External Hard Disc Drives

John King

John King

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I bought one of these with a 1 terabyte capacity perhaps way back around 2007-8. It is still less than half full. It runs on whatever version of Windows that get's thrown at it, but most of the time it just sits there, switched off, until I want to store or retrieve something. Just how long do these items usually last? It has performed reliably all the time I have owned it, but given it's age I was wondering how long they could be expected to work without risk of loosing anything increasing.

I realise that electronics can fail at any time and without warning, but the possibility of this must increase the older it gets.

Any thought on this?
 
Based on that age, I am guessing its going to be a spinning disk probably 5400 or 720RPM.
If its just sat there turned off, it will last for many years to come.

The main issues is the transfer speed as its most likely going to be USB 2 at the most.
 
Spinning disk HDDs are quite delicate mechanically and can be damaged if they are dropped accidently or receive a knock while they are actively reading or writing data. If the data is important to you then it is worth keeping a secondary backup copy on the cloud or a separate device.
 
It is not likely to be knocked it is hard wired to the computer, but quite remote from where I work, but I can see it could be easily damaged. So the time may come shortly when it will be replaced. The only time it is touched is to switch it on or off. It is an internal failure due to age that concerns me.
The speed of writing is not a problem for me, it is as quick or quicker than any USB I have although I have updated my laptops and Main PC with a SSD which makes it a sensible improvement.

Thanks for your input.
 
They are completely unpredictable. I’ve got some still working after nearly a decade and others that have suddenly failed after a year or two. Problem is when they failed there was no warning.

The first disk that happened to meant I lost a lot of data and since then I’ve had a minimum of two disks with the same data on

I don’t use mine that much and when they have failed it had been after waking from not using for a while so my advice is get a second HD
 
John King said:
I bought one of these with a 1 terabyte capacity perhaps way back around 2007-8. It is still less than half full. It runs on whatever version of Windows that get's thrown at it, but most of the time it just sits there, switched off, until I want to store or retrieve something. Just how long do these items usually last? It has performed reliably all the time I have owned it, but given it's age I was wondering how long they could be expected to work without risk of loosing anything increasing.

I realise that electronics can fail at any time and without warning, but the possibility of this must increase the older it gets.

Any thought on this?
Click to expand...
Many factors effect the reliability of mechanical parts and electronics, these include temperature (in use and out of use) and the environment (vibration, shock, dust and moisture). Sometimes premium designs include some margin for these. However there are too many variables to plan a strategy unless you are running a server farm !

Generally some people don't consider the other types of failure, these include flood, fire and theft.

You definitely should have a back up of your data, probably in a different physical location, particularly if your drive is over 10 years old.

My (slightly paranoid) approach is to have a raid array of two discs mirroring each other that covers mechanical and electrical failure and automatic duplication of the data. I also then store a copy in the cloud (google drive, dropbox etc), this covers the flood, fire, theft risks. The raid array (Synology) automatically sync's with the cloud. You then also have online access where ever you can get internet access - you could for example upload images when away from home and these will be ready on your drive for you.

It does cost more, but to me the many 10's of thousands of images are worth it. You get to store your other data. Cloud storage is now secure enough.

One approach you could consider is to regularly sync your one drive to the cloud. Pretty much all cloud provider have app's that will sync this for you whenever your PC / Mac is connected to the drive and the internet. The gap in this strategy is the lack of high speed access to your images if you need them in a hurry (i.e. you need to download from the cloud). The cost is the cloud subscription £7 to £10 per month.
 
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Even RAID arrays can be problematic, particularly if they are backing up in real time. We lost a lot of important data once because the disks in the array were aging at the same rate (all on at the same time) and two of the disks went down losing both the data and the mirrored copy. We ended up with a better maintenance schedule for the disks and backing up to a second server with its own RAID array.

Clearly, we don't need to go to these lengths in a domestic environment, but I am with Simon and Ian on this one. It's all OK until it isn't. Make sure you have at least two copies on different media, and yes, cloud backup is a good option
 
Firstly I don't use 'Cloud'! What is mine stays with me not a third party irrespective how secure it is purported to be. Basically I trust no one where the the internet is concerned.

As an example, last year I found a picture of mine which I took in 1963 appeared on a website belonging to a Canadian photographer. How it got there I have no idea and a request to remove it I sent to the owner of the site went unanswered. I still have the original in my picture archive.

