Computers & Electronics

What types of hard drives are the most reliable?

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  • Jul 12th, 2013 6:53 pm
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Jan 31, 2010
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What types of hard drives are the most reliable?

I was looking at portable and expansion hard drives... are expansion hard drives more stable/reliable than portable ones? Is there a type of hard drive that is the least likeliest to ever crash?
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Oct 31, 2012
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Not really. Hard Driver have moving parts, so they are prone to failure. There's only so much you can do. External hard drives like portable ones or desktop ones are even more prone because they are moved around, so chance of physical impact is greater. Some also say that some brands are more reliable, but opinions on which brand is better vary vastly.

Generally, almost all external drives are just regular SATA hard drives (3.5 or 2.5 inch) inside an enclosure, so if the enclosure fails you can take it out and switch the enclosure. However certain Western Digital ones have soldered on USB connectors so that's not possible. However those drives might also be more reliable.

So essentially, anything important should always be backed up, and just be careful with your drives and hope for the best...
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Scycotic wrote: Not really. Hard Driver have moving parts, so they are prone to failure. There's only so much you can do. External hard drives like portable ones or desktop ones are even more prone because they are moved around, so chance of physical impact is greater. Some also say that some brands are more reliable, but opinions on which brand is better vary vastly.

Generally, almost all external drives are just regular SATA hard drives (3.5 or 2.5 inch) inside an enclosure, so if the enclosure fails you can take it out and switch the enclosure. However certain Western Digital ones have soldered on USB connectors so that's not possible. However those drives might also be more reliable.

So essentially, anything important should always be backed up, and just be careful with your drives and hope for the best...
A bit off topic... would you happen to know the most reliable/affordable cloud storage?
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Nov 4, 2008
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I've always had the impression that disks, if properly stored, would be the best backup solution, albeit with relatively poor capacity.

But to answer your question, I'd say 'red' drives.
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Jan 31, 2007
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Sas drives are more reliable. Near line storage 7.2k enterprise drives have done a nice job for me.
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May 28, 2009
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Blu-Ray is nonorganic and have an estimated lifespan of 40 years out of the box.

I just havent found a burning solution that transparently (dont break the files) supports disk spanning...
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Jul 22, 2006
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Enterprise grade stuff... SAS etc
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Feb 18, 2007
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Scycotic wrote: Not really. Hard Driver have moving parts, so they are prone to failure. There's only so much you can do. External hard drives like portable ones or desktop ones are even more prone because they are moved around, so chance of physical impact is greater. Some also say that some brands are more reliable, but opinions on which brand is better vary vastly.

Generally, almost all external drives are just regular SATA hard drives (3.5 or 2.5 inch) inside an enclosure, so if the enclosure fails you can take it out and switch the enclosure. However certain Western Digital ones have soldered on USB connectors so that's not possible. However those drives might also be more reliable.

So essentially, anything important should always be backed up, and just be careful with your drives and hope for the best...
i agree. don't plan on using it like a small usb flash drive that can take a lot of damage if the right brand. use the external hard drive with care and it should last ok but if your planning on moving it a lot i would consider a different back up.

I know people use cloud storage a lot now but i hesitate with all the hacking done to big business's and would hate to lose everything from Anonymous or other hackers deciding to hack into cloud storage and either steal data or wipe it. If you do use cloud i would also back up my most important files on to disc or other media.Just my paranoid opinion :)
Poor Grammar and being long winded don't fit well together, Oh well.
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Jul 16, 2005
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Make your own "cloud" backup by setting up backups between your relatives' houses. Needs some tech savvy but you just basically setup some sort of VPN between the 2 locations and backup using a nice tool (like rsync) that minimizes bandwidth.

If you're less tech savvy, you can use CrashPlan (http://www.crashplan.com/). You install the software on the 2 sites and it takes care of the connection and backup.
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shopper_of_things wrote: Make your own "cloud" backup by setting up backups between your relatives' houses. Needs some tech savvy but you just basically setup some sort of VPN between the 2 locations and backup using a nice tool (like rsync) that minimizes bandwidth.

If you're less tech savvy, you can use CrashPlan (http://www.crashplan.com/). You install the software on the 2 sites and it takes care of the connection and backup.
I think that's a better idea. I'll probably just use my Hostgator hosting account to backup my files.
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Jan 17, 2003
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Stay away from portable 2.5inch drives, I have had tons that failed, all brands.

3.5inch are much better with their own power supply. Other than that, they all fail. Backup, backup and backup remotely.
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Aug 1, 2006
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Google released a great study from their data centres and their experience with 100,000+ hard drives.
While it's a bit outdated (published in 2007), provides some good info:
Home automation, NOVO (HiFi) Magazine, Google Trusted Photographer, electric vehicles.
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Aug 22, 2006
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shopper_of_things wrote: Make your own "cloud" backup by setting up backups between your relatives' houses. Needs some tech savvy but you just basically setup some sort of VPN between the 2 locations and backup using a nice tool (like rsync) that minimizes bandwidth.
Not very practical unless you have a high upload speed at the source. Although if you're within travel distance, you could sneakernet the first set of files and just sync the changes.
As long as you don't continually add large amounts large content you might be fine.
Joshray wrote: I think that's a better idea. I'll probably just use my Hostgator hosting account to backup my files.
You haven't read the terms and conditions have you?
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Jul 23, 2011
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JPTN wrote: Google released a great study from their data centres and their experience with 100,000+ hard drives.
While it's a bit outdated (published in 2007), provides some good info:
Google did not release which brand were more reliable but they did conform that some brands were indeed more reliable. The study only released the conditions in which hard drives survive best or fail most. The most insightful observation was that hard drive don't die because of heat, though excessive heat will kill the drive over a period of time. Hard drives are designed for hot environments. Its the excessive cooling that kills the hard drive more often than the heat.

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