Most Stable Internal Hard Drives?

I am going to archive all my images on internal hard drives, but store them

disconnected on a shelf with duplicate drives off site. I want to store on the

(relatively) smaller 250 gig drives with greater frequency, rather than waiting

to accumulate 500G of images.<p>The concept is to write 200G of data at one

shot, and retire the drive. The data will stay on an active, accessible drive in

the computer case for one year after the job is done. <p>Personal work will also

be backed up on these drives, whenever 200G is available, with incremental

active backups as the work is created on CDs, and on an external HD, as I do

currently.<p>The ultimate question concerns finding a very stable drive model

(doesn't need speed)to standardize on... Seagate, WD, Hitachi, Fujitsu,

Samsung... they all make various models. Can anyone save me hours of research

with your personal experience, or at least help with prioritizing the order of

research? I am inclined toward Western Digital Caviar, or the Seagate

Barracuda... advice?<p>Thanks... t

I admin servers all day long. I've used every drive imagineable. They all fail, but as often (when used correctly) as you might think. You're still going to need to light those off-line drives up and refresh the contents periodically. No less than annually, I'd say... shuffling the contents off to a different drive which has just had a surface scan for bad sectors. And with 200GB+ drives, that's when it IS nice to have the speed... not that you'll be in a big hurry to prep a blank drive, the way you're talking about using them.

 

Just don't make the mistake of assuming that an unplugged drive on the shelf isn't risking decay of that data over time. Static discharge, cosmic rays... all of that good stuff. Entropy, you know. The universe hates your data (nothing personal, of course!).

 

To actually answer your question: I think I can safely say that I've had the fewest annoying failures among WD drives. And since I may have some bias that direction, I end up buying more of those than the others. And since I've got a bigger population of WD drives, and STILL have what feels like fewer bad failures within those units, that's even better. Good luck, and have a redundant day! Good luck, and have a redundant day!

 

Of course, to be safe, we should have another copy of this conversation on another message board... :-)

If you want archive-level you're gonna need Enterprise Level Western Digital drives.. I totally recommend these.. http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=401

 

A quick blurb from the site..

 

WD RE2

320 GB, 1.2 million hours MTBF, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM

 

1.2 million hours MTBF. Best-in-class vibration tolerance. 5-year limited warranty. Just three of the reasons why WD RE2 drives are the world's most reliable SATA drives.

 

 

Capacities:

750 GB 500 GB 400 GB 320 GB 160 GB

---------------------------------------------

 

Trust me, there are NONE BETTER!

Thanks Matt. Should I store these in that drawer with my lead lined underpants? maybe pack them in sodium chloride, too? <p>Seriously, I would probably keep them in those anti-static bags that they come in, for just the reason you describe... t<p>Have a look at this <a href="http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Storage/hdd_station/blacx/st0005u.asp">unit</a>. It's what got me on this track. $40 at Newegg.<p>

I'm curious as to why you'd use HD's instead of DVD's.

 

What's the cost/MB of each? And the reliability? And, a minor matter, space.

 

Just curious - I like the idea myself. Just the side of me that likes options had to ask.

Personally, I'd much prefer hard drives over DVDs, for now anyway. Laser-writeable optical media - the kind you typically can purchase at sane prices - hasn't shown any sort of viable track record for long-term storage yet. You'd still have to read FROM them, and write to fresh media every couple of years to play it safe. But you can get a few GB on them. FAR more work involved than in just shuffling several GB at a time between a couple of externally connected HDs, and then doing surface tests on them (which you can walk away from while having a nice glass of Guiness).

 

Tom Maher's preferences for the Enterprise class drives is driven, I think, around the sort of punishment that the drives are built to take WHILE IN USE. Unpowered shelf time is a lot less demanding than millions of read-write cycles on drives that are in use all day in RAID arrays getting pounded by production tasks. Hard to say if the e-class drives would be meaningfully more useful sitting in your closet waiting for next year's refresh party.

Tom: I actually like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBlacx-HDD-Dock-USB-Port%2Fdp%2FB0014KLABI%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Delectronics%26qid%3D1208983365%26sr%3D8-2&tag=uplandlife-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank"><b>this variation</b></a>, for less than the cost of a pizza more, because it also brings some USB ports to your desktop. Maybe I'm just fussy. Yes, I believe I am in fact fussy. But hey, if you're going to string up yet another doo-dad on your desktop, might as well let it help you keep the cable-stretching down a bit.

