| Author | Thread |
|
|
02/22/2009 07:19:49 PM · #1 |
 -bec- and I were chatting the other day about our backups. We normally use DVD's for backing up but obviously we now have disks coming out of our butts! How reliable are external hard drives and would that be a better option if they are just stored away? Would love some feedback from other people! Cheers!
|
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:24:39 PM · #2 |
| Personally and at work, we have been having ever more frequent hard drive failures of late, especially with larger drives (which are just hat much harder to restore). At work, we are now using two duplicate smaller drives, along with DVDs, for job backups. |
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:26:05 PM · #3 |
I've been backing up my hard drives onto externals for a long time. External hard drives are mostly reliable, but this depends on the brand you purchase, model, and various other factors. And, as with most hard disks, they WILL eventually fail. My suggestion is to look into some fast, reliable external hard drives (I personally use external hard drive enclosures and WD My Books) and just make sure you're stuff is in as many places as possible. I would definitely say that backing up your photos onto a HDD is more economical than DVDs these days, especially with the exponentially decreasing price of space.
A good place to check for some nice externals/enclosures would be Newegg.com. They have plenty to choose from and tons of buyer reviews to let you know the pros and cons of their products. |
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:36:20 PM · #4 |
| I run a computer repair shop, we find these drives as with drives in pcs have an average relaible life of two years after which they become unreliable and may crash at any time. This is assumming they are working well within their temperature range, I had some in India failing in a few weeks but the ambient temperature was 35-45C way to hot!. I find the 5.25" drives are much better than 3.5" proberbly due to the larger metal cases obsorbing the heat. Overall external drives are far better than dvd cd kept in ideal conditions unless you use gold disks which will not oxidise. I personally use external drives and flash drives which I replace regulary. |
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:36:41 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Personally and at work, we have been having ever more frequent hard drive failures of late, especially with larger drives (which are just hat much harder to restore). At work, we are now using two duplicate smaller drives, along with DVDs, for job backups. |
Hey Paul. What do you class as smaller drives? 500gig?
|
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:38:07 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by Adamsw216:
I've been backing up my hard drives onto externals for a long time. External hard drives are mostly reliable, but this depends on the brand you purchase, model, and various other factors. And, as with most hard disks, they WILL eventually fail. My suggestion is to look into some fast, reliable external hard drives (I personally use external hard drive enclosures and WD My Books) and just make sure you're stuff is in as many places as possible. I would definitely say that backing up your photos onto a HDD is more economical than DVDs these days, especially with the exponentially decreasing price of space.
A good place to check for some nice externals/enclosures would be Newegg.com. They have plenty to choose from and tons of buyer reviews to let you know the pros and cons of their products. |
Yeah, we've got some 500gig WD My Books here that we use. They are cheap as at the moment so was thinking of buying some more to use solely as backups. The ones we have already we actually have running off our PC's just as extra storage for all our 'crap'!
|
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:39:09 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by Steveinnz:
I run a computer repair shop, we find these drives as with drives in pcs have an average relaible life of two years after which they become unreliable and may crash at any time. This is assumming they are working well within their temperature range, I had some in India failing in a few weeks but the ambient temperature was 35-45C way to hot!. I find the 5.25" drives are much better than 3.5" proberbly due to the larger metal cases obsorbing the heat. Overall external drives are far better than dvd cd kept in ideal conditions unless you use gold disks which will not oxidise. I personally use external drives and flash drives which I replace regulary. |
So does the average life mean 'running time' or just sitting in a box on a shelf?
|
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:41:14 PM · #8 |
| I back up my entire computer onto an external Neptune HDD, and then do another back up of all my photos onto a 320 gb TOSHIBA HDDR and DVD's. I've been tempted to also store them through an online back up site, but am leery how safe they would be. Does anyone use the online services for back up? If so, how safe do you feel the storage is, both from loss and from theft? |
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:45:01 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by Makka:
Yeah, we've got some 500gig WD My Books here that we use. |
Yes, a pair of these are the latest thing we are trying. I'd also consider 320GB drives ... I'm now avoiding the TB+ drives.
I think part of the problem is that in photography and graphic arts, where I do most of my work, there are tons of tiny files to deal with -- the big drives are suitable (necessary) for working a few huge multimedia/video files, but less effective when you have 150,000 little graphics and fonts ... for example, those 500GB drives are expected to hold about 4 years' worth of job files each. |
|
|
|
02/22/2009 07:49:12 PM · #10 |
Excellent. Thanks for all your info guys!
