External Hard Drives

[AndyDavis]

I'd like to use an external (usb) HD to make regular backs up of my PC. It won't be permanently connected, only taken out say once a week/month, connected up, files backed up and then stored away.

I've heard that external HDs need to be permanently connected, apparently turning them on/off like this regularly reduces their shelf life. Is that true?

 

[Monkeh]

Any HDD will suffer from repeated power cycles. Once a month wouldn't harm it much, however, should the drive simply fail to start one day when you need to restore, you'll have had no advance warning..

 

[Diyisfun]

How much are you looking to store?
What data gets changed.
You could use usb pen drives, you can get 32gb
I would suggest 2 or 3 usb of aboyt 4gb.
I have a external hard drive at work. I use it every week or so for about 3 years no problems.
I have just filled up so now have a new 1 terabit, they are so cheap now.

 

[AndyDavis]

I've got lots of home videos (100GB) of the kiddies so I was looking at something like the LaCie Rugged XL 1TB Hard Disk.

I'm not keen on keeping it plugged, not only will be a constant power drain but more importantly theres the risk that one of the said kiddies might want to play with it! Is there a way round, or is it just pot luck that it might pack up at random?

 

[JohnD]

I do something similar, and I use two drives.

I put one in for about a month, and backup files to it; then at the end of the month I take it out and put the other one in.

On this cycle, the attached drive will be up-to-date (maybe a day old) and the other one will be up to a month old. For best results the spare one should be off-site (e.g. in case of fire or theft) but keeping it in the shed or at work is suitable.

You can also backup to DVDs which hold a lot of data and you can do one daily or weekly if you want. This would be particularly suitable for your vids. If they are family stuff you will be upset when the hard drive fails (they all do eventually)

 

[Monkeh]

I've got lots of home videos (100GB) of the kiddies so I was looking at something like the LaCie Rugged XL 1TB Hard Disk.

I'm not keen on keeping it plugged, not only will be a constant power drain but more importantly theres the risk that one of the said kiddies might want to play with it! Is there a way round, or is it just pot luck that it might pack up at random?

Power drain of.. about 15W when seeking hard.

Why buy an external drive anyway? If you're not going to store it off-site, it's not really worth the extra expense. Unless, of course, you turn your PC off every night..

You could use usb pen drives, you can get 32gb
I would suggest 2 or 3 usb of aboyt 4gb.

You could use cheap, unreliable, slow devices, yes..

I have just filled up so now have a new 1 terabit, they are so cheap now.

I bet it was cheap, 1 terabit has been old news for a decade!

 

[Richard C]

Got an 18 month old, 500 gigabite Western Digital which is very slow & just bought a 1.5 terabyte Seagate; bargain at just over 80 quid & not quiet so slow. Don’t expect too much from them compared to internal SATA but they do their job as far as storage & backup goes. Mine are permanently connected & I can’t see how standing idle would affect them but if you power them up once a month, they should outlast you I would think!

 

[JohnD]

the ones I use fit into removable caddies which go into a 5" slot in the tower and take any ordinary hard drive. It is very neat and tidy as no trailing cables or extra box on the desk.

I can see the advantage of a USB external is that you can plug them into any PC

 

[AndyDavis]

Yes I thought of DVDs too but they're only about 5GB each, and some of my files are bigger, I don't realy fancy breaking the files up.

Two HDs, hmm, maybe. I'm almost tempted to stash the microDV tapes in the attic till the price of usb flash drives drop. Kingston have got a 256GB pen drive that looks good but costs an arm, leg, torso, fingers, ears...

 

[Monkeh]

USB flash drives are not suitable for storage. They're cheaply made, unreliable, and painfully slow (as is USB in general, but cheap flash is really awful).

 

[timtheenchanter]

personally, I am a bit of a geek, so my PC is a RAID setup, 2x 500Gb Drives RAIDed together, no extra storage, but eveything is written to both drives at the same time.

if one goes down, the PC works as normal on the second drive.

I then back up weekly to my home server.

I do have an external drive, and not had any problems, one of them is 5 years old, and has been transported all over the place.

all HDD are powered down/up I see no reason why an external should suffer any more from this, the bigger thing for them is being moved around alot.

 

[Monkeh]

all HDD are powered down/up I see no reason why an external should suffer any more from this, the bigger thing for them is being moved around alot.

They don't suffer any more from it. It's a bad idea to regularly power cycle any drive, but the danger with a backup drive is greater. Movement doesn't hurt a modern drive in the least, unless you're fond of dropping it off desks while on.

 

[JamesA]

I don't think it's that much of a problem. We've never had an external drive fail.
You tend to upgrade to a bigger one 3/4 years later or so anyway.

I would add that any backup procedure needs to allow for someone nicking your PC.

If your backup drive is plugged in, they're going to take that as well and you'll lose all you family videos.

For this reason I keep my work external backup drive at home.

 

[Monkeh]

I don't think it's that much of a problem. We've never had an external drive fail.

You've either not had many, or are incredibly lucky.

You tend to upgrade to a bigger one 3/4 years later or so anyway.

And if you treat it like a television and turn it on and off fifty times a day, it won't last three or four years.

 

[ericmark]

I got one with both USB and LAN connection never use USB bit. Very handy as any PC in house can access so pictures both myself and wife want to view ideal.
To add LAN to existing is expensive but to buy with LAN very little more than just USB and comes with back-up software.
Also it auto powers down just plug in and forget.
See here for some examples.
I will point out that unless you get one with credit card encryption anyone running Linux can assess your drive however I'm only one in our house who ever runs Linux.
Also see here sure I didn't pay that much seems price is going up. Mine was only 500GB though!