New HHD

[Thompson]

So I'm practically out of room on my current HHD now and in need of a replacement.

Been eyeing this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339) up for the past couple of months hoping it will go on sale, but no such luck.

In my current rig I've got the same Blue model but the 500 GB version, have had that since 2012, no problems to date.

My question is - do you guys find it worth it to get those couple-year protection plans? Or is it really not worth it. I'm more so worried about backing up all my pics. I had an external 1TB WD HHD ... but that tanked within 2 years, so I'm a little skeptical to get another external drive.

[jim.bell]

To specifically answer your question "it depends".

Although my degree is IT, I have never worked a day in an official It organization. This is just my opinion.

I use Synctoy to back up to two different online storage sites, plus we have NAS that we can backup other things too. I don't know if that helps or not. When I recently lost my personal laptop, I lost some stuff, but everything that I meant to keep was easily restored. $0.02

Any single hdd setup is an opportunity for an issue. A better solution is to either backup to an exterior drive (like you had) or another backup method. Currently, Amazon has an offer for unlimited photo storage. They also have a $60 annual plan that might make sense. If you spend $60 to buy another exterior hdd, you now have two places you can keep the data, which means if either fails you still have a backup to recover from.

[EO3]

Not sure about your budget here, but IMO a Solid State drive is always a much better option. Obviously more pricey, but WAY more reliable and WAY faster.

[Joelski]

SSD'S have shorter mtbf's than platters. Great performance, yeah, but heat gets them over a shorter time and they have a finite number of read/write cycles. If you back up sufficiently, the extra warranty is a waste.

[Dstrbdmedic167]

I'd just get what I've been using for a while now...

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160304/c77843bcaada1fb412fb61cfa3946ece.jpg


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[Jerry R]

I started a computer career in 1964 programming plug boards, and am a firm believer in backups. I have seen a lot of "When in danger, when in doubt - run in circles, scream and shout" when critical data goes south. Computer date backup is a lot like the military/survival adage - "Two is one, one is none." I'm running a 3TB WD HDD external for a primary backup, with a couple of Toshiba 500GB alternates. I have a pretty detailed folder tree holding my photos (not to mention my Photobucket and Flickr accounts), and every couple of months I will use a gold archival rated DVD to backup active folders. Those DVD's are dated/labeled and go to the safe. I don't do photography as well as a lot of the guys here, but I want to keep my meager efforts for reference (and insurance).

If you decide on SSD, take a hard look at MLC versus SLC - basically price versus longevity. It's not a cheap date, and a couple of external HDD units (one backing up the other) might be a more cost effective route - specially if you have large image files. If I could afford it, I would buy a desktop RAID device - these are getting close to being affordable for the average end user - and the ability to rebuild a failed drive from parity is worth consideration.

Oh, and Disturbed - I have written a lot of programs on 8" floppies. Got a lot of raised eyebrows from the ladies back in the 70's when you said you had one. Not to pull a "Little Marco" on you, but yours looks like a five and a quarter [:D]

[DeviantLogic]

I'm a computer geek...and have a small lab environment in my home office. My recommendation for a generic workstation setup is to have two hard drives. The first being a SSD for your OS and applications...it doesn't need to be huge or the latest and greatest, just good quality. The second hard drive being a higher capacity HHD, use this for storing documents, pictures, videos, etc. Keeping everything separated will prolong the life of both drives, and makes it pretty painless if you have to blow away and re-install your OS. You should still perform regular backups. When performing backups, you really only need to backup your secondary drives that store personal documents.

To your question about protection plans...I never get them, but I also have a stack of hard drives sitting in a corner.

[Dstrbdmedic167]

Oh, and Disturbed - I have written a lot of programs on 8" floppies. Got a lot of raised eyebrows from the ladies back in the 70's when you said you had one. Not to pull a "Little Marco" on you, but yours looks like a five and a quarter [:D]

Haha!

I never messed with the 8" disk much but definitely had my share of time with others back in the day. I remember helping installing Windows with the 3.5" disk when I was little.


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[Thompson]

Not sure about your budget here, but IMO a Solid State drive is always a much better option. Obviously more pricey, but WAY more reliable and WAY faster.
Yeah - SSD's are a bit out of my budget. I'd have to wait for the price to drop/storage increase a bit before I snag one (one thats more than 128GB in size that is). I do boot my OS off of an SSD, but primarily everything else is on a HHD.


http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160304/c77843bcaada1fb412fb61cfa3946ece.jpg
Ironically enough - I still remember using floppies as a kid haha

Guess I should have mentioned the use for the HHD (and add that replacement was an incorrect word choice). It's more so an additional HHD; running out of space on my current HHD -- it will primarily be for picture storage but will serve other purposes too (ie: video games).

Haven't heard anyone mention the word "RAID" in a long time (then again, maybe I'm just not keeping my eyes peeled for it). Remind me - that's the idea of slaving hard drives together right? Which, I believe, allowed them to run a bit faster than traditional HHDs - but since the advent of SSD's, kind of made them obsolete?

