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SSD's rock so hard

Just upgraded from a 1TB 7200rpm platter to a 1TB SSD. HOLY F'IN MOTHER.

So fast! Finally, I can work at the speed of thought.

Why did I wait so long??

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  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Just got a 256 gig ssd for $90, definitely one of the best upgrades you can get. If anyone doesn't have one yet, get one on sale this holiday season.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    run... run two of them in raid-0...
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    ZacD where did you get that 90$ one ???
  • Isaiah Sherman
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    Isaiah Sherman polycounter lvl 14
    My laptop came with an SSD. It boots up in about 5 seconds. It's amazing. Feels like it takes me longer to type in my password to log in than it does to boot up.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Crucial MX100 often drops to $100, got a $10 off Newegg promo code as well.
  • Eric Chadwick
    I'm doing a lot of architectural rendering these days. I get huge files from clients, which used to load soooo slooooowly. Super quick now. Makes me so happy.
  • Two Listen
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    Two Listen polycount sponsor
    You know I've never really cared for the SSD hype train, I'm a patient person and don't really care if it takes my computer 5 seconds or 5 minutes to boot up. I hardly ever restart my machine anyway.

    ...that being said, if it's not a detriment to my finances, next PC I build may totally have an SSD for the OS and a bit of backup if nothing else, because the more I do the more I start to feel anxious about everything on my PC relying on spinning bits.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    It's more than the boot times. Starting and closing applications is almost instant. Your computer over all just feels more responsive.
  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    My next big purchase will probably be a 1TB SSD as well, so fast O_o
  • Joost
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    Joost polycount sponsor
    Unless you're being bottlenecked by something, an SSD will make by far the biggest difference in performance, especially if you're doing something like 3d art.
    I've already got a 256gb SSD but I might get another one and raid them. I'll have to update the rest of my pc first though :(
  • Marine
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    Marine polycounter lvl 18
    run... run two of them in raid-0...

    two? pff
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs"]Samsung SSD Awesomeness - YouTube[/ame]

    few years old, they only run at ~220mbps, but 24 together for 2gbps
  • WarrenM
    Just throwing in another head nod for SSD drives ... best upgrades ever. Apps start up in seconds and I'm never stalled out by HD access. Loading/saving huge files from Photoshop? What-evs...
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    i have two SSDs in raid 0, but i only use them for my apps and SO. It's a caprice, i like 100% silent pcs.

    What i would like to have is something like this: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-3-2-terabyte-nvme-ssd-based-on-3d-v-nand.html

    I use for data storage pretty fast HDDs with more than 180mb/s | 150mb/s (read/writing) and i can say is pretty acceptable (more in raid 0). And well, i have dreams like that kind of pcie ssds with V-nand... but i'm not gonna sell my two kidneys and an eye! i prefer to wait like i did when i purchased my ssds.

    I waited so long, and the unique pros i find:
    - faster windows boot
    - faster app loads (max still loads slow with a raid 0 of two samsungs ssds lol)
    - nothing more...

    cons:
    - Poor endurance/life. I can't write all the TBs i would like to do (video editing).
    - For better endurance/life span, i needed to tweak windows, TOTALLY. For example, the USER folder must be located in another HDD. And apps such as Steam or Origin with their huge cache must be installed in another disk... like their libraries.

    BTW, i have bought 4 ssds already. One is DEAD, due to heavy use in 3D sculpting and video editing. On the contrary, talking about HDDs, zero disks dead. I still have prehistoric hdds with 40GBs or less (working perfectly on my old machines).

    edit: If you want to work with huge amounts of data, 3d Sculpting and Video editing, do yourself a favour... don't buy one of those cheap ssds and buy a server/enterprise sdd. You will hate to lose all the work or part of the work... and do constant syncs/backups in a reliable and affordable 6TB disks.

    And remember, launching your apps and the SO 5 seconds faster will not mean to have the work done faster... (it's obvious but some people are really idiot). A ssd is still a stupid whim/caprice imho.
  • Eric Chadwick
    Blaizer, you're an idiot.
  • WarrenM
    The endurance/lifespan thing is a dead argument. That hasn't been a problem since the early beginning. SSDs these days are durable as hell. Write to them all day long, they don't care...
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    WarrenM wrote: »
    The endurance/lifespan thing is a dead argument. That hasn't been a problem since the early beginning. SSDs these days are durable as hell. Write to them all day long, they don't care...

