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03/09/2005 01:05:38 PM · #1 |
I was looking at the external drives because I am overflowing my "meager" terabyte of space I have here. I was ready to buy the Maxtor 300GB external, but some of the reviews stopped me.
There seem to be quite a few people complaining about long-term (1 mo to 1 year) reliability of ALL brands Seagate, Maxtor, and WD, on the Amazon reviews at least. This worries me a bit because I have over the years, never had a good long term experience with an external drive. I've had expensive Bernoulli drives, several DAT tape drives, several external CD burners (early days of burners), all go dead. And in all the years I've had equipment, I've only had 2 internal hard drives eventually "wear out". And I have internal drives still running in a machine as old as a Dell Pentium 90 being used as a print server.
So first, this is a caution to those using these drives as backup.
Second, I wanted to poll those with external drives to see how long they've had them, whether they had the need for service, failures, etc.
I think this thread will end up being useful to all if you'd be so kind as to post your experiences. Thanks in advance.
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03/09/2005 01:08:00 PM · #2 |
I will be watching this intently - I just added a Seagate external about 4 months ago and so far, just love it. I don't run it all the time, though. I only bring it up when I want to do a backup. Thanks for posting this, and I hope you get a good number of responses.
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03/09/2005 01:16:09 PM · #3 |
| I have been running two external drive for some time now, a SmartDisk 80 Gig drive and a Maxtor 250 Gig drive. I leave them both on all the time and so far no problems. I have been running the SmartDrive for well over a year, the Maxtor for maybe 4 months. |
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03/09/2005 01:17:02 PM · #4 |
Seven internal hard drives (plus CD and DVD burners) on seven computers (all Mac), one external Lacie drive and and nothing but health.
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03/09/2005 01:19:02 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
Seven internal hard drives (plus CD and DVD burners) on seven computers (all Mac), one external Lacie drive and and nothing but health. |
Zeus and others--please be sure and post the number of months/years the external drive has been running and whether it is left on all the time, or some measure of usage. |
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03/09/2005 01:25:18 PM · #6 |
I am not using an external drive - I am not sure why woud an external drive be the best solution. I am using two high-speed WD SATA drives in RAID-0 for speed, and before you call me crazy, there is nothing of importance stored on these two physical hard drives. Everything is regularly backed up on another two Maxtor IDE hard drives, and when I come close to capacity, I burn DVD backups to free up the space.
The Maxtor has been running w/o reformatting for at least 3 years now (and I had it for total of 5 years w/o problems.)
Edit: The computers (three different computers used the same HDD) are on 99% of the time. During occasional vacations I would turn them off.
This way I force myself to think about what I haven't looked at in a long time, and I store these files to DVDs.
Message edited by author 2005-03-09 13:26:38.
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03/09/2005 01:34:52 PM · #7 |
I have had PCs and HDs since the mid 80s. I have had but one HD failure, a used SCSI drive i got in trade, so i do not know it's history.
Generally every 2-3 years i upgrade my system and or OS, and get a new HD for my main drive, and the previous drive stays in teh system as D. For the past 10 years or so i never turn my system off, but the drives do spin down. For the past 3 or 4 years I wake and sleep my system 5-10 times a day (lots of starting and stopping).
I have recently acquired a used WD 60Gb IDE, and have coming a USB external case for it, for backup. Assuming i don't toss this sucker about, i do not see why it should not last as long or longer 9as it's run time will be much less) than the drives in my main case.
Info on HD reliability
//www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/whitepapers/WhitePaper_05.htm SAMSUNG's MTBF for HDDs is 500,000 hours. That means that if you use your PC for 9 hours every day, your HDD should operate for 152 years
And here is a thread discussing MTBF, seagate's and IBM's take...
//www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-461.html
They {seagate} stipulate in some documentation they expect their drives to have a 5 year service life and a 3 year warranty.
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03/09/2005 01:36:16 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by nshapiro:
Originally posted by zeuszen:
Seven internal hard drives (plus CD and DVD burners) on seven computers (all Mac), one external Lacie drive and and nothing but health. |
Zeus and others--please be sure and post the number of months/years the external drive has been running and whether it is left on all the time, or some measure of usage. |
Good point, Neil.
All of the above machines/drives were/are in use an average of, perhaps, four to five hours a day, some considerably more - some less. Most of them sleep during periods of inactivity, but all of them are shut off at night and, mostly, during long periods of absence.
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03/09/2005 01:38:36 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by srdanz:
I am not using an external drive - I am not sure why woud an external drive be the best solution. I am using two high-speed WD SATA drives in RAID-0 for speed, and before you call me crazy, there is nothing of importance stored on these two physical hard drives. Everything is regularly backed up on another two Maxtor IDE hard drives, and when I come close to capacity, I burn DVD backups to free up the space.
The Maxtor has been running w/o reformatting for at least 3 years now (and I had it for total of 5 years w/o problems.)