@Jerry - definitely hear you on the idea of backing stuff up.

Well in that case - guess I'll just skip the protection plan and try to resurrect my WD external drive.

Thanks guys.

[Dstrbdmedic167]

I have 3 SSD's that my main OS runs in a raid 5 configuration. That is all backed up to a partition on a 3 TB HDD. Which is also backed up to a separate external HDD.

Edit: I also have a SSD that is running Linux but I haven't run that one in a while.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160305/895ee60cfafd5504a2cc48ac689e4147.jpg


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[bzdog]

when critical data goes south. Computer date backup is a lot like the military/survival adage - "Two is one, one is none."

This. If you have data you really don't want to lose, use at least to different backup solutions, optimally one being off-site.

Personally I back up to a separate, encrypted hdd, and perform encrypted back ups to a cloud service.

-john

[bzdog]

Haven't heard anyone mention the word "RAID"

RAID/mirroring isn't a replacement for backups. While it allows you to have a disk failure and not lose any data, it doesn't protect you from losing data through accidental deletion.

-john

[bzdog]

SSD'S have shorter mtbf's than platters. Great performance, yeah, but heat gets them over a shorter time and they have a finite number of read/write cycles. If you back up sufficiently, the extra warranty is a waste.

I respectfully disagree. Spin-y disks are much less reliable. Sometimes you'll get a good one that basically runs forever, but sometimes it will stop working and take your data with it.

IMO the MTBF ratings for spinning disks are both useless and misleading these days.

Clearly all SSDs are not equal. However good quality, current models are very good. Invest in a good SSD and IMO you are likely to replace it because it is too small, not because it dies.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/consumer-ssds-benchmarked-to-death-and-last-far-longer-than-rated/

I personally feel very safe with the Samsung line starting with the 830. I've run 830s, 840s and now 850s for many years without a hiccup. Much more than I can say for their companion spin-y disks. Right now I run a 850 Pro for both my boot and primary data disk. I also happen to have a couple of spin-y disks I recently pulled from my system that are not very old sitting on my workbench awaiting destruction.

Personally I will strive very hard to never buy another spin-y disk in my life.

-john

[Deadwing]

The hard drive on my laptop (which is my main computer these days) went TU last year. I replaced it with a HDD with twice the capacity of the original and was pretty pleased until i found i could've had a SSD with the same capacity for not much more money. SSD is the way to go, IMHO. And service plans/extended warranties on stuff like this is a waste of money if you ask me.

[cjd3]

So, I am now partial to Western Digital for HDDs. But only their Red or Black lines. Both have 5 year warranties, the blue only has 2. That being said, I'd use the HDDs for backup and solid state for production. SSDs are almost magical when you first install them and clone your existing drive to it. I'm a fan of the Crucial drives. If you clone and replace, you've got a good backup to put in a safe place.

[voodoo_man]

I did a good bit of hardware work and had my security plus a long time ago...its obsolete now but most of the concepts are still good to go.

If you are going to have a backup, always have two identical redundant backup drives, backing them up on a schedule...

I posted this up - http://www.vdmsr.com/2015/05/portable-storage.html - and will eventually expand/expound on the topic of PERSEC and keeping yourself afloat before/during/after something serious. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail.

[Joelski]

I started a computer career in 1964 programming plug boards, and am a firm believer in backups. I have seen a lot of "When in danger, when in doubt - run in circles, scream and shout" when critical data goes south. Computer date backup is a lot like the military/survival adage - "Two is one, one is none." I'm running a 3TB WD HDD external for a primary backup, with a couple of Toshiba 500GB alternates. I have a pretty detailed folder tree holding my photos (not to mention my Photobucket and Flickr accounts), and every couple of months I will use a gold archival rated DVD to backup active folders. Those DVD's are dated/labeled and go to the safe. I don't do photography as well as a lot of the guys here, but I want to keep my meager efforts for reference (and insurance).

If you decide on SSD, take a hard look at MLC versus SLC - basically price versus longevity. It's not a cheap date, and a couple of external HDD units (one backing up the other) might be a more cost effective route - specially if you have large image files. If I could afford it, I would buy a desktop RAID device - these are getting close to being affordable for the average end user - and the ability to rebuild a failed drive from parity is worth consideration.

Oh, and Disturbed - I have written a lot of programs on 8" floppies. Got a lot of raised eyebrows from the ladies back in the 70's when you said you had one. Not to pull a "Little Marco" on you, but yours looks like a five and a quarter [:D]

Jerry, I assume you're referring to a mirrored array, but what mode? I've used striped k0de before for performance with desktop audio workstation apps and had great results. My ultimate system would be SSD-based with just plain old redundant external HD's. I'm basically too lazy to dig into my case and install and format a new disk. :) That, and gun projects keep getting in the way of everything. Hell, I've got a Marshall JCM 800 that needs put back together and re-covered, plus a 100 watt kit amp (British) that needs put together! :D

[Jerry R]

Jerry, I assume you're referring to a mirrored array, but what mode?