    I had a gen1 SSD when it was 32gb XD. Died after 2 years, can still read but all the write sectors are done. Got a Samsung SSD now and its perfect and takes something like 7 years and writing about 2gb a day to get the SSD to the point of no return.
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 6
    I have a small 220gigs, it does all my apps and my OS, went back to my 1 terrabyte that lasted about a month then jumped back, just cant go back from a ssd
  • Target_Renegade
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    Target_Renegade polycounter lvl 11
    Yeah, SSDs are something that turns your PC into a faster console, for doing everything. Switch on, log in - so fast. Next SSD will be a 1TB maybe 512GB. My 256GB still has 50GB but I've read that it's best if 10% - 20% is free - for file searching / navigation. Once you go SSD you never go back.
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    WarrenM wrote: »
    The endurance/lifespan thing is a dead argument. That hasn't been a problem since the early beginning. SSDs these days are durable as hell. Write to them all day long, they don't care...

    The model i lost, is a samsung 840 pro 256GB (i paid more than 300€), a model shipped on october 2012. I had the luck to have the model with its warranty and i got a replacement. So i can say their endurance/lifespan is a SHIT. And if someone says i'm an idiot... i don't care, because it's the opposite :).

    So... "endurance/lifespan thing is a dead argument"... that's only valid for the kind of ssd i linked (you can almost write 3,2TB daily for 5 years, that's real endurance), give or take. For a domestic SSD, the endurance/lifespan is very poor, and its a truth as big as TEMPLE. In that matter you are totally wrong and you only show that you are not objetive, but subjetive cuz "you love ssds".

    For some reason i recommend to buy server/enterprise ssds. And i talk with experience.

    I don't wish anyone to suffer the loss of data/work due to a unexpected lifespan of an SSD. I invite you to use your SSD as a normal HDD, using it for large archives, huge psds, huge zbrush files, huge mudbox files, huge folders full of video images rendered for compositing, etc. When your ssd dies, show the courage and talk again to me. Period.
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    My setup is:
    • 250GB SSD OS/Apps
    • 250GB SSD Current project(s)
    • 250GB SSD Steam

    My profile folder is mapped to it's own 1TB HDD. Long term storage goes to an external HDD. Very important things go to my personal webspace.
  • WarrenM
    Blaizer

    Sometimes hardware dies. It's not a general fault of SSDs because you lost one. It happens.

    I've had plenty of platter drives die over the years but I'm not about to start warning people to stay away from them.
  • Mark Dygert
    Yep, SSD = amazing, it makes so much more of an impact vs any other upgrade that I've done over the last few years. I don't understand how people can drop $300-400 on a new video card and still stay with platter drives. Although max and maya are starting to lean on video cards more and more so they are really important, like mesh cashe'ing to speed up heavy scenes and for rendering, but only after you've made the jump to SDD.

    The only downside of making the switch at home was not being able to make the switch at work. My work machine was upgraded about 6mo ago and sadly they didn't use SDD and now it's near the bottom of the list to be upgraded/replaced. Its been really hard to convince our IT guy that SSD is worth it, that the bottle neck is the old platter drives and its the single most important upgrade that effects EVERYTHING.

    "Yeah SSD is technically faster, sure. But we get a lot more storage and the fastest platter drives do the job fine". No. They don't. What's the point of having more storage than we need if it's slow? Plus prices are coming down and storage is going up on SSD so get over it, grr...

    There are days when I'm working with large complex scenes doing animation, and cloth sims and I work from home on those days. Magically I get more done and have an easier time doing it.


    EDIT: Blaizer, I've had 4 platter drives fail on me over the years and I haven't had a SSD drive die on me yet. They weren't cheap junk drives, they just wear out. They have a lot of physical parts that have to move around, they get out of alignment, slow down and physically start to wear out over time. All of those physical parts limit how fast a platter drive can react. That isn't the case with SSD. You are basically storing permanent data in RAM.

