Hey guys, Was curious about your experiences with External hard Drives... How long do they USUALLY last??? I've heard horror stories of them crashing within a year... and then I've heard stories about them lasting for a LONG time. What's the general consensus? What type of luck have you guys had with them? I have a couple of them that are about 2 years old and seemingly no problems yet. It would suck to have to buy new ones every couple years, transfer your files, and throw out the 2 year old ones. How often should you buy new ones and transfer your info?
The one I have has lasted a while. But I don't use it much and it almost never moves. A lot of people probably carry them around between computers. That could be a big part of the reason why there are so many reports of early crashes. Especially if they get dropped or casually tossed around. Hard drives are sensitive to shock. Especially when they're running. As a back up, a good, large capacity drive is great. I only turn mine on when I need it. As a general rule, a new drive every few years is something you should just plan for. They're mechanical devices that run at high speed and long hours under sometimes high temperatures. Failure is inevitable. It might be today, tomorrow, next week, next year or 5 years but it will eventually happen. I wouldn't order one through the mail. It could be dropped or tossed around during shipping. Buy it at a good old fashioned brick and mortar store. Get the extended service plan if you're really paranoid. But at least you'll be able to return it without a lot of fuss if it's DOA or dies within the return period. Edited by - randomprecision on 10/2/2007 8:29:26 AM
Thanks for the reply Random! Yeah, that makes since that they are more likely to crash if they are moved around a lot. Like you, I keep mine in one spot and usually only use them when I want to access something that's on them. I don't keep them on all the time. So I'm hoping that they'll get many years.
USB external, right? Just for what it is worth: From what I've read - more than once, too - they are sensitive to improper connection/disconnection. Actually, the data is what is sensitive to that. It could be lost, or at best, very difficult to retrieve. I do not recall reading that iproper procedure for connecting and disconnection ever caused damage to the drive.I agree with everything else you've said, btw. But I'm curious about this part. Could not the hard drives be knocked around just as much on the way to the brick and mortar store?
^Sure. But if it dies after you bought it at Best Buy, it's a five minute drive to return it and get a new one. It's not a terrible amount of hassle to return by mail if you bought it from a reputable vendor with a good return policy but why bother? In the store, sometimes, you can tell if a product has been handled poorly by inspecting the packaging. Can't do that if you order it. You just have to cross your fingers. Additionally, I'm perplexed at the number of reported drive failures I read about online. Especially when you read reviews from sites like Amazon. I assume most of those people ordered the drive through Amazon. I've bought a number of hard drives over the years and not one of them has ever failed. I've sold them or threw them out because they were getting old and I didn't think they'd last much longer but I've never had a hard drive failure. And I've always bought them at Circuit City. The worst case I've had was a Seagate that started making a repetitive clicking noise a few months after I bought it but it never failed.
I always buy mine at the store too (when they're on sale for reasonable prices). Either Circuit City, Best Buy, or Staples. I havent had a failed one yet either... hoping it stays that way. One of my WD drives doesn't always like to shut off when you hit the shut off button (and then I have to unplug it from the back to shut it off)... but that's the worst I've encountered thus far.
I thought that might be it, - wasn't sure. You're right. It should be easier to return by walking in with it in hand, than through the mail.Makes your other point a bit moot, eh? I've had one fail for sure. Well actually, someday I want to fiddle with it some more, just to see if I can get the data from it. It was a used drive. No idea how old it was when I acquired it. No complaints. Other drive that has exibited problems, and those problems are intermittent - sometimes it works - is a Samsung. Problems started when it was in the range of 7 years old or so, so again - no complaints.Last drive I bought - I walked in the local computer store and asked them if they had any used drives. Walked out with a Western Digital 40G for 15 or 20 bucks. It has been a while, can't remember exactly. It still works fine.I'm partial to WD myself. But I think all the big brand names are about the same.
Funny thing. I bought the Seagate because I'd heard so many horror stories about WD drives. That and I was interested in trying to get my computer as quiet as possible and Seagates were supposed to be some of the quietest around. Needless to say, that damned clicking started driving me batty after a while. I've had a couple of hard drives that made that same noise (Not the normal accessing noise). I think it's the bearings or something. One day, I'm gonna take one apart just to see if I can figure out what the fuck causes that.
I have used a variety of external hard drives and have never had any problems. They connect via the USB 2 port. USB 2 is better because the transfer of data is much faster. I currently own three external hard drives. Two at 40GB, and one at 250GB. I always like to keep one of the smaller sized hard drives connected to my pc, mac or laptop, to transfer big files or movies. Then store them on the 250GB. Like I say, never any problems and most certainly no data loss. :)
Usually nothing would "happen" on a desktop pc or mac - no data loss. Just a message saying that an external device has been disconnected incorrectly. On a laptop, on the one or two occasions when I have accidently pulled the USB cable out, one of two things usually happen. 1) Nothing bad, except a message saying a device has been unexpectedly removed. Again, no data loss. Or... 2) The laptop may restart. IN this case, the data loss was not on the external hard drive but on "unsaved" data that was open on the desktop. In all cases, no data loss on external hard drives. All I would say is, be careful not to suddenly pull the USB cable out. :)
I have a Seagate 300GB external hard drive that I use for backup purposes. My model gives me the choice of connecting to my computer via USB or Firewire. I backup my documents and my Outlook personal files every day now, which has saved my ass on a couple of occasions. It's also indispensable when transferring files from one computer to another. When I'm not using it for backup, I turn it off in an effort to increase its useful life.
What method/software/procedure/whatever do you use to achieve your backup to the external drive? Do you use Windows backup utility? Or simple copy-and-paste the data files you want to back up? or perhaps use some other utility? Just curious, really.
The Seagate external drive came bundled with a software utility called "Bounceback" (from CMS Products), which works really well and provides lots of flexibility in defining backup configurations. However, Bounceback doesn't work for backing up Outlook Personal Folder Files. For those, I downloaded a [ invalid url ] from Microsoft.
Does no one here know how to use IEEE 1194 ports? No drivers necessary and if the damn drive crashes data recovery is at least possible due to the fact that IDE aka fire wire needs no drivers to communicate between devices. IME, i have found when dealing with externals it's all about the enclosure and how secure the drive inside the case is. The externals for serial ata 3.5 inch drives tend to be much bulkier with more space for drive to bounce around in than a serial ata 2.5 inch. Yes, they're more expensive, they also take up half the space and last 3 times as long as their larger counter part. And never buy an external with only one type of pci slot out. You need (in case of emergency) to have a USB and IEEE 1194/ firewire port. and if they can double as a hub even better. LaCie rugged are great and I've had my smartdisk firelite for almost 3 years no problems. If you want truly stable secure data back up, build a bare bones file server and run it using linux and have the file server auto mirror your main hard drives. The chances of both or all 3 failing simultaneously is pretty slim.
