External Drives for Backup: I've mentioned "Ask Leo!" several times, and here's one more. I watched one of his videos last night about backing up using external hard drives. In his...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've mentioned "Ask Leo!" several times, and here's one more. I watched one of his videos last night about backing up using external hard drives. In his opinion (and mine), it's a no-brainer. HDDs are relatively inexpensive and super reliable. I have drives that are ten years old, maybe older, and they are still saving and giving back data. Naturally, there is no such thing as a single-drive backup. You must have two or more because nothing lasts forever.

When you're doing a backup, speed doesn't matter. You can go about your business while the backup is running. Unlike SSDs, HDDs don't have an expiration date. From my own experience, I like boxes that hold multiple drives - like Mediasonic, Yottamaster, and Terramaster. I can save one type of file to an individual drive.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

jerryc41 wrote:

... I can save one type of file to an individual drive.

I don't (and won't) split save. All the stuff I backup goes to one drive in a backup date directory.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

I did not know that external HDDs are so much more reliable. I need to consider that.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Mark Sturtevant wrote:

I did not know that external HDDs are so much more reliable. I need to consider that.

Well, yes and no. Looking at the statistics from BackBlaze, they are reliable, but SSDs seem to have the overall edge. SSDs do wear out after a certain number of writes, though. An HDD will keep working unless something breaks. As I said above, I am using some that are ten years old.

Mr. SONY Loc: LI, NY

Mark Sturtevant wrote:

I did not know that external HDDs are so much more reliable. I need to consider that.

I have some external Seagate drives that are 20 years old.
Spinners, imagine that. They work just fine.
I've thrown away or given away lots of outgrown drives.
Sure a few have failed, but that is why I have all my data on 4 separate backup drives.
WD 5tb black series drives.
I also have all my music on 4 separate external drives.
Spinners are larger, cheaper and very reliable.
Any drive can fail. Including SSD drives.
That is why multiple drives for back up are better.
One drive does not make for a safe backup solution.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Mark Sturtevant wrote:

I did not know that external HDDs are so much more reliable. I need to consider that.

They are not.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Mr. SONY wrote:

I have some external Seagate drives that are 20 ye... (show quote)

I have OLD HHDs also that work just fine.
When I get new HHDs, the last two were WD Gold drives.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

TriX wrote:

They are not.

From past posts you’re pretty knowledgeable with computer technology.

Would you mind sharing with us why you believe HDD’s are not as reliable? Thanks.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Fredrick wrote:

From past posts you’re pretty knowledgeable with computer technology.

Would you mind sharing with us why you believe HDD’s are not as reliable? Thanks.

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opinion is :

External HDs are unlikely to be as reliable as internal HDs - not always, but usually. Why?
1) it’s difficult to determine the quality of the HD in a prepackaged external, and it’s usually the cheapest drive in the product line.
2) the cooling is unlikely to be as good. There’s likely no fan, and if there is, it’s smaller (lower CFM) and smaller enclosure and external ports to exhaust heat
3) if it has a power supply (not powered by USB from the computer), it’s typically a poorly regulated and protected “wall wart” unlike the higher quality PS in the computer
4) there’s the protocol conversion to USB and back to SATA plus two physical ports, and the USB (or other) cable - all potential failure points, not to mention the USB driver.
5) many/most popular externals are in the $100 or less range. I contend that you cannot build a quality HD, case, interface and power supply, QC it, market it and have the reseller make a mark up for $100.

If you want an external, buy an enterprise quality drive, a case with a fan and a quality power supply, and assemble it. It will take 5 minutes max, you may spend over $100, but it will be quality storage.

Now as far as SSDs vs HDs:

1) the SSD is orders of magnitudes faster in every respect, but you may not need that for backup or archive
2) initial testing shows them to be more reliable than HDs providing it’s made by a reputable manufacturer.
3) smaller, less heat, insensitive to shock/vibration.
4) the limitation on the max number of write/erase cycles is irrelevant for home users. A ITB SSD typically has a spec of 150-600TB written. How many people ever actually write 150 TB to a drive? Nobody, but an enterprise server handling multiple users.
5) although they will retain charge for a LONG time, I’d power it up every now and then.
6) they do fail even if not as often, and when they do, they may fail quickly and be unrecoverable. In fairness, HDs are not cost effective to recover unless the data is VERY valuable, plus, you ought to have another copy or two of your data for backup and disaster recovery anyway.
7) consumer quality HDs are cheaper in terms of $/TB (and enterprise drives less so) tha SSDs, but the cost/TB of SSDs is dropping by ~ 1/2 every year.

