External hardrive safe????

imalwayshappy

Hi Guys,

I've alot of holiday HD movies and pictures which im looking to store. Are the terabyte hardrives the way to go? Im afraid that ill plug it in one day and it will have corrupted and thus losing all my pics. How reliable are they or am i better off going down the dvd hard copy route? Many thanks

yoyo

imalwayshappy wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I've alot of holiday HD movies and pictures which im looking to store. Are the terabyte hardrives the way to go? Im afraid that ill plug it in one day and it will have corrupted and thus losing all my pics. How reliable are they or am i better off going down the dvd hard copy route? Many thanks

DVDs can also degrade and loose data... If data is really important you should have at least two copies of it, ie 2 or more external hard drives, USB keys etc. External hard drives are as relyable as internal ones, from a mechanical perspective, but have other variables that could break such as USB controllers, power sockets etc.
External hard drives are fine but for important data have more than one copy

Nick

Jackena

Well I use external Hard drives and have never had a problem.
I use shock-resistant and break-proof ones tho (not sure if these are availible in 1TB tho).
I am pretty sure that discs degrade after a few years and become unusable.
Thats only with the cheap 2 euro shop DVD-R's tho.
So you might be save. Hope this helps

Jack

Tea_Bag

all dvds degrade over time irrespective of price or quality.

as was said, 2 storage locations and online if possible. hd movies may be a bit big, but I save all my important data into gmail too by emailing it to myself. you could put photos into a compressed zip file so its easier to handle.

JDxtra

Store in 3 locations: two at home (one can be on your PC/laptop) and one off site (at work or a relatives).

External hard drives are generally fine, but multiple copies will protect you further.

DVDs are fine as an extra backup, but their capacity is too low and backups need to be easy if you are going to do it regularly.

gregers85

I plugged the wrong AC adapter into my old hard-drive nd blew it to kingdom-come haha lost everything!! so not always the safest option lol

Irish_Elect_Eng

There are a few issues to be considered.

(1) Storage Reliability.

This can be addressed simply by either having 2 drives mirrored or configured as a raid array.

(2) Location Risks:

It does not matter how many drive you have if the computer equipment is stolen or your house burn's down or floods. Storage in two locations normally solves this.

(3) Back-Up Strategy:

People forget to keep back-ups current, invest a few Euro in a good quality back-up software package, money well spent.


What I do is as follows:

I have 2 Network Attached Storage Drives, both mirrored, on in my house and one in a friends house. We both store our data on both drives and our local computers. So unless both houses (15 Miles Apart) are destroyed or 5 hard disks fail at the same time, or data is safe.

When it comes to the cost of protecting your data, just think of the look on your OH's face when you tell her that 10 years of family photos and videos are gone :-(. Invest a few bob, be safe.

starlit

External CD/DVD drive is fine...external hardrive mmmm depends what you want to have on it.

Voodu Child

Improper handling is one of the biggest causes for external HDD failure, especially people dropping them or moving them when powered on.

Desktop external drives (3.5") shouldn't be moved at all when they are spinning. Put it on a desk before plugging it in and then don't move it again until it's been remove or powered down.

Portable external drives (2.5") are more robust because they are laptop drives but you still shouldn't make a habit of handling them roughly.

imalwayshappy

Voodu Child wrote: »

Improper handling is one of the biggest causes for external HDD failure, especially people dropping them or moving them when powered on.

Desktop external drives (3.5") shouldn't be moved at all when they are spinning. Put it on a desk before plugging it in and then don't move it again until it's been remove or powered down.

Portable external drives (2.5") are more robust because they are laptop drives but you still shouldn't make a habit of handling them roughly.

Mant thanks for the advice will defo look at 2 locations!

ricman

Backup 0n 2 drives and backup just photos on dvd rs ,as said dvds last only a few years ,store dvds in a cool dry place,away from sunlight

leviathon

You can get some pretty decent home NAS drives now - small little units with 2 or more disks in them. Idea with them being that if one disk fails the other one is still intact, would be quite rare that two would die at the same time. They also have their own built in firmware which keeps checking the disks for any signs of trouble and warns you if the disk looks like it has any damage. Not massive money either considering.

http://go.iomega.com/en/products/network-storage-desktop/storcenter-network-storage-solution/network-hard-drive-ix2-200-cloud/

CaSCaDe711

Jackena wrote: »

Well I use external Hard drives and have never had a problem.
I use shock-resistant and break-proof ones tho (not sure if these are availible in 1TB tho).
I am pretty sure that discs degrade after a few years and become unusable.
Thats only with the cheap 2 euro shop DVD-R's tho.
So you might be save. Hope this helps

Jack

What break-proof drives are they then? :rolleyes:

As for archiving, yes always have at least 2 copies, in seperate locations, for CDs/DVDs, the Verbatim brand are decent enough, have many here stored in seperate plastic sleeves and in a drawer, there ages, no issues (of course may decide to make new backups in a few years)