Reliable, Long-term Home Data Storage

[dorothyandles]

I just bought a one-Terabyte (1000 GB) Maxtor plug-in-to-mains external hard drive with 3-year guarantee. Fast, and works very well. Takes about 3 minutes to write a 760 MB movie from my laptop via USB cable. I'm copying my old saved data on CD and DVD on to the Maxtor. I occasionally lose all files on a CD or DVD to unknown corruption; perhaps they could be saved by polishing the disk.

So, just how reliable are these external hard drives? It would only be used at home -- no heat, travel or vibration. Can I assume my data is safe, so long as I re-write it to a bigger drive in 3 years' time? Thanks.

[malcolmswaine]

I'd say that would take you a fair while to write 1TB over USB Drives don't last forever, but to be honest I think there's more chance of you losing the data through an act of burglary than disk corruption. I've seen it happen on more than one occasion.

[namoo]

I would recommend a HP Mediasmart Homeserver running windows home server. Install 4 drives enable file duplication and your data is pretty safe as each file is duplicated on another drive so if one fails you still have the data. This is a totally automatic.

Also of course the server is ideal for streaming content itunes etc. to apple tv or another pc / ps3 etc.

It also allows remote access to your files wherever you are in the world across the net.

Excellent purchase.

[TopDogger]

Data is never safe if its only present on a single drive, the best option is a SATA RAID 0+1 for your important stuff. If you must, image that to a partition on the external drive and and use the rest of the space for data you can afford to lose.

[Veazer]

Here's some NAS devices offered in Thailand:

http://www.bigitshop.com/shopping/Network-Storage/

http://www.comseven.com/products/index.php?cPath=123_137

http://www.comseven.com/products/index.php...bgjpom724eigc64

These offer different RAID configuration and backup solutions, etc. Check the manufacturers websites for more details.

[Crushdepth]

Basically you can't rely on one disk, ever. You need to have a second copy of your data on a separate physical disk (and preferably another copy in a separate physical location). My boss had a hard drive failure a couple of weeks ago. Someone had been backing up his work for him - as it turned out, to a separate partition on the same physical drive!

[autonomous_unit]

I think these suggestions of RAID are over the top for a basic home user. Also, the SOHO NAS devices have questionable benefit for inexperienced users, because there are many failure modes where you lose the NAS data anyway, and the RAID gives you a false sense of security.

The main concerns you should have are: user error (accidentally deleting files and wanting them back), physical loss of the single disk through theft or other damage (as above), or unexpected failure. There have been many reports of premature failure in the latest high-density drives, and I would personally never trust my data on just one drive. The fact that drives on average last 3-5 years does not mean that yours isn't the unlucky one to fail in 6 months. And a warranty replacement will not recover your data! Also, the huge size means that it may be unlikely you can copy off all your data in time if you do notice a drive "starting to go bad".

You should strive to keep your data on at least two disks, and then if you are really concerned, also in at least two separate locations (different buildings or cities, such as at a friend or relative's home). So do not transfer something to the external drive and then delete it from the PC. Consider the external drive a backup copy but also keep a copy on the PC so you can rebuild the backup if the external drive fails. If either fails, it is important to obtain a replacement and restore from the other working drive, as in the meantime you are at risk of the second drive failing too and having no more backups.

If you need more space, get two external drives and make sure you copy things to BOTH drives before deleting from the PC. (Or, consider upgrading the PC drive first since that is easier to use day-to-day than multiple external drives.) The option of putting data in another building is just an extension of this... periodically copy onto another external drive either by visiting with the PC (if it is a laptop), or picking up the drive on a visit, updating it to match your home drive, and then returning it on another visit.

There are many possibilities in between "no backups" and "extremely good backups". The most important thing is to find some happy medium that you can perform consistently. If you make it too complicated for yourself, you'll find you don't do backups frequently enough and then you lose more data when the eventual failure occurs. Some of my friends will use the drive at another person's house for just the most important data like their digital photo albums and banking/tax documents from previous years. So they only have to update those backups once in a blue moon. I'm a crazy computer professional so I use a sledge-hammer approach and run RAID here and there and automatically keep multiple backups in sync over the Internet.