The net-net is that if you’re using the drive for the OS and application, the SSD is a no brainer. And if you’re using it to store data, it’s still the best choice unless you have many TBs of data (a quality 2TB SSD is $140 - next year it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy a 4TB for nearly the same price). Personally, all my computers have been all SSDs (including backups) for ~10 years. I use all Intel or Samsung SSDs and have never had a failure - I have 10 year old SSDs made by Intel still in service 24x7x365.

Hope this helps.

srg

TriX wrote:

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opinion is :

External HDs are unlikely to be as reliable as internal HDs - not always, but usually. Why?
1) it’s difficult to determine the quality of the HD in a prepackaged external, and it’s usually the cheapest drive in the product line.
2) the cooling is unlikely to be as good. There’s likely no fan, and if there is, it’s smaller (lower CFM) and smaller enclosure and external ports to exhaust heat
3) if it has a power supply (not powered by USB from the computer), it’s typically a poorly regulated and protected “wall wart” unlike the higher quality PS in the computer
4) there’s the protocol conversion to USB and back to SATA plus two physical ports, and the USB (or other) cable - all potential failure points, not to mention the USB driver.
5) many/most popular externals are in the $100 or less range. I contend that you cannot build a quality HD, case, interface and power supply, QC it, market it and have the reseller make a mark up for $100.

If you want an external, buy an enterprise quality drive, a case with a fan and a quality power supply, and assemble it. It will take 5 minutes max, you may spend over $100, but it will be quality storage.

Now as far as SSDs vs HDs:

1) the SSD is orders of magnitudes faster in every respect, but you may not need that for backup or archive
2) initial testing shows them to be more reliable than HDs providing it’s made by a reputable manufacturer.
3) smaller, less heat, insensitive to shock/vibration.
4) the limitation on the max number of write/erase cycles is irrelevant for home users. A ITB SSD typically has a spec of 150-600TB written. How many people ever actually write 150 TB to a drive? Nobody, but an enterprise server handling multiple users.
5) although they will retain charge for a LONG time, I’d power it up every now and then.
6) they do fail even if not as often, and when they do, they may fail quickly and be unrecoverable. In fairness, HDs are not cost effective to recover unless the data is VERY valuable, plus, you ought to have another copy or two of your data for backup and disaster recovery anyway.
7) consumer quality HDs are cheaper in terms of $/TB (and enterprise drives less so) tha SSDs, but the cost/TB of SSDs is dropping by ~ 1/2 every year.

The net-net is that if you’re using the drive for the OS and application, the SSD is a no brainer. And if you’re using it to store data, it’s still the best choice unless you have many TBs of data (a quality 2TB SSD is $140 - next year it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy a 4TB for nearly the same price). Personally, all my computers have been all SSDs (including backups) for ~10 years. I use all Intel or Samsung SSDs and have never had a failure - I have 10 year old SSDs made by Intel still in service 24x7x365.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opi... (show quote)

Thanks for that excellent reply

therwol Loc: USA

TriX wrote:

They are not.

I have a two friends who lost all of their pictures they backed up on a single HDD. One paid over a thousand dollars to have them recovered. The other one didn't want to spend the money. I suppose the advantage of the spinning drives is that the data can be recovered, but at a high cost. I don't believe the same is true if an SSD fails. It might depend on how it fails.

Mr. SONY Loc: LI, NY

therwol wrote:

I have a two friends who lost all of their pictures they backed up on a single HDD. One paid over a thousand dollars to have them recovered. The other one didn't want to spend the money. I suppose the advantage of the spinning drives is that the data can be recovered, but at a high cost. I don't believe the same is true if an SSD fails. It might depend on how it fails.

Your friend now knows why I have been telling people that using only one drive for a backup solution, is not a solution.

You need at least two. I use four for data.
Then another four for my music.
Drives are cheap. Recovery services are expensive.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

TriX wrote:

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opinion is :

External HDs are unlikely to be as reliable as internal HDs - not always, but usually. Why?
1) it’s difficult to determine the quality of the HD in a prepackaged external, and it’s usually the cheapest drive in the product line.
2) the cooling is unlikely to be as good. There’s likely no fan, and if there is, it’s smaller (lower CFM) and smaller enclosure and external ports to exhaust heat
3) if it has a power supply (not powered by USB from the computer), it’s typically a poorly regulated and protected “wall wart” unlike the higher quality PS in the computer
4) there’s the protocol conversion to USB and back to SATA plus two physical ports, and the USB (or other) cable - all potential failure points, not to mention the USB driver.
5) many/most popular externals are in the $100 or less range. I contend that you cannot build a quality HD, case, interface and power supply, QC it, market it and have the reseller make a mark up for $100.