    Jet vs prop plane.
    ModelT vs Tesla Roadster.
    Email vs Snail-Mail.
    iPod vs Jukebox, seriously... this.
  • RobeOmega
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    WarrenM, it's not only me, several people have had the same issue as me with the same product. The Internet is plagued with forum threads of people complaining about their SSDs, because they died pretty fast.

    My samsung only lasted 6 months!

    Mark, for complex scenes, i don't rely on the SSD, but on the Quadro. I don't care if the scene takes to load 10 seconds less, because when i'm working in max, catia or solidworks, i only care about viewport perfomance.

    I literally killed my samsung ssd, just to see its endurance/lifespan. Ok, files loads faster... (3,5 times faster), but at the end, my opinion is the same as your IT guy. Almost a year ago, i bought a seagate 4TB 5900 rpm, and i was surprised to see almost the same perfomance as its 3TB brother (much older and very fast for a HDD). And the best, is that this 5900 rpm model is silent... and very cool.

    Anyways, i respect your point of view but i don't share it.

    If we had on market pcie SSDs of 3,2TB like that samsung, priced at 150€, then i would change point of view/opinion in less than 1ms :). Right now i'm with your IT guy.

    BTW, i have more than 780GB of games installed in a exclusive HDD in my gaming rig. Games are around 25-50GB right now, and i don't keep them forever... my steam library is huge and in a few weeks i will be playing shadows of mordor and AC Unity. I can afford a raid 0 with 4 ssds of 256GB, but for me it's pointless for gaming, and more considering the money. A change of GPU is wiser because load times are not a problem for me, i'm no that picky, fussy, touchy.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    My Intel & Crucial drives are still running, both around 4 years. Hard drives fail, you just have to be ready for it; I've replaced so many I've lost count, it has to be 500+
  • Shrike
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    Shrike interpolator
    My 840 Pro died aswell after 6 months. Probably a problem of that product line.
    My 840 Normal however still does very well (bought at the same time), and the evos I bought after do their job excellently. Just because one died does that not make SSDs bad.

    I even profited from it dying, all important stuff is in cloud anyways all the time, and I could choose a new, so I spend 100 more and got a 512 Evo
    for my Laptop which is great since the evos are as good as the old Pros in terms of specs.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    If you are really worried about the drive dying, get one of the new Samsung 850 pros, they use 3d nand are are supposed to last much longer, they have a 10 year warranty.

    Also any artist should be backing up everything constantly, hard drives fail too often.
  • WarrenM
    What does " they use 3d" mean? I'm not up on hard drive jargon...
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Nand flash memory is normally flat or 2d. 3d nand allows manufacturers to stack multiple layers of nand on top of each other for more storage in pretty much the same amount of space. The actual nand gates in the memory used in 3d Nand aren't as small as 2d nand due to it being a new manufacturing process, so it's less delicate and less likely to fail. The actual physical size is pretty much the same due to the stacking. I think 2d Nand gates were pretty much as small as they could make them, and to get to that size they had to sacrifice the Nand's life spand and number of reads and writes. Even though physically ssd's have a lot of spare space within their enclosures.
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    ZacD, i already knew them, but the 850 pro models are very expensive right know, and more when we look at the 1TB version (600+€). I already have a 840 pro of 256Gb and two samsungs 840 EVO of 250GB in raid 0. For my needs i want 6TB or at least 3TBs, and for that the unique cheap choice for me is a good enterprise HDD.

    If i were going to buy a new SSD i would wait for a price drop of the pcie-models like the model i linked.

    Anyways, the 850 pro is a good recommendation for a new computer.
  • iconoplast
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    iconoplast polycounter lvl 13
    Blaizer wrote: »
    WarrenM, it's not only me, several people have had the same issue as me with the same product. The Internet is plagued with forum threads of people complaining about their SSDs, because they died pretty fast.
    The plural of anecdote is not data.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    According to a researcher at electronics market intelligence outfit IHS, annual failure rates of SSD run around 1.5 per cent with HDDs nearer five per cent.
  • throttlekitty
    WarrenM wrote: »
    Blaizer

    Sometimes hardware dies. It's not a general fault of SSDs because you lost one. It happens.

    I've had plenty of platter drives die over the years but I'm not about to start warning people to stay away from them.

