Laptops And Hard Drives - Breakdown At A Function

[HACK-TASTIC 0]

replacement hard drive £75.00

Labour to fit above £35.00

replacement laptop £399.00

Lost Music files £5780.00

 

Total £6289.00

 

If the problem was a hard-disk failure, how can he justify attempting to charge for a new laptop?

 

What a clown. tongue out icon

 

Always back up your stuff. Its daft not to. Agree with Ben about running two laptops, risks two laptops. I'm sure a party could wait whilst the other laptop booted up, a couple of mins or so wouldnt be too much of a bother at a gig. I think it might build up the atmosphere anyway, if everything dies, and the DJ fixes it in a few mins, hes usually hailed as a hero for saving the day, if the gig is down for only one second, yeah nobody will notice, but you wont get the hero status will you tongue out icon just my two pennarth.

 

:Thumbup:

[vokf 0]

If the problem was a hard-disk failure, how can he justify attempting to charge for a new laptop?

 

What a clown. tongue out icon

 

A good point, but often the labour involved in re-installing Windows+DJ software could come close to the cost of a new laptop.

(£40/hr @ approx 3 or 4 hours + plus the cost of a new HDD)

 

Not disagreeing. but if the guy is non-technical, it would cost about £200+ just to get the old laptop back up.

From an insurance point of view, it would be written off.

Even if you're technical, it it still time=money.

 

 

Always back up your stuff. Its daft not to. Agree with Ben about running two laptops, risks two laptops. I'm sure a party could wait whilst the other laptop booted up, a couple of mins or so wouldnt be too much of a bother at a gig. I think it might build up the atmosphere anyway, if everything dies, and the DJ fixes it in a few mins, hes usually hailed as a hero for saving the day, if the gig is down for only one second, yeah nobody will notice, but you wont get the hero status will you tongue out icon just my two pennarth.

 

:Thumbup:

 

Back-ups can take may forms. Digital DJ's should carry a spare laptop/playback system with another HDD.

There is a lot to be said from knowing your system is reliable - so PC's should be treated as an instrument (so no surfing/games/email)

 

I think its best to run a CD player as a backup, clients should be shielded from the technicalities of a PC failure and should not see any long delays.

A large gap would be remembered as you have unreliable equipment, so not likely to get repeat bookings.

Not to say a PC is unreliable - as all equipment will fail at some point.

 

Fair dues if an Amp/Speaker/Mixer fails (ie you have to re-configure kit, or drag a spare in), but basic playback kit should be covered.

Even a £20 portable CD player (with the latest "now" cd) would cover you whist you boot up a 2nd laptop.

 

Better still, get a dirt cheap MP3 player with a mix of music, if there is a failure, then a few quick clicks would bring the music back on with only a few seconds of downtime.

 

You may get a few funny looks from the sudden change in music, but better than a few mins of silence with a crying bride, and an angry groom....

 

From my experience, bad things happen all the time- we're paid to ensure they are covered.

A "60 quid sid" may not have *any* backup (so party over if the PC/CD/mixer/amp/cables fail), but when we're charging more- it should be justified by ensuring we have checked our possible modes of failure and have them covered as far as possible.

 

Jason

[Robster 0]

I cant wait for SSD to become large enough and cheap enough it seems tailor made for us DJ's..fast and reliable.

[Slimboy Fat 0]

I cant wait for SSD to become large enough

 

Half a Terabyte's not big enough for you? :scared:

 

1TB is also apparently available although only for industrial and military use at the moment.

 

 

I dread to think of the price though. 250GB is retailing for around the £400 mark at the moment but prices are expected to have settled in a similar range to regular HDDs by this time next year.

[deejaymitch 0]

For the uninitiated, and not particularly technically-minded, what is SSD?

 

And what might it mean to a digital DJ?

[Robster 0]

Half a Terabyte's not big enough for you? :scared:

 

1TB is also apparently available although only for industrial and military use at the moment.

I dread to think of the price though. 250GB is retailing for around the £400 mark at the moment but prices are expected to have settled in a similar range to regular HDDs by this time next year.

 

 

only quoted half of my statement! and cheap enough!

 

SSD means solid state drive so instead of a mechanical hard drive with a spinning platter its essentially a big memory stick.

these have a number of advantages for us ..fast read times , vibration is less of an issue in effecting them , they are generally more robust and they aren't too fussy about heat in either being susceptible to it or producing it.