If you want an external, buy an enterprise quality drive, a case with a fan and a quality power supply, and assemble it. It will take 5 minutes max, you may spend over $100, but it will be quality storage.

Now as far as SSDs vs HDs:

1) the SSD is orders of magnitudes faster in every respect, but you may not need that for backup or archive
2) initial testing shows them to be more reliable than HDs providing it’s made by a reputable manufacturer.
3) smaller, less heat, insensitive to shock/vibration.
4) the limitation on the max number of write/erase cycles is irrelevant for home users. A ITB SSD typically has a spec of 150-600TB written. How many people ever actually write 150 TB to a drive? Nobody, but an enterprise server handling multiple users.
5) although they will retain charge for a LONG time, I’d power it up every now and then.
6) they do fail even if not as often, and when they do, they may fail quickly and be unrecoverable. In fairness, HDs are not cost effective to recover unless the data is VERY valuable, plus, you ought to have another copy or two of your data for backup and disaster recovery anyway.
7) consumer quality HDs are cheaper in terms of $/TB (and enterprise drives less so) tha SSDs, but the cost/TB of SSDs is dropping by ~ 1/2 every year.

The net-net is that if you’re using the drive for the OS and application, the SSD is a no brainer. And if you’re using it to store data, it’s still the best choice unless you have many TBs of data (a quality 2TB SSD is $140 - next year it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy a 4TB for nearly the same price). Personally, all my computers have been all SSDs (including backups) for ~10 years. I use all Intel or Samsung SSDs and have never had a failure - I have 10 year old SSDs made by Intel still in service 24x7x365.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opi... (show quote)

Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate the time and effort you took in answering the question.

Laramie Loc: Tempe

TriX wrote:

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opinion is :

External HDs are unlikely to be as reliable as internal HDs - not always, but usually. Why?
1) it’s difficult to determine the quality of the HD in a prepackaged external, and it’s usually the cheapest drive in the product line.
2) the cooling is unlikely to be as good. There’s likely no fan, and if there is, it’s smaller (lower CFM) and smaller enclosure and external ports to exhaust heat
3) if it has a power supply (not powered by USB from the computer), it’s typically a poorly regulated and protected “wall wart” unlike the higher quality PS in the computer
4) there’s the protocol conversion to USB and back to SATA plus two physical ports, and the USB (or other) cable - all potential failure points, not to mention the USB driver.
5) many/most popular externals are in the $100 or less range. I contend that you cannot build a quality HD, case, interface and power supply, QC it, market it and have the reseller make a mark up for $100.

If you want an external, buy an enterprise quality drive, a case with a fan and a quality power supply, and assemble it. It will take 5 minutes max, you may spend over $100, but it will be quality storage.

Now as far as SSDs vs HDs:

1) the SSD is orders of magnitudes faster in every respect, but you may not need that for backup or archive
2) initial testing shows them to be more reliable than HDs providing it’s made by a reputable manufacturer.
3) smaller, less heat, insensitive to shock/vibration.
4) the limitation on the max number of write/erase cycles is irrelevant for home users. A ITB SSD typically has a spec of 150-600TB written. How many people ever actually write 150 TB to a drive? Nobody, but an enterprise server handling multiple users.
5) although they will retain charge for a LONG time, I’d power it up every now and then.
6) they do fail even if not as often, and when they do, they may fail quickly and be unrecoverable. In fairness, HDs are not cost effective to recover unless the data is VERY valuable, plus, you ought to have another copy or two of your data for backup and disaster recovery anyway.
7) consumer quality HDs are cheaper in terms of $/TB (and enterprise drives less so) tha SSDs, but the cost/TB of SSDs is dropping by ~ 1/2 every year.

The net-net is that if you’re using the drive for the OS and application, the SSD is a no brainer. And if you’re using it to store data, it’s still the best choice unless you have many TBs of data (a quality 2TB SSD is $140 - next year it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy a 4TB for nearly the same price). Personally, all my computers have been all SSDs (including backups) for ~10 years. I use all Intel or Samsung SSDs and have never had a failure - I have 10 year old SSDs made by Intel still in service 24x7x365.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the nice compliment. In general, my opi... (show quote)

Mostly, I agree completely. But when a SSD fails everything is gone. When a spinning drive fails, it is still possible to retrieve data. I agree, also, that an OS and apps will perform better on a SSD.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

If using SSD for backups - BEST WAY - four drives in two alternating sets.
A set means back up on drive 1 and immediately back up again on drive 2.
Keep a backup diary and record the backups.