Dlevon Loc: New Jersey

Hopefully you remember where you put everything!

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

The new SATA 3.0 drives have twice the size buffers that the old drives used to have and this allows them to last longer. YES, eventually if you use your hard drive as a temp storage buffer instead of installing more RAM, your drives will fail, but the failure rate for the new drives has vastly improved if you buy good drives. I use WD BLACK drives exclusively and my 2 SSDs are made by Sandisc and seem to be working flawlessly.
You get what you pay for. Bargain drives are just that and have more then twice the failure rate of quality drives. The only thing I haven't tried yet is the new hybrid drives but they are still expensive and the technology and usage philosophy isn't proven yet.
I prefer to keep my drive sizes to under 2 Terabytes and match the drives used in the RAID4 system. If I need more space for a specific file set or program, I can always plug in a drive for that app into the hot plug slots on the front panel of the tower. This eliminates the seperate HDD enclosures and all that wiring. Then just label the drive and put it in a safe place.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Tell-tale signs are frequently there if you look for them, but sometimes the drive just fails. Common signs are noise and speed. If you hear a clicking noise coming from the drive when you boot your computer, or you can hear it cycle 2 or 3 times before it becomes active, then that's a good sign it's about to fail. Stop using it until you get a replacement then transfer files before it stops working completely. Similarly, if it seems to take longer and longer to save or retrieve data, you may want to start looking for a new drive. Also, the problem you just described. Just about all disks have bad or flakey sectors (spots) on the disk, but if there are a bunch in one area the drive can just stop writing from that point on. I have seen programs like Norton Disk Doctor mark the bad sectors and make the rest of the disk usable, I've also seen it crash the disk.

Bottom line, if the drive starts acting different than what it usually does, it's probably time to start looking for it's replacement. You may be able run maintenance software to bring the drive back to life, but what's more expensive - a $100.00 +/- external drive, or all the pictures/data that could be irretrievably lost?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I'm thinking of getting a RAID array. The space limit is around 4Tb, but if any of the drives fails it can be replaced without loosing any data. Sure they are expensive, around 800 USD, but how valuable is the data.

As of right now, I have three computer systems with an extra drive in each. That extra drive is purely backup. As for failures, all drives are prone to fail. Ask anyone which are the better drive, it's like asking hoggers whether Nikon or Canon are best, shooting RAW or jpg best, etc.
--Bob

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

I do my backups to an external 4TB Seagate drive. I have used Seagate for quite a few years, although not without incident. A few months ago, I bought an internal 2TB Seagate, to replace my second internal drive. Less than 12 hours after installing it, my system drive - an identical Seagate - went belly-up. I didn't lose any data, but I did lose some programs I had on a partition on that drive. Plus, I had to pay to have the system stuff recovered and put onto the new drive.

I think you pays your money and takes your choice with this stuff. It is incredibly reliable, but failures do happen. You see the complaints from people who have had their drive fail, but of course, all the people who's drives are working fine don't post to tell you about it...

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

Bob,
If you have a reasonably new MOBO, you can incorporate the RAID system as internal drives and use an SSD as a boot drive. Almost all the new MOBOs allow for RAID in the board setup.
As for HDD failures, if you buy good drives (and I use WD BLACK w/5 year warranty) that use the new SATA 3.0 format, the drive is searching almost half of the old drive times since the buffers are much larger. Also, it's always a good idea to clean up the drives from crap files and consolidate associated files to reduce head movement and searching.
And don't forget that the more drive you install, the more your power supply is taxed. Having a good 800 Watts or larger power supply is almost mandatory if you intend to go RAID and with the new high power video cards, each card can use 200 or more watts of power.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Thanks for the information. I'll have to look into your suggestion.

The unit I was looking at is simply a box of hard drives, no video, etc., but networkable. It's similar to a 10,000 USD unit however, much much less money.

Even now with the three separate drives, I defrag them regularly, etc. just as a maintenance program. The only files that are on them are photos. As backups, they are rarely accessed unless I am writing to them.
Thanks again,
Bob

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

I wouldn't rely on reviews on sites like Amazon. All too often, they're phony, paid for by manufacturers to praise their products or to complain about the competition's. Look for reviews at sites like PC Magazine or other relatively independent sources. And, as noted, disk drives are still mostly electro-mechanical devices. They are bound to fail sooner or later. That's why you want a backup in the first place. It doesn't matter which fails first, your computer's main drive or your backup, as long as one survives to replenish the other.

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

[quote=doduce]
Each manufacturer sells 2or 3 quality levels of drives- the Black line or Server Grade is most expensive and best built- most people buy the cheap ones , then complain when they fail. The good ones cost 2 to 3 times as much as the bargain ones.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Another trick is don't buy drives with sequential serial numbers. Those were all made at the same time. Purchase drives with serial numbers that are somewhat different by a lot. The MTBF is about the same, but if all were made at the same time....well just think about it.
--Bob

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

Don't knock the reviews on Amazon. I write some when I buy stuff from them and have found the reviews to be pretty accurate. They're not always glowing testimonial. And you can ask a question about a product and reviewers will respond if they know the answer. It's a good system and not written by guys getting kickbacks from manufacturers for their comments like in some magazines.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Right! I give an honest opinion of my experiences with a product. I think there are more legitimate reviews than paid-for. You have to get an average opinion. Some people don't know how to use a product, so they give it a bad review. Or, maybe the box was ripped when the received it, so they lower their rating..

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

Singleviking and Jerrc41, I wasn't suggesting that every review is a fake. However, a significant number are. And, as Jerry noted, not everyone gives a qualified review. That's why I recommend going to sites that regularly review products, preferably with a lab setting.

dsturr

A while back I seem to recall you had a question about what make of PC had slots for hard drives to be plugged in. I have a Gateway which has two on the front. This is sort of relevant to this thread because a couple of days ago I got to use one of them. I had a 3TB external Seagate fail and not only would Windows not recognize it but neither would any recovery software. I took it out the case, turned off the computer and plugged it in. Re-started and the drive was recognized by windows as an unformatted drive. I ran Data Rescue PC3 and got all my photos. The file system was shown as "RAW" and all the files were just consecutively numbered and sorted by file extensions but they were all there.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I have a couple of Seagates (2TB each) and I like 'em, especially their ease of use and affordability. I got mine for under $70.00 (ea.).