Lifespan of External Hard drives
Nov 28, 2020 17:25:17 #
Picture Taker
Loc: Michigan Thumb
Not so just replaced a Seagate 8TB from Costco, mailed to me at about $150.00 total.
Nov 28, 2020 17:26:28 #
TriX wrote:
Nooooo. That’s $100 per TB 
Sorry, missed the $...
Nov 28, 2020 17:27:02 #
Picture Taker wrote:
Not so just replaced a Seagate 8TB from Costco, mailed to me at about $150.00 total.
Disk, correct?
Nov 28, 2020 17:30:21 #
Nov 28, 2020 18:00:18 #
TriX wrote:
Do you mean the disk controller board or the external USB to SATA bridge? If the latter, why not just use drives with a USB interface?
I don't see why not, I'm not one of these experts on the subject I just watched a ton of videos and read a lot about why these drives stop working over time and that was the consistent thing that kept coming up. I had an external drive on my desktop that quit working but I never got rid of the drive and when I read about the SATA bridge thing, I literally removed the drive from its case and stuck the drive in a drive reader and was able to see all of my photos. I placed the drive in a protective case and I will only purchase naked drives from now on.
Nov 28, 2020 18:09:34 #
A. T. wrote:
I don't see why not, I'm not one of these experts ... (show quote)
I salvage discrete drives 1Tb and over from friends computers that they are disposing.
I delete everything and run cipher on them to obliterate the data. They work great.
If one were to die, I'd just plug another in the dock.
I think I still have two 500Gb Segate Barracuda drives. They'll only hold one backup for me though.
I guess they're a backup-backup.
Nov 28, 2020 18:40:06 #
rfmaude41
Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)
dbfalconer wrote:
A speaker at a recent photo club meeting was describing the importance various redundant backup options. He mentioned that external hard drives (like Seagate and WD) need to be replaced about every 18-24 months.
I understand any such device can fail, and one needs a backup of the backup, so to speak. But I was shocked at his assertion. I keep adding more WD units as my collection grows...but I had not considered constant replacement too. Thoughts? Thanks.
I understand any such device can fail, and one needs a backup of the backup, so to speak. But I was shocked at his assertion. I keep adding more WD units as my collection grows...but I had not considered constant replacement too. Thoughts? Thanks.
I have quite a few seagates that have been running without problems for more than 10 years. Four of them in a RAID 0+1 group have been running constantly for about 15 years and another two in a RAID 1 array for the same amount of time.
Nov 28, 2020 18:50:54 #
rfmaude41 wrote:
I have quite a few seagates that have been running without problems for more than 10 years. Four of them in a RAID 0+1 group have been running constantly for about 15 years and another two in a RAID 1 array for the same amount of time.
And I have some 4GB (yes, GB) Seagate SCSI Barracudas that still work fine last time I spun them up just out of curiosity. It all depends on the particular model, FW rev (yes, drives have FW revs), and what factory they were built in.
Nov 28, 2020 19:43:58 #
Harry0
Loc: Gardena, Cal
Everything ... is cumulative.
Your brand new drive may have been roughly handled by shippers before your loving care,
I had a mobo refund based on the Fedex driver's footprint, and some roundish boxes.
Heat cycles matter. Some parts are made to run 24/7/365- some aren't.
I've had older cases that had NO ventilation for hard drives. Not anymore. Fans = cheap!
My cMacPros' hard drives have vibration o-rings for the mounting screws.
A few decades ago we'd line HDD sides with thick tape to help vibrations in PC cases.
SSDs have a delete/write wear rate- hence the "trim". Formatting/rewriting "killed" older models.
System and programs go there- all reads, little writes; data costantly being revised goto spinners.
AND you don't always have to back up your system and programs- your data is what matters.
AND we are old-ish people here. A lot of our experience and wisdom is based on decades old incidents.
Sometimes I do notice that all those zeros in my MTBF specs don't have decimal points ...