Yeah, I thought about that, but I'd rather keep the cables off my desk. And this item will not be a permanent fixture, just a device that is brought out once in a while to create the archive and then back on it's own shelf. I was considering the one with a SATA input connector, but decided against that for the same reason. It's not going to be a permanent desktop fixture.<p>As Matt says, the stability of the HD over DVDs, plus the time saved in burning one 15G job to 4 DVDs and the labeling of each with a desktop printer, is enough to make me go that way. 100 inkjet printable DVDs of reasonable quality is about $35-40 and the 250g Caviar Drives I ordered are $70 (with shipping). The time saved with the initial burns and labeling, plus the copying and re-labeling of those disks every 3-4 years to ensure the archive, minus $40 per drive is a deal I am eager to try out.<p>Thanks again... t

I say to use the drives I suggested because it's built to keep your data safe and the drive operable for many years of hard, and I mean VERY hard use. So, sitting on your shelf for 10-20-30-50 years should be a walk in the park for the drive.

 

If you're more interested in cheaper, possibly less reliable storage options, why not consider laptop HD's? They're built pretty damn tough, can be had near the sizes you need cheaply AND, are a lot smaller. Not to mention, a $10 USB or Firewire hard drive case makes everything very small and handy.

 

Not to mention, it also gives you the portability of 200gb or so that you can pop into any computer with a USB port at the size of a deck of cards..

Might it not be best to alternate between different drive models rather than to fix on one? If the model you choose happens to have a design or manufacturing fault that isn't immediately apparent, you might lose all your data in a relatively short space of time. I've had a couple of hard drives of the same model die in quick succession (there was a known delayed failure issue, I think attributed to bad capacitors).

If you will be transporting the drives often, I would suggest drives for Notebook or Laptop computers. Those drives are designed to be moved about.

 

One big draw back about using hard drives versus DVD, if your hard drive fails, you lose much more data than if a single DVD fails - about 100 times the data.

 

I am not sure what the answer to backups is. Me, I back up critical files to an internal hard drive, an external hard drive, two different DVDs, and on a regular schedule, to DVDs stored off site.

 

Before I retired, I was the System Programmer for a Mainframe data center. We took nightly backups on tape - two copies - kept one copy on site and shipped the other off site. We kept several version of the backups before the tapes were recycled. We never lost any data. But backups would take a good portion of the graveyard shift. Home users do not have the time or resources to do that..

at this point, I write everything of long term value to gold inkjet printable Mitsui CDs. The stuff that someone <i>might</i> need goes on inkjet printable DVDs.<p>Everything stays on an external and an internal drive for a year and then is burned to another set of DVDs or CD's before being deleted from the HDs.<p>I am fine with 250 gig drives (my internal, secondary drives are all 500G). <p>They will not be transported except to the safe deposit box and the shelf in my house. I will most likely get a hot swappable external case to access these drives when I need them. <p>Tape drives are dependable, but too slow. Fine for those with a server and a staff (not me).<p>That's not a bad idea to use Caviars <b>and</b> Barracudas instead of just one or the other.<p>Enterprise drives of this size are currently on sale at Newegg.com. I might take advantage of that. Thanks.<p>And thanks to all who have contributed so far. Very helpful, indeed... t

western digital by far has been my most reliable brand. Maybe a couple of dozen drive upgrade over the years and never a failure.

The one and only drive that failed fo rme was a Seagate...but that

was years ago. Also, I never turn off my PC's. They run day and night for years at a time (except for a short power off here and there). Drives hate to be pwer cycled.

If you are serious about never losing data, a level 1 RAID or better configuration is probably what you want. Since you seem to indicate that you intend to accumulate a large number of hard drives, I don't think this should be a problem. The only real difference is that they are brought on line and retired in larger chunks.

 

Wikipedia's RAID page has some good information and external references.

When you store your off line HD's, I would strongly suggest keeping them in either a padded anti-static (ESD) pouch or box. The cardboard boxes generally have ESD foam in them. The greatest threat to bare drives comes from impact or ESD.

All the manufacturers lie about reliability, keep that in mind.

Another vote for Western Digital here from me, and I've just tested out excatly what you're doing here

 

I've had a 4 year old WD drive thats been sat on the shelf with all my old data on (I hate wiping drives, I just buy new ones when they fill up and retire the original), and I plugged it back in last month and it works perfectly.

And another WD fan.

 

I've seen so many Maxtor fails I'm amazed they still sell. Although I believe they've been bought by Seagate, so, they may improve if they continue to sell the brand. Hitachi too are flakey, but not as bad as Maxtor.

 

Don't know about Samsung either, apart from the fact that they are very cheep.

Fujitsu IDE/Sata's are/were poor, but SCSI were very good.

 

So #1 choice is WD, VERY reliable and VERY quiet, I've never seen one fail.

#2 Seagate, noisey but only 1 fail in 10 years.

 

I've had hundreds of CRC errors from no-name DVD's over the past few years. ALL my DVD's and CD's are now TDK. But again, NEVER had an error on a WD.

 

Just remember to refresh the data every now and then. Magnetic media is prone to fade over extended periods of time whether in use or on shelf.

 

Just an opinion....

Well, I'll add to all of the above ***anecdotal*** information and say go with Hitachi

Deskstar/Ultrastar drives. Fast and no failures yet...