to the B2, and compressed everything, only using up about 820 GB of my 2 TB so far. This is great, and a real upgrade to my home listening life.

However, USB C backup has been pretty inconsistent. As far as I can tell, progressive backup hasn’t worked at all. The USB I used to back up my first 1400 CD’s did an initial backup fine, was recognized by the B2 as a USB drive when I remounted it, but did not seem to add any new tracks when I tried backing it up again when the B2 had 2000 CD’s. 

So I got a second USB C drive. That one also, once formatted, did a full backup fine (albeit over a long period of time). But I tried to remount it today to do a progressive backup of the recent 800 or so CD’s I ripped since the backup, and nothing seemed to happen. 

So I deleted the backup from the first USB and tried to start a brand-new backup on that drive. It started backing up, but stopped several minutes later. I’ve run Scan Disk to make sure the index is ok (indeed; I have to say, I have had to run Scan Disk pretty often because of some glitches in the database). 

Is there anything I can do to make progressive USB backup updates work? Do other people have this issue with USB backups? I am using small 2TB USB thumb drives, but I guess I can spring for a more posh USB drive if that’s the only think likely to improve the situation.

More generally, is there an easy way to check what is actually on the USB backup?

Thanks!

David

(Prof. David Mednicoff; Amherst, MA USA)

[Jeff. M.]

Are you using a USB stick? if so I would check if it is genuine or not! Click on fake usb in the search box on here, If not, can you give more details on your back up drives, I'm sure someone can help.

[Daniel Taylor]

One really easy way to tell if your 2TB USB stick is fake is how much did it cost.  To squeeze 2TB down onto a USB stick is still really expensive.  It's much more cost effective to get a physically larger USB drive (which is still portable).  I'm not sure exactly where the cut-off would be, but if you paid less than $100, I would suspect it's a fake.  OTOH, you CAN buy a full sized 2TB drive for under $100.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi David,

Further to Jeff's and Daniel's comments, I agree with them that the 2TB USB sticks are probably fake.  I have not yet found a 2TB stick that is genuine and you have described the symptoms of fake devices which are primarily missing data, slow backup rates, unexpected terminations and unpredictable performance.

For 2TB backup devices I only use hard disk drives (HDDs) and having done probably around 150 full Exports without problems, I can say that the B2 'Export' function is very robust and reliable provided the USB device is good.

I have plugged your figures into my 'Estimator Spreadsheet' and have made the following observations.

1.  Your disk usage of 820GB for 3000 albums using 'flac' compression looks good.

2.  A full clean 'Export' backup for 820GB should take about 29 hours if the USB device is a good one.

If you have a Windows PC (not Mac) you can test the USB devices by going to the forum link below and following the instructions there.

https://groups.google.com/g/brennanb2/c/1BakkcoHSQQ/m/sXqO8ZJkBgAJ

Let us know how you get on.

Regards,

Peter.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi David,,

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for you to make a reliable Export (backup) of your B2 as soon as possible, your B2's music

holdings represent hours and hours of work!

Forget the USB thumb or stick drives they are most certainly fake! Go and get your money back on them later!

Tomorrow, go out and get yourself a USB connected Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD), top be your backup device - more than one would be better, with the second kept away from your house.

The HDD is probably the better value but SSDs consume less power and have no moving psrts.

Fred

[David Mednicoff]

Thanks to all of you for the quick and very timely help. It does sound as if I need to invest in a more costly, reliable backup drive. 

The tricky part is that each of these thumb drives seemed to do a full backup after 1000 and 2000 CD's, respectively (I could see this from the time it took and the display of the track exports). It's just been trying to update the backup that hasn't worked. Still, both of these thumb drives were inexpensive, and perhaps smaller capacity than claimed (which I imagine could cause a backup failure).

I may try Peter's advice before buying the new drive. In any case, I completely appreciate Fred's point that, with all the hours I've invested into ripping CD's (not to mention renaming most of the classical ones to conform to a common standard, and having to input a lot of tracks myself), a good backup seems essential.

By the way, does the USB database get updated. I've downloaded the second database and updated my B2 software, but an updated database would be nice, since I am ripping my CD's directly (about 1000 or so to go).

Nice to connect to others using the B2.

Thanks again.

David

[Ray Dion]

I just had the same problem with 'fake USBs'. My data is about 800 CDs. I am in the process of still adding more CDs. My experience was two different (but same model) USB sticks and they failed differently but definitely failed. I have since bought a USB 2 TB drive. As soon as all the FLAC files are steady I will roll the backup. 

I have also started to use robocopy to do backups via the network. I did a wired connection and it improved the speed of the NAS connection. I like the idea of two backups but also backups done in a different manner. I use a different USB drive (FAT32) to hold that backup.

I would also recommend you get a clean backup ASAP. Even before you add more CDs. Keep track of CDs imported since the last backup so if bad things happen, you can restore and add back more easily. Best to keep backups current. If you use robocopy (assuming a windows desktop) you can automate it. If nothing changes, robocopy should just leave it all alone. The purist will also say off site backup.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi David,

Please not that if your USB thumb drive is fake, the ways it can fail are many and unpredictable. The normal method of faking is to take a small capacity drive and then doctor the firmware in it to make it report that it is much larger than it is. This fake is undetectable by normal software on mounting the drive and your PC/B2 etc will think it is writing to it OK, except that once it fills the actual space available your data just disappears. When you next come to write to it your PC/B2 software may look at the drive and try and read its contents (so that it knows what to append) and it may try this forever!! that is why updating the backup is failing. 

The only way to actually know how big the drive actually is is to use the "tool" referred to in the Forum by Peter above.

The "computer gremlin laws" mandate that if something can go wrong with your work/database etc. they will go wrong when they will cause the greatest inconvenience! PLEASE make a good backup to something reliable as soon as you can!!

As for your statement

By the way, does the USB database get updated. I've downloaded the second database and updated my B2 software, but an updated database would be nice, since I am ripping my CD's directly (about 1000 or so to go).

I am not sure what you mean by "USB database" if you mean the one here

Then this is "frozen" the CDDB was sold to apple I believe, 

In another Thread - Mark Fishman wrote this:-

iTunes uses a commercial database from Gracenote (the original "CDDB") because Apple has paid them for a license for every copy of iTunes. Gracenote gets information about CDs from the CD manufacturers, unlike the non-commercial databases that have to rely on users to upload the information. Because Gracenote requires a license fee for each device that accesses its software, small manufacturers like Brennan cannot afford nor manage the licensing process for each B2 or BB1. Apple can afford the fee for a blanket license.

All the other databases online -- MusicBrainz, Discogs, gnudb (successor to freedb, which was created when the original CDDB was purchased by Gracenote and became a commercial product) -- have to wait for users to upload information about their CDs.

When connected to the Internet, you B2 will (as well as scanning the copy of the CDDB) look in the MusicBrainz online CD Database to identify your CD.

I hope this helps

Fred