 

it looks like a standard hard drive and connects in the same way its just solid state memory instead.

[HACK-TASTIC 0]

For the uninitiated, and not particularly technically-minded, what is SSD?

 

And what might it mean to a digital DJ?

 

 

SSD are Solid State HDDs, so essentially no moving parts. A bit like a usb pen-drive, but HDD size. No moving parts, nothing can fail, so more reliable.

 

What it might mean to DDJ's is simply more reliability I guess.

 

Oh and in response to VOKF, with laptops they usually come with an manufacturers image recovery disk which takes 5 mins to reinstall, not hours. Well, from what I've experienced anyway (Sony/Samsung/Rock/Stone/Fujitsu-Seimens/RM/Elonex) other brands may have to be reinstalled off CD's but to be honest, I dont know anyone that uses CD's/DVDs to restore things anymore. Most people have images on usb hdd or network location. I have back up images for all three types of laptops/computers I have in my house on one pen drive that fits in my pocket. Its bootable, has fast read capabilities and can restore a pc in my house in around 8 mins.

 

Not bad eh? Comes from being a techie for a living. AND I bought a new laptop t'other day off Ebay for £5.50. BARGAIN. :joe:

[Dukesy 0]

A good point, but often the labour involved in re-installing Windows+DJ software could come close to the cost of a new laptop.

(£40/hr @ approx 3 or 4 hours + plus the cost of a new HDD)

 

Not disagreeing. but if the guy is non-technical, it would cost about £200+ just to get the old laptop back up.

From an insurance point of view, it would be written off.

Even if you're technical, it it still time=money.

Back-ups can take may forms. Digital DJ's should carry a spare laptop/playback system with another HDD.

There is a lot to be said from knowing your system is reliable - so PC's should be treated as an instrument (so no surfing/games/email)

 

I think its best to run a CD player as a backup, clients should be shielded from the technicalities of a PC failure and should not see any long delays.

A large gap would be remembered as you have unreliable equipment, so not likely to get repeat bookings.

Not to say a PC is unreliable - as all equipment will fail at some point.

 

Fair dues if an Amp/Speaker/Mixer fails (ie you have to re-configure kit, or drag a spare in), but basic playback kit should be covered.

Even a £20 portable CD player (with the latest "now" cd) would cover you whist you boot up a 2nd laptop.

 

Better still, get a dirt cheap MP3 player with a mix of music, if there is a failure, then a few quick clicks would bring the music back on with only a few seconds of downtime.

 

You may get a few funny looks from the sudden change in music, but better than a few mins of silence with a crying bride, and an angry groom....

 

From my experience, bad things happen all the time- we're paid to ensure they are covered.

A "60 quid sid" may not have *any* backup (so party over if the PC/CD/mixer/amp/cables fail), but when we're charging more- it should be justified by ensuring we have checked our possible modes of failure and have them covered as far as possible.

 

Jason

 

Very, very helpful and I 100% agree with the point "bad things happen all the time- we're paid to ensure they are covered......when we're charging more- it should be justified by ensuring we have checked our possible modes of failure and have them covered as far as possible."

 

[David M 0]

Hi all!

i have been a laptop dj for the last 6 years since switching from cd's,

i have had very little problems with the laptops as i only use 1 brand from IBM as an industry standard laptop they are nearly bomb proof,

i run 2 laptops with 2 hard drives on each and carry a backup drive of 1tb just incase, as i have had drive failure mainly due to heat in mqrquees during the day i now only buy external drives with built in cooling fans to prevent this problem.

as we all know dear bill gates built windows with faults and severe issues,

the most stable is xp pro with service pack 3,

just load the programs that you need and remember that the laptop is your tool kit and dont let others use it for anything else, no games no internet and no kids !!!

the less junk you put on it the less problems you will have,

oh and if all else fails there is the trusty 20gig ipod with some preset playlists of various music styles available,

i know its a bit belt and braces,

but it will ensure you can keep going for even the longest gigs 10 hours is no problem with the equipment but the dj is liable to "crash freeze, blow up, or blow a fuse if not fed and watered correctly !"

 

[gadget 0]

Had a problem with new laptop during valentine's disco. Freestyler crashed and took away half of my fixtures with it... So all lights stopped working... (some had frozen and some had just blacked out).

 

Managed to get the 4 channel 300w PAR's on sound mode until I dug out the old laptop, and with a little bit of fiddling had it booted and running FreeStyler in about 10 minutes... just about worked using the internal MIC for sound-to-light mode...

