Yiiii sorry to hear that :(

I need to do some more research on backup-to-web plans.

There are ways to rebuild RAID tables. I managed to pull it off when something similar happened to me.

A similar wiping-of-the-RAID-tables finally pushed me to a Carbonite subscription. Feel soooo much better knowing that's there.

Have a look at https://tresorit.com/

The RAID volume shows as "Normal". I've tried several data recovery tools they all show the missing files but when I restore it 90% of them are full of crap. At this point I'm just going to have to re-format and get on with life.

Humm, how much would Carbonite cost to backup a 10TB volume. :D

You guys are just tantalizing the fates.

By my never having EVER done any form of intentional data backup, and deep in my soul not really caring (thought it would be a short term pain) if every bit on my computer and various cloud services evaportated today the Computer Fates have said "oh, where's the fun in this?" and left me alone.

Having revealed their indifference they will now punish me. Having pre-emptively predicted their punishment they will now leave me alone.

same as a 5kb volume. they charge by client system not capacity.

Well, it's happened. My reliable 6-year-old beautiful PC has died. Just died.

And so ... I was all ready to make my vaunted switch to Apple. But what a big snag I've seem to hit. I want to stay in the desktop realm (I really dislike laptops for serious work), and - as I understand it - their rather lovely iMacs can't play DVDs or BluRays. I suppose the Mac Pros can do that, but since they start at 3,000 - I think I'm staying put in PC land. Sheesh.

Yeah, blu-ray and Mac's are a thing. And not in a good sense. You can get a Mac to play a Blu-Ray but there are a few hoops to go through first.

Yes... there are hoops ;)

iSm, if you're not opposed to keeping the monitor/keyboard you already have, you can get in for a lot less the $3K by going with a mac mini

I'm not at all opposed to keeping my keyboard and monitor. (in fact, I'm not a fan of Mac keyboards). BUT - I definitely need an optical drive. I must be able to play CDs, DVDs and BluRays and burn CDs and DVDs at a minimum (I'd very much like the ability to burn BluRays).

Optimally, I would like MORE THAN ONE optical drive, but that seems to be a thing of the past. I've had drives go bad before, and it's been nice to have back-ups.

I don't understand the entire concept of iMacs. No optical drives. I guess they are presuming all content will be streamed back and forth across the net and via the cloud, but that's not quite how the real world works nowadays. I like discs. I need discs. Apple's pretty much out for me. Oh well.

So now I can look with roll-eyes at all the people who rant about Mac superiority, just like I've done with people who like MS Word. Know Nothings, the lot of 'em. :rolleyes:

Interesting article, btw, Moonie. As as I've already experienced, Apple's entire philosophy is that everyone is merely a consumer, and no one produces anything they'd like to output to a physical device.

But I like physical devices. And I enjoy uncompressed audio and video. Yes, I'm very old-school. So I want a new-fangled, high-technology machine that takes into account my old-school needs.