Pelican Parts
Parts Catalog Accessories Catalog How To Articles Tech Forums
Call Pelican Parts at 888-280-7799
Shopping Cart Cart | Project List | Order Status | Help



Go Back   Pelican Parts Forums > Miscellaneous and Off Topic Forums > Off Topic Discussions


Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Rate Thread
Author
Thread Post New Thread    Reply
Registered
 
peppy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Kenbridge VA
Posts: 4,269
Hard Drive Storage

I have an external Iomega hard drive that has crapped out. I was using it as a storage/backup/server for my home network. (Keeps showing failure to write errors.)

What is a better solution for accessing music and video and storing picture back ups?

__________________
Peppy
2011 BMW 335d
1988 Targa 3.4
2001 Jetta TDI dead
1982 Chevette Diesel SOLD
Old 04-02-2011, 08:16 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #1 (permalink)
Band.
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Denver, CO
Posts: 13,320
Send a message via AIM to Gogar
There's nothing wrong with using a regular hard drive; it's definitely the cheapest way.

How long did it last?

If you're really just using a drive to 'back up', then the best way to make it last is to have it external and turn it off when you're not 'backing up.' The less it spins, the longer it lasts.
__________________
1983 SC Coupe
1963 BMW R60/2
1972 Triumph Tiger
1995 Triumph Daytona SuperIII
Old 04-02-2011, 08:24 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #2 (permalink)
Registered
 
peppy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Kenbridge VA
Posts: 4,269
It lasted about 2 years, I left it on all the time.
__________________
Peppy
2011 BMW 335d
1988 Targa 3.4
2001 Jetta TDI dead
1982 Chevette Diesel SOLD
Old 04-02-2011, 08:30 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #3 (permalink)
The Unsettler
 
stomachmonkey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lantanna TX
Posts: 23,885
Send a message via AIM to stomachmonkey
Failure to write could be heads or bad sectors.

Take the data off an reformat the long way, not quick format. Should block the bad sectors from being available.

If that fails then likely heads are toast so dump it.
Old 04-02-2011, 08:54 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #4 (permalink)
Registered
 
Scott R's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Aspen CO US
Posts: 16,054
Garage
The drives in the machine I'm typing on have been running for four years with their only downtime being a power outage that went beyond my UPS's battery life. I've seen them in excess of ten years in the business side. As long as you stay away from Western Digital you should get many many years of use out of one drive.

Now if you want to go longer... you can use tape, or a small external chassis with two or three drives in it setup in an array.
__________________
2021 Model Y
2005 Cayenne Turbo
2012 Panamera 4S
1980 911 SC
1999 996 Cab
Old 04-02-2011, 09:00 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #5 (permalink)
19 years and 17k posts...
 
azasadny's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Dearborn, MI (Southeast Michigan)
Posts: 17,444
Garage
I have Windows Home Server with 4 hard drives running 7/24 to back up all 7 PC's in our house. Once a drive gets to be 2 years old, I replace it with a newer one. I also make sure they're not too hot...
__________________
Art Zasadny
1974 Porsche 911 Targa "Helga" (Sold, back home in Germany)
Learning the bass guitar
Driving Ford company cars now...
www.ford.com
Old 04-02-2011, 09:13 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #6 (permalink)
 
Registered Usurper
 
DARISC's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 13,824
Dunno if this veers off-topic, but:

Dell tech. had to replace motherboard and both 500 gig hard drives (raid 1setup) before he could reload Windows on my yr. old box. Arrrgh! Four days to download my encrypted Carbonite backup awaited me.

Fortunately, my computer savvy buddy was able to use a SATA dock to recover my data and erase the old disks before I had to return them to Dell (or pay for the new drives).

On his recommendation I then bought a 2 terabyte external drive ($90) and loaded everything, including system (Carbonite only backs up data) onto it.

So now, if I crash and burn I can use the image thereon to put everything back, exactly the way it was before the crash - no reloading Windows, apps, preferences, customizations, etc.

I keep the two terabyte drive stored in a remote location in case zombies burn down my house, or...

For $55 a year, I'm keeping my subscription to Carbonite (which saved my bacon on a previous crash) - I figure you can't be too safe.
__________________
'82 SC RoW coupe

Last edited by DARISC; 04-02-2011 at 09:39 AM..
Old 04-02-2011, 09:37 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #7 (permalink)
Registered
 
peppy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Kenbridge VA
Posts: 4,269
Can you back up an itunes library on carbonite?

The itunes in the only thing I am going to lose, but I hate the thought of ripping all those cd's again.
__________________
Peppy
2011 BMW 335d
1988 Targa 3.4
2001 Jetta TDI dead
1982 Chevette Diesel SOLD
Old 04-02-2011, 10:01 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #8 (permalink)
Registered
 
Scott R's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Aspen CO US
Posts: 16,054
Garage
Quote:
Originally Posted by peppy View Post
Can you back up an itunes library on carbonite?

The itunes in the only thing I am going to lose, but I hate the thought of ripping all those cd's again.
Yes, it grabs everything in documents and settings by default, which is where that's stored.
__________________
2021 Model Y
2005 Cayenne Turbo
2012 Panamera 4S
1980 911 SC
1999 996 Cab
Old 04-02-2011, 10:10 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #9 (permalink)
Registered
 
Eric Coffey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: AZ
Posts: 8,414
If you want a reliable HDD back-up, I'd pick up a couple of cheap 500GB+ 7500rpm drives and set up an external RAID array (as Scott mentioned) Or, you can buy them pre-built if you don't want to hassle with sourcing parts and putting one together (obviously more $$ going that route).
Old 04-02-2011, 11:16 AM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #10 (permalink)
Registered
 
peppy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Kenbridge VA
Posts: 4,269
Thanks for the ideas, I am going to try and get the stuff off of the drive and reformat first.
__________________
Peppy
2011 BMW 335d
1988 Targa 3.4
2001 Jetta TDI dead
1982 Chevette Diesel SOLD
Old 04-02-2011, 12:42 PM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #11 (permalink)
Registered
 
beepbeep's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Sweden
Posts: 5,910
I work with storage.

1:st, you cannot say "brand X is rubbish, brand Y is good". Every new series is unique. IBM Deathstars frequently crashed, but next series was good. Certain WD models were bad, others were good etc.

2:nd, only way to really survive single disk crash is to run some kind of RAID. RAID-5 is most common (big SATA discs in RAID-5 might get problematic while rebuilding due to error frequency vs. disk size but it's out of scope right now).

3:rd, real life data collected by Google on some 100k discs reveals that drives don't like it too cold either.

For home use, a small NAS box with three or four discs is good enough. There are plenty of models to choose from. I found Netgear NV+ or NVX to work fine. They can be used by multiple computers at once and will survive one dead disc.

And last: RAID is NOT a backup. It will not save your a$$ if you accidentally delete something or hardware takes a dump. If you value your data, have a off-line copy. (disc, tape or cloud, doesn't matter...just make sure you have fairly recent copy)

__________________
Thank you for your time,
Old 04-02-2011, 01:27 PM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #12 (permalink)
Reply


 


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 05:34 AM.


 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0
Copyright 2025 Pelican Parts, LLC - Posts may be archived for display on the Pelican Parts Website -    DMCA Registered Agent Contact Page
 

DTO Garage Plus vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.