 

I have rack mounted cd player on standby with two cds in it - Latest Now cueud up with something relevant, and usually have some other compilation CD in the other drawer... Also now I carry a spare power amp, and worse-case I can wire up MIC->Laptop->AMP if the mixer fails.. *touches hair/wood*

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dan allanthemsdisco 0]

probably have a mini heart attack, followed by the pressing of play on my Sony 1gb MP3 player. I have 3 folders on it, classic disco, Motown and Dance. All these together will last about 2-3 hours. Thats all i have at the moment apart from my laptop so this thread has reminded me of the need for a decent backup. Ideally i would have a exactly similar laptop- i could use it for searching internet and making notes on even if i dont need it as a backup. My experience of using the laptop as apposed to cd players have been mostly fun and exciting. The most annoying thing about this approach is the amount of possible failiures encountered by the DJ. For instance i was let down by a behringer bcd3000 several times because it does midi and audio both at the same time. This sometimes causes Traktor to free and all music freezes with it. Very embarresing. It seems some gear that is supposedly proffessional has not even been properly road tested before release. (Both BCD 300 & the Numark Omni Control have been major let downs for me and many others too)

I Am now using the indigo DJ card & the bcd 3000 as a midi controller only and have not had a problem yet..

 

 

[poridge 0]

I have a backup on pretty much everything i carry a laptop, ipod and single cd player. ok if my laptop goes down its not ideal but can get by. i also run active speakers so one will run without the other and in the venues i do this would be adequate. the only issue i may ever have is if my mixer went down. I dont carry a replacement and dont have the correct wires to bodge it. hmm i think online shopping is due.

[McCardle 1]

Invest in a copy of 'Acronis Migrate Easy'

 

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/migrateeasy/

 

This is user-friendly software written for the non technical layman and easily, reliably and completely backs up the entire content of hard drives, including software licenses, operating systems, files, music, dj software etc. It 'clones' the drive so completely that its identical in every way and even the laptop won't know the difference.

 

Simply buy a USB 2.0 / ESATA caddy for the type of drive that your laptop uses, go to a local computer fair and buy a decent quality new hard drive of the same or greater capacity than the existing one.

 

Install the Migrate Easy software on the main laptop / pc, plug in the hard drive caddy with your 'new' hard drive installed and then follow the the instructions on the program.

 

Several hours later, you have a 100% working copy, complete in every detail to the main hard drive. Then if the main drive should fail in the 'field' - open the laptop, remove the main drive, plug in the 'cloned' drive and reboot. It will be completely identical in every way.

 

I've used this software loads of times and it works each and every time, whether you are just migrating everything to a larger capacity drive in order to upgrade or whether you just want a back up.

 

$39 one off vs £40 an hour for repairs.......Hmmm, I know what i'd be buying

 

 

[daryll 0]

Main playout -Toshiba L10-300/ WD 160gb HD x 2

Backup- Dell latitude WD 160gb x 1

Just in case- Numark CDN22 approx 50 cd`s

just in case back up -ipod 4g

Just in case back up back up- my mobile phone with a couple of hours of music

 

If all that fails .............I go home....quickly

 

daryll

[roryd 0]

hi guys im a new dj myself but i have been helping other djs get on to laptop for the last 2 years. My thorghts on hard drives giving up is yes thats never going to be good but i allways set them up with 2 laptops and the music usb drive but allways have music on the local drive as well so they can change fast as there fingers and move. as SSD Drives are coming down in price i plan to get a 500GB SSD drive for my laptop and split it in to 100GB - 400Gb and have all the music on the 400GB side now what this means is show i have a software problem i can jump over to Cds or the 2nd laptop and keep going. now as the SSD drives are very fast rebooting is more like 12sec to having a runing system but from time to time a reboot wont do the job so what iv done is make up a bootable usb pen with win 7 installer on it and any drivers i need and my DJ software now i timed this from black drive to ready to DJ again and it will take me 15 min to get windows back in freash and sound and VGA installed and VDJ back in and runing with all the music on the 2nd harf of the drive.

 

so i have

 

2x laptops one main one back up

 

6x Cds 2 with Chart 2 with Motown 2 with 80's all floor fillers

 

1 pen to reinstall the laptop from fresh and VDJ back up and runing

 

1x USB drive with all the music backed up

 

1x dual Cd player allways ready to go