    It was my understanding that early SSD's failed because it was a physical process to read/write data, not a purely electronic one. Manipulating a small piece of metal, and that it could potentially break.
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    +1 on SSD's, been using them about 2yrs now.
    Running a 256GB for OS/apps/current projects
    another 128GB for a few games

    At work we have like raid5 on old magnetic discs, it's soooo slow, feels like I'm covering in molasses :|
  • EarthQuake
    iconoplast wrote: »
    The plural of anecdote is not data.

    Haha, exactly what I thought when I read that too.
    ZacD wrote: »
    According to a researcher at electronics market intelligence outfit IHS, annual failure rates of SSD run around 1.5 per cent with HDDs nearer five per cent.

    Facts? What use are facts? Everyone knows real research is done by seeing how many people complain about a given product on internet forums.

    I've had numerous issues with the dozens of HHDs that I've owned in the last 15 years, and no issues with the 3 SSDs drives I've owned, but more importantly, I know that small sample size makes my personal experience absolutely irrelevant.

    In any case, relying on any singular drive for anything important is a bad idea. Backup is the only reliable solution, every drive, no matter how good has a chance to fail at some point. Set up a local NAS, and back it up with a remote storage solution if you have data you can't risk losing, don't bank it on whichever model of harddrive has the best reviews at newegg or the best rep on forums.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    got a SSD raid of 2x 128gb intel SSDs for OS and apps at home. These SSDs are pretty old by now but the speed is still good.

    My data is still all on regular HDDs though. I don't do enough data crunching work. I compile stuff here and there, do some sculpting, but that doesn't require constant HDD access. Most games aren't on SSD either. I just don't play enough to justify buying a SSD just for that. Backup HDD isn't SSD either.

    At work it's different. I wish all these engines I got from our clients were on SSDs. But IT only give the SSDs to the people who work all day long with the engines. As a lead I'm just not really doing that. Also, having a fiber network, or at least backbone, at work would rock!
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    I heard in the beginning SSD`s were not good for video work because of they would get torn to shreds with the reads/writes. I do not know if this is the case now, can anyone chime in?
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    Lamont wrote: »
    I heard in the beginning SSD`s were not good for video work because of they would get torn to shreds with the reads/writes. I do not know if this is the case now, can anyone chime in?

    Modern SSD's can last years and years with super aggressive read/write now. It was only the first gen or two that were really plagued by problems. SSD's are as reliable as HDD's these days.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    i'm happy with the 840 pro as an OS disk so far. this being my first SSD i'm quite cautios with backups though and have mirrors and images available on standard disks should the worst case happen.
    thinking of picking up one or two more of those 840's for work/temp files and the laptop since they are quite affordable right now.

    just wondering about backup strategy - what are you guys using? i'd think an incremental backup to another disk at the end of the work day should suffice for peace of mind but i'd really prefer a version control system running locally, just not sure which ones out there are best for large files like ztools and PSD's since i have mostly used inhouse tools for that at the studios i've been.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    thomasp wrote: »
    i'm happy with the 840 pro as an OS disk so far. this being my first SSD i'm quite cautios with backups though and have mirrors and images available on standard disks should the worst case happen.
    thinking of picking up one or two more of those 840's for work/temp files and the laptop since they are quite affordable right now.

    just wondering about backup strategy - what are you guys using? i'd think an incremental backup to another disk at the end of the work day should suffice for peace of mind but i'd really prefer a version control system running locally, just not sure which ones out there are best for large files like ztools and PSD's since i have mostly used inhouse tools for that at the studios i've been.

    I have 3 HDDs - OS, data, backup. On data I run a revision control system - I currently have SVN. It's fast enough for local use. I used P4 before though. Then I'm backing up the SVN database daily to the backup disk. I use Microsoft's own Robocopy command line tool. Should be included in all recent Windows versions. Backup isn't incremental though. But that's what SVN is for.
  • martinszeme
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    martinszeme polycounter lvl 8
    Since I've gotten SSD I Skyrim levels load so fast I can't manage to read tips they show on loading screen.
    Also max loads sooooo much faster.
  • WarrenM
    Modern SSD's can last years and years with super aggressive read/write now. It was only the first gen or two that were really plagued by problems. SSD's are as reliable as HDD's these days.