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 12:34:28 PM · #11 |
I use an external snap drive running raid 0
I also backup all photos on dvd 2 times and one set is sent to AZ....I live in NY!
Backup in 2 places... I have snap drive with 2 500GB drives I uses for redundancy, 1TB combined but I am using them mirrored (data the same on both drives). The Data is backed up and If I loose a drive, I have redundancy of the other drive with all the same info. BUT, I also have backup DVD's because I can not store all the photos on the snap drive (500gb)! The second copy of the DVDs is in AZ just in case of Fire, Flood, tornado, earthquake, tsunami, Meteor of falling space junk, EMP preceding Global destruction...ya know, its good to be prepared! |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 12:48:24 PM · #12 |
disk drives that are periodically used are fine. ones that are used then put on a shelf for more than 6 months are not going to work again, so that data is basically being thrown away when you put that drive on the shelf. If you pull the drive and spin it up in a computer every 3 months or so then it may last longer. But this takes time and can be a PITA if you don't have a hot swap (thermaltake balckX type deal) option. Google a bit on 'stiction'
While there is a time factor for burning and perhaps more storage, DVDs still cost less than 1/2 that of a HD, per Gb. And they'll last longer in storage.
That is based on my experience and from some reading i've done on the subject. DVDs are still the best option.
//www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
//www.digitalfaq.com/media/index.htm
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 12:50:24 PM · #13 |
We use an on-line back-up company that was recommended to us by a friend who is a computer expert in the world of business. It is $50.00 a year, and we have been very pleased with the service. I do have several external hard-drives, and now I don't worry about them so much. Their website is:
//www.carbonite.com/ |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:05:54 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by dagaleaa:
We use an on-line back-up company that was recommended to us by a friend who is a computer expert in the world of business. It is $50.00 a year, and we have been very pleased with the service. I do have several external hard-drives, and now I don't worry about them so much. Their website is:
//www.carbonite.com/ |
I looked into them and their competetor...I just do too much data. They have a realistic limit in the gb range- like 2 to 4gb. I do more like 15 to 20Gb a week in new files, sometimes more. Now if I only backed up business data, or perhaps sold jpg files that would be an option.
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:25:02 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
disk drives that are periodically used are fine. ones that are used then put on a shelf for more than 6 months are not going to work again, so that data is basically being thrown away when you put that drive on the shelf. If you pull the drive and spin it up in a computer every 3 months or so then it may last longer. But this takes time and can be a PITA if you don't have a hot swap (thermaltake balckX type deal) option. Google a bit on 'stiction'
While there is a time factor for burning and perhaps more storage, DVDs still cost less than 1/2 that of a HD, per Gb. And they'll last longer in storage.
That is based on my experience and from some reading i've done on the subject. DVDs are still the best option.
//www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
//www.digitalfaq.com/media/index.htm |
Can you point us at research that shows that shelving a drive for a period of time will lead to failure? From an electronic and mechanical perspective, I don't see how or why this would be the case. My personal experience has actually been otherwise. The only caveat here is that the drives need to be protected from electrostatic discharge during removal/installation and during storage.
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:40:25 PM · #16 |
| With any backup system I think it is not a matter of "will it fail" as they all will eventually. It is a matter of the system approach you use. I use a three drive system that inlcudes one internal and two external hardrives. The internal is backed up to a a 1TB WD MyBook every night and my photo files are backed up a second time to a 500 GB Maxtor. The chances of all three failing at the same time is slim. I do have to admit that I do not store off site, except for what I upload to my Smugmug site. So in case of fire I might lose everything except what is on Smugmug. I have considered backing up to another computer on my home network as that would give me protection as my office is in a seperate building on my property. Just have not gotten around to it as yet. |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:44:02 PM · #17 |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:44:10 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Can you point us at research that shows that shelving a drive for a period of time will lead to failure? From an electronic and mechanical perspective, I don't see how or why this would be the case. My personal experience has actually been otherwise. The only caveat here is that the drives need to be protected from electrostatic discharge during removal/installation and during storage. |
google stiction.