[paulfr]

Flash drives [all solid state circuits] are another alternative to mechanical Winchester hard drives for backup of basic data of low size.

Low size; by this I mean essential documents like birth certificates, deeds, marriage, other family related documents, and professional data and documents. Add precious family photos of grandparents or children and certain videos. If you prioritize the most important data you can often see that only certain items can NEVER be replaced.

16GB flash drives the size of your thumb are available for 1300baht right now.

64B drives are also out there if money is not an important consideration.

[if you lost your data, how much would you pay to get it back ? That might justify

the high cost of this level of solid state storage]

So if you can pare down only essential video and photos, you may be able to have

your basic most important data and it can easily be stored in another location like

your car glove compartment.

A combination of hard drives and flash drives is another option, of course.

Edited March 18, 2009 by paulfr

[Cuban]

I think these suggestions of RAID are over the top for a basic home user.

I understand you point of view - however the person that is at the point of having 1TB of data is no longer a basic home user, they have a large collection of MP3, movies or images in the digital domain and can no longer be classed as basic.

[chiangmaibruce]

hi. oh well i 've just had a laptop disaster. time, well past time i guess, to get myself an external data storage unit so I can have a complete back-up system.

i'm in chiang mai + do most of my work on an old Dell laptop. I have family pics, work and personal documents and a few other bits and pieces (no movies). Certainly don't need one terrabyte unit - but can't manage with a thumb drive. Would anyone be able to recommend a make/model which is good value for money? The best place to buy it in Chiang Mai?

Many thanks if you can help, CB

[dorothyandles]

This 1 TB Maxtor external hard drive has no off switch, and no instructions for powering down like a PC. This means I have to switch it off whilst the disk is still spinning, which is rather disconcerting.

However, is my data still safe on switching off a spinning external hard drive, so long as it is not actually being written-to? Presumably the USB cable being plugged in, or not, to the laptop makes no difference?

[think_too_mut]

hi. oh well i 've just had a laptop disaster. time, well past time i guess, to get myself an external data storage unit so I can have a complete back-up system.

i'm in chiang mai + do most of my work on an old Dell laptop. I have family pics, work and personal documents and a few other bits and pieces (no movies). Certainly don't need one terrabyte unit - but can't manage with a thumb drive. Would anyone be able to recommend a make/model which is good value for money? The best place to buy it in Chiang Mai?

Many thanks if you can help, CB

Try this: online remote backup.

Mozy: Online remote backup

One of my staff is using it, it took almost 2 days for the initial backup but after that it's minutes, if not seconds a day.

Many pics, almost all he had were pics.

No hardware to buy, nothing to worry about. The backups are available from anywhere.

[Cuban]

This 1 TB Maxtor external hard drive has no off switch, and no instructions for powering down like a PC. This means I have to switch it off whilst the disk is still spinning, which is rather disconcerting.

However, is my data still safe on switching off a spinning external hard drive, so long as it is not actually being written-to? Presumably the USB cable being plugged in, or not, to the laptop makes no difference?

Some (?) older OSs relied on caching your data being written to a USB device on the PC's HDD for a while before completing the final write to the USB device, the idea was to report back that the transfer was complete, then encourage you to 'properly' eject for safe removal the USB device - this would clear any cache or buffer so that the transfer operation was fully completed before you removed the device.

With a new USB HDD - the buffering and speed of write to disk will be fast enough that by the time that the file transfer reports as finished on screen it will be written to HDD and the heads back in the safe zone.

Gone are the days when you have to switch to a command mode on HDD equiped systems and tell it to PARK the heads, before issuing the STOP (can't recall if that was the command) to shut down the HDD array and finally HALT processing operations before it was safe to turn the system off.

I would suggest using the "Disconnect USB Hardware" option before removing the USB cable in question, then de-power the external HDD, Allow it to stop spinning before moving it about - however modern HDDs auto 'park' the heads these days so should not encounter head crashes in any case.

HTH