Most of the images on mine are scanned negatives anyway, so should it all go belly up I have most of the originals in the neg album.

However, when I get back from visiting relatives in Holland I think I will be looking around for a SSD
 
In the world of big data you are in the cloud whether you like it or not. Banks, online retail, tax all of it - even if its not immediately transparent to you - its replicated in the cloud as its the only cost effective way to do it. Most website images are stored in the cloud (aka a server capable of storing images) unless you run your own server and never post anything anywhere else.

Perhaps BC (Before Cloud ;)) was a time when we all felt a bit more comfortable, but I sense the opportunity presented way exceeds the risk of your images being pinched.
 
It is getting a bit off topic but I do not have any dealings with my bank via the internet. Yes it can be inconvenient, but that way I can be safe in the knowledge that any loss of cash is not down to my ineptitude or my computer being hacked for passwords etc. anyone that tries will find my HD incredibly boring. If the banks loose my money, they have to repay me.

Yes I buy items which I may see on the web, but will not buy anything unless I can speak to a human. I do not talk to a machine. Nor will I have a so called 'smart meter' connected to my utilities meter. (except my water meter which is physically read twice a year by Northumbria water.)

I realise that my E mail accounts can be vulnerable but they will not have any connection to my bank. There will be cracks of course but I will try to eliminate as many as I can and so far - touch wood OK!

I actually dislike the so called automation and drive for efficiency using computers with a passion. People come before profit in my book. Don't get me started on self checkouts in supermarkets!
 
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Hope I didn't trigger you with this one.

As a professional engineer I had 45 years keeping up with tech. Now I am retired at least I can admit to a degree of technophobia. And yes ... bloody self-service checkouts.

Do keep a backup though, even if it is to your nice new SSD and an occasional extra copy on the 1 terabyte. Speaking from experience here. And perhaps a few prints or photobooks if you feel so inclined.
 
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An IT technician told me recently there's a saying in his trade that states that data that is stored on only two remote drives does not exist. As has already been alluded to upstream, it is not unknown for two drives to die simultaneously. He said that you will, sooner or later, lose your photographs.

I took his advice, and haven't yet replaced the one of my two remote hard drives that has developed a faulty connection. I, and you, are almost certainly playing with fire.
 
He (and several others on the forum) also suggested that the Seagate drives that I use are known to be somewhat less reliable than those branded 'Western Digital'.
 
John King said:
Firstly I don't use 'Cloud'! What is mine stays with me not a third party irrespective how secure it is purported to be. Basically I trust no one where the the internet is concerned.

As an example, last year I found a picture of mine which I took in 1963 appeared on a website belonging to a Canadian photographer. How it got there I have no idea and a request to remove it I sent to the owner of the site went unanswered. I still have the original in my picture archive.

Most of the images on mine are scanned negatives anyway, so should it all go belly up I have most of the originals in the neg album.

However, when I get back from visiting relatives in Holland I think I will be looking around for a SSD
Click to expand...
SSD is an expensive option if you have a lot of data
 
Toby Webster said:
He (and several others on the forum) also suggested that the Seagate drives that I use are known to be somewhat less reliable than those branded 'Western Digital'.
Click to expand...
You can improve the odd's by purchasing drives intended for RAID or server use. Seagate have IronWolf drives Western Digital have Red drives. I have heard that the more platters a disk has the more likely it is to fail as data can sometimes be organized in different ways.

Have a look here, it gives a cloud providers statistics on drive failure.

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q1 2021 | Hard Drive Failure Rates

A look at the quarterly and lifetime failure rates of 175,443 drives, including a comparison of failure rates of HDD and SSD boot drives.
www.backblaze.com www.backblaze.com

Some Seagate driver are less reliable, some are more reliable, than average. There's insufficient data to conclude whether one brand is better than others.

If the disks are installed in an enclosure with a good quality power supply will effective cooling you will also reduce the possibility of failure.

Most electronics follow a bath tub curve for failures which tells you its more likely to fail early in life (dealt with through a level of test and burn in) or late in life, but there is an ever present possibility of failure at any time.

So the conclusion is
Buy a quality product that isn't the cheapest, so too many corners have been cut, that is fit for purpose.
Then have a schedule to replace it before it enters the end of life increase in failure
Have a plan to deal with random failures (back up)
 
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