Recommendation needed for ext hard disk.


Status
Not open for further replies.

satay16

Senior Member
Jan 14, 2006
3,067
0
0
Hi. I have an Iomega ext HD 80GB which is my only backup HD. It has been serving me well but is running out of space. Lately, my school photography club's main ext hard disk crashed and files were totally not recoverble:cry: . It's a Seagate. So right now, i would like a firm and confident recommendation of which ext HD to use. I know Iomega is expensive, but do their quality justify their pricing? If they do, i dun mind paying the extra just to have a peace of mind. and also, this hard disk must be able to survive long periods of storage time in the dry box. For eg, some of my very important critical yet not oftenly opened files are currently saved into a stack of zip disks i have as they give me the confidence that they can survive stale storage for a long time(which i think is true as these disks are like 10-12 years old.)

Overall, i just need a good reliable ext HD, which i dun mind paying extra if it is really good, and must survive stale storage(meaning left untouched) for long periods of time. thanks!:)

btw, i have removed seagate from my list as my club's HD crashing is one of a nightmare, imagine 2 whole years of photographs of events just *poof*.:cry: though i might be quite unfair to seagate, i think it is just a physchological comfort not to use something i saw broken before.
 

Hey Satay

Many yeas back, i used to love ibm for its branding and good QC for hdd. However, in today's contaxt, i don't really care.

There is not one brand that can provide absolute guarantee against failure. Even the mtbf (mean time before failure) chart does not mean much as those were tested in the most ideal conditions. Go with reputable brands. And btw, Iomega does not manufature hdd. They simply get people to manufacture for them. Their role is more marketing, packaging and software solutioning.

HDD dependability is pure luck these days. It is rather unfair to mark a certain due to failures - unless there is a batch problem. A spec of micron size dirt caught up on a needle can jazz up the disc surface and will wipe off data suddenly when the dirt builts up in size.

Multiple backups is perhaps the safest bet. Ever wonder why there are raids systems created? The answer is reducing probability before failure. (my own term: RPBF)
 

I need this thread.

Considering getting a Samsung 2.5 80GB with external case at $131 (Case is twin usb powered or optional AC)

or the LaCie Mobile Hard Disk, 80GB 2.5 USB 2.0: http://www.lacie.com/asia/products/product.htm?pid=10651

Anyone with any product experience to share or tips to lookout for?

I know it's the IDE Chip/Board that translate into better speed transfer of HDD.
I'm tempted to get the LaCie though.
 

all HDD will die one day
look for MTBF rating

Since all HDD will die, the HDD is just a temp storage space
I use 2 x 160GB HDDs Raid 1 and burn 2X DVDs

One for storage and one for use.
 

Hi satay, u getting for sch or personal use?
If for sch u may like to check out the NAS (Network Attached Storage). Its min is 250GB and some have FTP function in built. Its bulky compared to those ext HDD.

For personal user, u may like to check out the less expensive Ext HDD (1.8"/2.5"). These are the small size ext HDD.

Can visit http://hardwarezone.com.sg/priceguide/cat.php?id=191 for more info.
 

all HDD will die one day
look for MTBF rating

Since all HDD will die, the HDD is just a temp storage space
I use 2 x 160GB HDDs Raid 1 and burn 2X DVDs

One for storage and one for use.

power... i still JSOB all my drive... haha... currently all sata... 320x2, 200x4, or is it the other way round... used up liao...
 

Hi. I have an Iomega ext HD 80GB which is my only backup HD. It has been serving me well but is running out of space. Lately, my school photography club's main ext hard disk crashed and files were totally not recoverble:cry: . It's a Seagate. So right now, i would like a firm and confident recommendation of which ext HD to use. I know Iomega is expensive, but do their quality justify their pricing? If they do, i dun mind paying the extra just to have a peace of mind. and also, this hard disk must be able to survive long periods of storage time in the dry box. For eg, some of my very important critical yet not oftenly opened files are currently saved into a stack of zip disks i have as they give me the confidence that they can survive stale storage for a long time(which i think is true as these disks are like 10-12 years old.)

Overall, i just need a good reliable ext HD, which i dun mind paying extra if it is really good, and must survive stale storage(meaning left untouched) for long periods of time. thanks!:)

btw, i have removed seagate from my list as my club's HD crashing is one of a nightmare, imagine 2 whole years of photographs of events just *poof*.:cry: though i might be quite unfair to seagate, i think it is just a physchological comfort not to use something i saw broken before.

When you say 'i dun mind paying extra', how much is your 'extra'? Coz if u really want to feel safe, that 'extra' might be a lot extra.

First, forget DVDs. 1) They WILL fail. 2) You DON'T KNOW when they've failed until you try to read them (ie too late). 3) If your data grows by even a modest few GB a month, you'd find yourself managing hundreds of them after a while.

i've been doing the 'burn a copy' thing for a while, dutifully numbering my DVDs; gave up at around #100 or so. It takes (min) 15-30min to verify ONE DVD, so realistically/practically, i don't know how many of my DVDs are still ok. (Oh, i stick to branded ones too.) Even if they are ALL ok, it would take me 50-100 hours for a full recovery should the necessity arise.