Depends upon your preference - redundancy or speed or both; and cost is a big factor in deciding RAID type. Doesn't have to be a mirrored array. RAID-10 (actually RAID-1+0 - mirror the drives first, then stripe them) is about the best compromise - access speed provided by striping plus redundancy of a mirror pair; a good RAID controller will take care of caching and writing the second drive. Problem with that is you need a minimum of four drives, AND only have the capacity of two; always have to buy two drives for one. It's a pretty expensive way to go. A less expensive method is RAID-5 which is striped, but not mirrored. This has a minimum of three drives and gives the capacity of two. One drive is for parity. Depending on size and speed of the drives, a rebuild of a failed unit may take awhile to rebuild from parity. Replacing a mirror drive and letting it rebuild is a lot quicker with RAID-10 - again, you gotta pay for that convenience. Not sure how many manufacturers of desktop RAID devices build in the ability to have and replace with a "hot spare" - a nice option, but that also adds to the cost for home users. So many toys, so little money ...

[bzdog]

Keep in mind that performance profiles of various RAID types depend on the design and implementation of the RAID controller or software.


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[EO3]

The hard drive on my laptop (which is my main computer these days) went TU last year. I replaced it with a HDD with twice the capacity of the original and was pretty pleased until i found i could've had a SSD with the same capacity for not much more money. SSD is the way to go, IMHO. And service plans/extended warranties on stuff like this is a waste of money if you ask me.
I'm with Deadwing. This is also something else to think about, but I've always made sure to have three places to store my files: My computers physical HDD, an external HDD, and lastly, some cloud-based storage of your choosing. Obviously, as you can see, there are a lot of differing opinions here and most of them are good. It's kind of just up to what your budget allows. Like someone mentioned above, RAID is another great option, but it can be pretty pricey.

[Jerry R]

Keep in mind that performance profiles of various RAID types depend on the design and implementation of the RAID controller or software.

Agree 100% - you can easily get lost in the weeds looking at RAID data; do they have redundant controllers, redundant flash cache; if yes, does it have dual pipes between the redundant cache; does the OS have to write the second drive in a mirror pair, or does the controller do it; when is the application (or OS) released via a write ack after issuance; etc. etc. Makes my tiny brain ache [BD]

[bzdog]

Oh, another thing people often don't think about with RAID is they are not all compatible. If you use one RAID controller, say one built into your motherboard, and that motherboard dies, don't expect to drop in a different motherboard and expect it to read the data on those drives. This tends to be a problem, especially with consumer products, as the models turn over pretty quickly. It is less of an issue with enterprise products, but in that environment you still are incentivized to keep spares.

If there is any simple take-away, it's: BACKUPS. And at least two different types (2 is 1).

-john

[voodoo_man]

While RAID is awesome, for the average person doing average things, do you really need RAID?

A good SSD will work miracles and having redundancy is better than not having it, its about it...nothing more to it.

[Joelski]

1. I've never had a hard drive fail. I guess I don't have the experience others have had, even with Seagate..
2. You only lose the data you don't back up.
3. The best method I've found is to move all of my data folders to a NAT, and run an external off that. I also have the entire system drive cloned. A full restore still suck, bug takes an hour vs. all day. Haven't needed it since 2010. I can't recall failure replacement; everything has been upgrades, be it a few parts, or the entire system. Most recent system happened because of lightning in the cable feed to my modem/router getting into my system via the ethernet cable. Fried 3 systems but all were back online and normal within a couple hours of un-boxing.

[bzdog]

Yes. Unless you have specific objectives that require you to use RAID *and* you understand the technology trade-offs, you are often served better investing in a good SSD and diversified backup strategies.

-john

[bzdog]

1. I've never had a hard drive fail. I guess I don't have the experience others have had, even with Seagate..


You are extremely lucky or you've used hard drives for a very short period of time. :-)

-john

[voodoo_man]

Yes. Unless you have specific objectives that require you to use RAID *and* you understand the technology trade-offs, you are often served better investing in a good SSD and diversified backup strategies.

-john

Isn't that what I said? ;)

I have had HD's fail...

[bzdog]

Yes, I was agreeing with you.

-john

[Thompson]

If there is any simple take-away, it's: BACKUPS. And at least two different types (2 is 1).
Curious - what do you mean by "types"

[bzdog]

Curious - what do you mean by "types"

Well, for example you may purchase a backup program or use the Windows backup stuff to back up your data. However, a single problem with that backup program could potentially make all our backups unavailable.

Instead, use the backup program, but also keep a copy of the data in a different format (say, just a normal copy of the files) somewhere else.

Consider:

1) What if you have get a virus that destroys all data that your computer can access. That might include both your real data, your backup hard drive and your cloud drive.
2) What if your house burns down.
3) What problems would it cause and how would you feel if your data was GONE, never to be recovered?

In general, don't keep your eggs in one basket.

Also consider the security of the backups. What if your cloud account is compromised? What if someone steals your backup drives (or your whole computer)?

-john