Edit: The computers (three different computers used the same HDD) are on 99% of the time. During occasional vacations I would turn them off.
This way I force myself to think about what I haven't looked at in a long time, and I store these files to DVDs. |
My reasons for external drive? i have 4 ide connectors, all full (2 HDs, a CDRW and zip). I have lots of unused USB ports. A USB/IDE case is $25 at a computer show. A cheap solution, and i can use it on more than one computer for backup.
up till now i have not had that much to back up...my Rebel and my activity (and RAW file sizes) are making me rethink things. I estimate that i am growing my photo data at 3gb a month..and it is not the height of the photo season!
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03/09/2005 01:59:14 PM · #10 |
Get Western Digital Caviar. I have been using those for years. The oldest one is 4 years old, and still ticking 24/7.
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03/09/2005 02:08:55 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by jonr:
Get Western Digital Caviar. I have been using those for years. The oldest one is 4 years old, and still ticking 24/7. |
4 years is not a very long time.
anyone seen anyting on how long a HD holds data? Cassettes (audio and video) are good for 15 years i have heard. Same concept, recording wise, but i suppose slighter better quality and sealing on a HD.
I ahve some burnabale CDs that are 18 months old (used in a car as MP3 disks) that are losing data. I see no scratches...are rewritable meda really reliable?
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03/09/2005 02:12:01 PM · #12 |
I have only one external hdd, and it's a SimpleTech firewire unit with a 60GB 2.5 inch Hitachi drive. Runs about 40 hours per week, it's a backup for my work laptop. It's about 2 years old, and I've had no issues at all with it.
I've had a couple internal hard drive failures over the years, the only recent one was about 2 years ago, and that was a Western Digital. Knowing what I know about WD, Maxtor, and Seagate (I have business dealings with all of them, we supply raw materials for microelectronics assembly) my drive of choice is Seagate.
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03/09/2005 03:07:59 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
I ahve some burnabale CDs that are 18 months old (used in a car as MP3 disks) that are losing data. I see no scratches...are rewritable meda really reliable? |
No, CDs, or more accurately CD-Rs, are showing signs that they are not reliable for long-term archival. Something to do with the dyes they use breaking down over time, especially if exposed to even moderate heat (as in a house without airconditioning in a warm climate). I read up on this a little some time back, but don't remember all the details. CD-RWs are supposed to be better because they use a different technology for recording the data. Also, brands and/or "types" (green, gold, platinum) are also supposed to make a difference.
This CD-Recordable FAQ provides some more info and is a good jumping off point.
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03/09/2005 05:31:14 PM · #14 |
Can someone explain to me the real benefits of these drives, as I just don't get it (honest question, I think it is me missing the point, not that there is not a very good point).
I have a 40 Gb Compact Drive, which is one of those battery driven drives you can download your compact flash to when out and about. I see the reason for those, obviously, as they give me huge amounts of storage when I am out and about.
What though is the advantage of these drives, as they seem very popular. Why are they better than just having another HDD in your case? Why are they better than then periodically backiug up your pics to a DVD?
Can anyone sched some light on this for me please.
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03/09/2005 05:34:51 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by ScottK:
No, CDs, or more accurately CD-Rs, are showing signs that they are not reliable for long-term archival. Something to do with the dyes they use breaking down over time, especially if exposed to even moderate heat (as in a house without airconditioning in a warm climate). I read up on this a little some time back, but don't remember all the details. CD-RWs are supposed to be better because they use a different technology for recording the data. Also, brands and/or "types" (green, gold, platinum) are also supposed to make a difference.
This CD-Recordable FAQ provides some more info and is a good jumping off point. |
Hmm. the car gets hot (and cold) and they are 'cheap' cr-r's (store brand). CD-RW is more stable...may have to try that.
I agree seagate is a good HD. Maxtor is sooo cheap these days - a few months back got a 160gb for $85.
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03/09/2005 05:41:56 PM · #16 |
My external drives are from laptops, which seem tobe more open to being moved around. The advantage is that they are a lot smaller, so they can fit in a pocket, plus being a laptop hard drive they seem to be better for being in my laptop and camera bags. Wheni take pictures off my cameras i put them directly on the external drives.
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03/09/2005 05:45:58 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by Natator:
Can someone explain to me the real benefits of these drives, as I just don't get it (honest question, I think it is me missing the point, not that there is not a very good point).
I have a 40 Gb Compact Drive, which is one of those battery driven drives you can download your compact flash to when out and about. I see the reason for those, obviously, as they give me huge amounts of storage when I am out and about.
What though is the advantage of these drives, as they seem very popular. Why are they better than just having another HDD in your case? Why are they better than then periodically backiug up your pics to a DVD?
Can anyone sched some light on this for me please. |
not so much that they are better, but more convenient. In theory (i say that as i have no real backup plan in place) you would backup all new data every day. The easiest way is to use a backup program that incrementally and automatically backs up every night while you sleep without any interaction from you. It is best to have 2 or 3 generations, as opposed to one backup of everything. better yet is an off-site location for a backup copy in case of fire, flood etc.