My 1980-ish IBM HDDs were expected to have up to 20% defects- and "have to" replace in 3 years,
My replacement Connors shook and shivered and lasted maybe 4 years.
My wife's 2006 cMacPro has the original HDD with no issues.
I doubt any major problems in my drives made after 2018.
Your brand new drive may have been roughly handled by shippers before your loving care,
I had a mobo refund based on the Fedex driver's footprint, and some roundish boxes.
Heat cycles matter. Some parts are made to run 24/7/365- some aren't.
I've had older cases that had NO ventilation for hard drives. Not anymore. Fans = cheap!
My cMacPros' hard drives have vibration o-rings for the mounting screws.
A few decades ago we'd line HDD sides with thick tape to help vibrations in PC cases.
SSDs have a delete/write wear rate- hence the "trim". Formatting/rewriting "killed" older models.
System and programs go there- all reads, little writes; data costantly being revised goto spinners.
AND you don't always have to back up your system and programs- your data is what matters.
AND we are old-ish people here. A lot of our experience and wisdom is based on decades old incidents.
Sometimes I do notice that all those zeros in my MTBF specs don't have decimal points ...
My 1980-ish IBM HDDs were expected to have up to 20% defects- and "have to" replace in 3 years,
My replacement Connors shook and shivered and lasted maybe 4 years.
My wife's 2006 cMacPro has the original HDD with no issues.
I doubt any major problems in my drives made after 2018.
Nov 28, 2020 21:38:20 #
Picture Taker
Loc: Michigan Thumb
We all have experiences with hard drives. Some of us have had problems (failures) some have had none. Some of us will think the drives are great and can live for 20 years or ever.
It's just like top you use a mask or you don't need one. People are not the same and will do what they want.
I don't care if you use a double back up system or not. After 10 pareses good luck to what ever you buy or us. Go take AND KEEP you pictures.
It's just like top you use a mask or you don't need one. People are not the same and will do what they want.
I don't care if you use a double back up system or not. After 10 pareses good luck to what ever you buy or us. Go take AND KEEP you pictures.
Nov 29, 2020 07:17:13 #
Just out of curiosity, I Googled the question: between three and five years.
Dec 2, 2020 19:38:50 #
TriX wrote:
I must report that the sonic boom caused by today’s passing of a “fire ball” meteor did not change one bit of my backups!Glad you’re prepared for that meteorite 
Also I found an article confirming forgetfulness of unpowered SSD. Probably not good for archival storage. https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
Dec 2, 2020 20:28:11 #
Jack 13088 wrote:
I must report that the sonic boom caused by today’s passing of a “fire ball” meteor did not change one bit of my backups!
Also I found an article confirming forgetfulness of unpowered SSD. Probably not good for archival storage. https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
Also I found an article confirming forgetfulness of unpowered SSD. Probably not good for archival storage. https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
Speaking of “changing bits”, the particles from cosmic rays are bombarding us constantly and occasionally they flip a bit in memory. Lawrence Livermore National labs reported that, inexplicably, some of their long running models on their supercomputers were just “plain wrong”. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the stored data on disk was correct, but was corrupted in cache due to particles from cosmic rays. The answer was to use parity checking on reads as well as writes (which we implemented on our storage). If you check, you can buy DRAM with and without ECC. ECC is substantially more expensive and is often used in servers whereas non ECC DRAM is typical in consumer grade computers.
Dec 2, 2020 20:33:44 #
Dec 3, 2020 07:20:10 #
TriX wrote:
Speaking of “changing bits”, the particles from co... (show quote)
Interesting. About forty years ago, a friend asked me if a cosmic particle could change something on a disk, changing a Yes to a No. I thought that with all the data it takes to produce software, changing a bit or two wouldn't do something like that. I could see it causing a glitch, but not letting the program run and produce wrong results. I'm surprised about the Livermore report.
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