There are moving parts, heads, and electronics and things get sticky sitting still. and don't start back up.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems, popularly referred to as MEMS, in small electronic devices often fail because of adhesion and stiction - the attractive force between the surfaces of interacting parts. //www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319102154.htm
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:58:42 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
google stiction. |
I've had drives with stiction before -- usually a light but sharp rap on the side (in the same plane as the platters) will get the drive spinning again. :-) |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 01:59:19 PM · #20 |
I am actually still recovering from a failed hard drive. I don't know if anyone mentioned it in here already but the externals I just bought was the WD 2TB mirrored. What it does is saves your data to 1 drive then automatically backs it up to the second drive in the enclosure. So you get 1TB of space.
OR if you want you can use all 2tb's of space but then if the drive fails it's all gone. I like the ability of the auto backup and if a drive fails you just pop the top and replace the drive without voiding the warranty. |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 02:06:06 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
google stiction.
There are moving parts, heads, and electronics and things get sticky sitting still. and don't start back up.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems, popularly referred to as MEMS, in small electronic devices often fail because of adhesion and stiction - the attractive force between the surfaces of interacting parts. //www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319102154.htm
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction |
I'm quite aware of what stiction is, being a mechanical engineer. :-)
Hard drives stored for any reasonable period should not fail because of it... period. Not unless failure was imminent to begin with. There are only two moving parts in most hard drives; the rotating platter and the actuator that moves the heads. At power-down the heads are automatically "parked" to avoid them contacting the disk when it spins down. Both the actuator and the spindle run on very high precision bearings that have negligible stiction.
I've successfully spun up and read data from drives that have been stored for many years. If a drive fails after having been removed and stored, it's likely it was damaged by ESD during removal or reinstallation. |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 02:19:16 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
google stiction.
There are moving parts, heads, and electronics and things get sticky sitting still. and don't start back up.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems, popularly referred to as MEMS, in small electronic devices often fail because of adhesion and stiction - the attractive force between the surfaces of interacting parts. //www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319102154.htm
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction |
I'm quite aware of what stiction is, being a mechanical engineer. :-)
Hard drives stored for any reasonable period should not fail because of it... period. Not unless failure was imminent to begin with. There are only two moving parts in most hard drives; the rotating platter and the actuator that moves the heads. At power-down the heads are automatically "parked" to avoid them contacting the disk when it spins down. Both the actuator and the spindle run on very high precision bearings that have negligible stiction.
I've successfully spun up and read data from drives that have been stored for many years. If a drive fails after having been removed and stored, it's likely it was damaged by ESD during removal or reinstallation. |
A quick google search indicates that stiction was more of a problem in the early HDDs where the heads were left in contact with the disk when it was powered off. I appreciate the confirmation from our resident ME.
I use two Ext HDD which I back up to after each session but my 07 drive only gets powered up periodically. I also back up weddings and other critical data on my office server, which is backed up each day. And I use DVD's for good measure. I still experience b/u anxiety... :( |
|
|
|
02/23/2009 05:55:14 PM · #23 |
I've only ever had stored HDs fail in 20+ years of using them. And of those stored - EVERY one failed to restart if it was stored a year or more. Of those stored less than a year between run ups die shortly thereafter.
Perhaps I am in the mintority on my experience with stored drives, but then I've never had an active drive fail and that seems to put my in the minority in that department.
I do have old tapes and CDs that still work, well beyond what at the time was considered their 'expected' life. Hell, I just watched a VHS tape last week on how to install a Scene Machine - the tape and machine were from 1988. 21 year old tape...they don't last that long so say 'the experts'.
So I trust that a DVD will work if it's been sitting on the shelf - personal experience suggests so. I don't trust HDs on a shelf - again, based on personal experience.
I guess it's like speed lights or other flashes. But Metz and a few others say you need to charge/fire a flash every 3 to 6 months to keep the caps in good working condition. Other companies say nothing about it. A capacitor is a capacitor is a capacitor, isn't it? So what's the deal? And they have caps in HDs, don't they?
|
|
|
|
02/23/2009 06:38:31 PM · #24 |
Originally posted by Prof_Fate:
A capacitor is a capacitor is a capacitor, isn't it? So what's the deal? And they have caps in HDs, don't they? |
No, not really. There are quite a range of different types of capacitor and thus different failure modes. High voltage caps in particular, (like those you'll find in power electronics like a flash) are pretty different to those used for lower voltage electronics. The electrolytic capacitors used in some flashes can deform if left for too long. They can also dry out. Neither of these problems occur in non-electrolytic capacitors.
ETA: similar to 'A camera is a camera is a camera, isn't it?'
Message edited by author 2009-02-23 18:47:03.
|
|
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 08/09/2025 10:33:15 AM EDT.