    Not to mention they can take a lot more jostling and such without breaking down ... no moving parts, hooray!
  • Joost
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    Joost polycount sponsor
    My samsung 840 evo makes a loud humming noise occasionally, which is quite worrying...
    Works fine though
  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    komaokc wrote: »
    My samsung 840 evo makes a loud humming noise occasionally, which is quite worrying...
    Works fine though

    Might just be acoustics/rattling against case. I had that but with old mechanical drives. Solved with some tape :P
  • EarthQuake
    thomasp wrote: »
    i'm happy with the 840 pro as an OS disk so far. this being my first SSD i'm quite cautios with backups though and have mirrors and images available on standard disks should the worst case happen.
    thinking of picking up one or two more of those 840's for work/temp files and the laptop since they are quite affordable right now.

    just wondering about backup strategy - what are you guys using? i'd think an incremental backup to another disk at the end of the work day should suffice for peace of mind but i'd really prefer a version control system running locally, just not sure which ones out there are best for large files like ztools and PSD's since i have mostly used inhouse tools for that at the studios i've been.

    An ideal backup solution means 3 copies of the files with at least one of those copies on a remote server. Its not really backup if your backup is sitting next to your computer and you have a fire, flood, someone breaks in to your house and steals it etc.

    I have a NAS (network attached storage), a relatively inexpensive Synology disktation (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108123) with 4 slots, I installed 2 3TB drives in raid 1 with room for another 2 files more as my data needs expand. You can set up software so your files are automatically copied from your computer (actually any number of computers) to your NAS. Then, you can sync your NAS to services like Google Drive, Dropbox, or others. This is what I'm currently doing and what I would recommend.

    You can build your own NAS but honestly the $350 for my Synology was well worth not dealing with the hassle of building my own and trying to find software that I like. The Synology is super reliably and has great software and setting it up was simply a matter of installing the drives and turning it on.

    Also, be sure to get a UPS battery backup for your NAS (and your workstation too) one of the biggest causes of data/drive corruption is power failure. My NAS talks to my UPS and is shut down safely if the power goes out.
  • WarrenM
    I generally work on projects in my DropBox. Automatically replicated to 2 other machines AND a form of version control built in.
  • EarthQuake
    Yeah, and dropbox just upgraded the pro account from 100GB to 1TB for $10/month, same as google drive.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    hey sure, external backup and all that. i do that kind of stuff in regular intervals with archives that get offloaded to bluray's but this here would just be to enable versioning of work files and provide a safety net for a sudden SSD failure in the machine, ruining the work day. would be fine if it just synced over to another hard drive.
    IME - the more computers you have set up, the more time spent keeping them up to date and all. :)

    dropbox seems a contractual no-go for this project. not that i'd like to transfer large files over the net anyway, upload speed is quite restricted unfortunately.

    Kwramm: i am told svn is especially bad for large binary files, not so much a problem of transfer speeds but the time it takes to handle the repository. are you using it for zbrush files et al? mine go over 500 megs a pop all the time.

    wow, quite the thread derail already. sorry. :)
  • EarthQuake
    Thomas, it sounds like you want to set up a local file server, this can be basically any old computer with a bunch of HD space. Something like SVN is what I would recommend if you want versioning. I'm sure there are other similar software that do the same thing but I've used SVN on multiple projects without any issues.

    You can buy external HDDs that come with software to automatically sync your work, and there is software to do this via a NAS as well. One of the reasons I went with a NAS is transfer speed is not an issue for me, and it also serves as a local file server for mp3s for a variety of devices in my house.

    Just one thing to note though, baking up to DVD/Bluray is not really a good idea. DVDs (and I assume blurays) degrade over time, so relying on that as any sort of long term backup is very risky.
  • Eric Chadwick
    I've been using CrashPlan for my backup needs, since February. It's working great, even with giant binary files. I'm just limited by my own transfer speeds.

    It's always running in the background, and refreshes the backup every 5 mins or so. You can fine-tune that if you want. They also have a versioning system built in.

    One of the cool things about it is you can use your own giant encryption key, so no one, not even CrashPlan people, can open your backups.

    Handles both offsite and local backups. Easy-peasy. Also no storage limits. It's pretty slick for my needs.

    I paid $150 for the first year, supports 2-10 computers (we have 5 here). Pay less if you commit longer, etc.

    A NAS is also a good idea.
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