If you have less than 4Gb of daily backup (guaranteed) and remember to put a blank DVD in the drive, that should work. On incremental, there is an index file and the data. Now if hte HD fails and you need to restore, you will need ALL the DVD disks to get all the data back - yesterday's DVD is just that, yesterdays data. the pics you took las wednesday are on a different disk. So insert the most recent disk, hit RESTORE and feed them all in.
If you have a HD for this backup bit, then the workload is less on you.
Other options: a complete backup every day (takes space and time...)
you manually make backups of the data that is important (this has been my main route so far) You can reinstall programs, so the data is all you really need.
RAID or mirror - mutliple hard drives contain the data in a variety of formats, if one drive fails the data can be reconstructed. In theory no backup action needs done - it is inherant in the system. More up front costs and most systems require matched drives, so if in 3 years one fails you most likely will have to replace them all (not a bad idea if one has failed anyway!)
The advantages of an external drive? not in the same box, so if a power surge kills it the drive is seperate and safe. the drive can be physically moved off site (as in take it to your home from the office, safedeposit box, etc)
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03/09/2005 05:49:58 PM · #18 |
if you´re looking for an external drive then the LaCie bigger disk is the way to go.
you can get LaCie external drives up to 2TB :)
the 500MB disk has 2x250GB disks with built in RAID 0 so you get double the speed of a single disk.
//www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10491
check it out before you decide :) |
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03/09/2005 05:52:09 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by ScottK:
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
I ahve some burnabale CDs that are 18 months old (used in a car as MP3 disks) that are losing data. I see no scratches...are rewritable meda really reliable? |
No, CDs, or more accurately CD-Rs, are showing signs that they are not reliable for long-term archival. Something to do with the dyes they use breaking down over time, especially if exposed to even moderate heat (as in a house without airconditioning in a warm climate). I read up on this a little some time back, but don't remember all the details. CD-RWs are supposed to be better because they use a different technology for recording the data. Also, brands and/or "types" (green, gold, platinum) are also supposed to make a difference.
This CD-Recordable FAQ provides some more info and is a good jumping off point. |
If I recall reading the reliability reports correctly on CDs, CD-RWs are NOT more stable than CD-Rs. But true, the dyes did make a difference in CD-Rs. What I didn't understand is why my "Noncheapo" brand I've been buying, Verbatim DatalifePlus, uses Blue AZO dye, which is the lowest rated! |
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03/09/2005 06:36:43 PM · #20 |
Thanks for the clarification there Prof_Fate, that all now makes sense.
I had not even though of the incremental backup issue and thus being able to use the HDD in place of a bazillion DVD's for a restore.
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03/09/2005 09:35:32 PM · #21 |
Last summer I realized I needed more space because my photo files were filling up my HD fast and it was beginning to slow things down. I did no research but saw a LACIE 250 gb USB 2 on sale at CompUSA for $169 so I bought it. It's compact, quiet running, and gives off very little heat. It has worked perfectly for seven months. Only issue is that my computer is only USB 1 so if I turn the LACIE on while the comp is already running XP gives me a little balloon reminder that a USB 2 device has been attached and it will not operate at top speed, a very minor issue indeed. I am amazed at how easy it is to use. I'll be looking for LACIE products next time I'm buying.
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03/09/2005 09:51:13 PM · #22 |
@Natator:
Simon,
One additional point in favor of the external hard drives... If you back up like I do, by just making a directly-readable copy of the entire directory structure as opposed to a compressed backup volume, you can find programs (I use "Second Copy") that will just back up anything that has changed, in effect doing an incremental, except you can keep version(s) of replaced/deleted files, allowing you to go back and recover an old version of a file, which is sometimes very useful. My backup can run in the background, and it usually takes no more than 15 minutes, even though I have 30GB of data.
The resultant backup is also fully tansportable; just plug it into any PC, and there are all your files, in their normal arrangement. This is why I use an external drive for backing up my work laptop. If I need my files at home, I just grab the external drive and pocket it on the way out the door.
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03/09/2005 10:03:38 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
I use "Second Copy" |
Thanks *laugh*
I was just returning to find out the name of a suitable piece of software.
Yup, what you said there, along with Prof_Fate makes heaps of sense.
I think I'll look into this further, as currently using DVD's manually I am very guilty of potentially being caught out and losing a heap of photos, as I do not back up nearly regularly enough as it is a pain. The external drive/automated backup definitely sounds appealing :)
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03/09/2005 10:07:04 PM · #24 |
| I have a Western Digital which is powered on 24/7 and run an automatic backup every night. No problems after almost 2 years. |
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03/09/2005 10:10:58 PM · #25 |
| I bought boxes and a drives and made my own running fine. Firewire/USB2 so they plugs in almost any new system. |
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