(You can replace 'zip disk' with 'DVD' for above argument, and change the numbers a bit.)

On to harddisks. They are mechnical devices, they are designed to fail eventually. It does not matter what external hdd you get; if it's a 1-hdd system, they WILL be a crash someday, and you're back to square one - one crash all gone.

The only storage media designed for long term 'stale storage' are magnetic backup tapes. Good luck trying to find one. They are also very slow, and obviously nobody can yet verify their 100(?) years longevity claim.

You can consider an 'active' storage system. The most basic is backing it up to another harddisk. Use a RAID1 (mirror) if you want this done automactically. You'd have to pay double for your storage space. There are external enclosures that hold 2 hdds and support RAID0/1; check out Storage Studio at Sim Lim. They go for around $200-$300 for the empty case.

The next step up would be a RAID5 system. You get n-1 capacity for n disks. For example, a 4x250GB RAID5 would get you 750GB. The cool thing about RAID5 is that you can carry on working when 1 disk fails, and you just replace the spoiled disk and the RAID5 system rebuilds itself. External RAID5 systems usually come with Gigabit LAN, as well as USB and/or Firewire. The casings range cost range from $800 to ard $2k. However, since they typically take 4HDDs inside, while being 'external' they are not really portable.
 

When you say 'i dun mind paying extra', how much is your 'extra'? Coz if u really want to feel safe, that 'extra' might be a lot extra.

First, forget DVDs. 1) They WILL fail. 2) You DON'T KNOW when they've failed until you try to read them (ie too late). 3) If your data grows by even a modest few GB a month, you'd find yourself managing hundreds of them after a while.

i've been doing the 'burn a copy' thing for a while, dutifully numbering my DVDs; gave up at around #100 or so. It takes (min) 15-30min to verify ONE DVD, so realistically/practically, i don't know how many of my DVDs are still ok. (Oh, i stick to branded ones too.) Even if they are ALL ok, it would take me 50-100 hours for a full recovery should the necessity arise.

(You can replace 'zip disk' with 'DVD' for above argument, and change the numbers a bit.)

On to harddisks. They are mechnical devices, they are designed to fail eventually. It does not matter what external hdd you get; if it's a 1-hdd system, they WILL be a crash someday, and you're back to square one - one crash all gone.

The only storage media designed for long term 'stale storage' are magnetic backup tapes. Good luck trying to find one. They are also very slow, and obviously nobody can yet verify their 100(?) years longevity claim.

You can consider an 'active' storage system. The most basic is backing it up to another harddisk. Use a RAID1 (mirror) if you want this done automactically. You'd have to pay double for your storage space. There are external enclosures that hold 2 hdds and support RAID0/1; check out Storage Studio at Sim Lim. They go for around $200-$300 for the empty case.

The next step up would be a RAID5 system. You get n-1 capacity for n disks. For example, a 4x250GB RAID5 would get you 750GB. The cool thing about RAID5 is that you can carry on working when 1 disk fails, and you just replace the spoiled disk and the RAID5 system rebuilds itself. External RAID5 systems usually come with Gigabit LAN, as well as USB and/or Firewire. The casings range cost range from $800 to ard $2k. However, since they typically take 4HDDs inside, while being 'external' they are not really portable.

cool(about the raid 5 thingy). how does it store a backup in just one extra disk?
 

in today context there is no 100% safe even if you buy well build high end drive. the correct way is to do mirror on your data thats reduce your failure chance by 50% if mirrorX2 you futher reduce by another 50% of 50%. Seagate is the largest HDD company in the world, they don't get there by luck.
 

I run a Raid 5 on my Buffalo Terastation NAS. It's slower than a directly connected harddisk, but serves well as a huge capacity storage that's isolated from my main pc.
 

I work in the HD industry. The best advise I can give is buy a hard disk with the longest warranty period you can find.

Cheers,

Al
 

hmmm.........ok. so right now, if i just one to buy one ext hard disk, not horrendously expensive, tell me what to buy. just name one. size about 100-200GB enuf liao.
 

got myself a a 320gb for $230 two days ago.
seagate Hdd with exter enclosure
 

got myself a a 320gb for $230 two days ago.
seagate Hdd with exter enclosure

nooooo...........no seagate for me... explaination above.
 

cool(about the raid 5 thingy). how does it store a backup in just one extra disk?


It uses parity bits and spreads them across all disks; if one disk goes down, the data on the remaining disks are sufficient to rebuild the crashed disk.

The calculation of the parity info is unfortunately very CPU intensive, and tends to slow the CPU down quite a bit. There are RAID5 cards that do the computation on board, but they cost a lot more.
 

I run a Raid 5 on my Buffalo Terastation NAS. It's slower than a directly connected harddisk, but serves well as a huge capacity storage that's isolated from my main pc.

i'm using this too. Very nice and quiet system; but really really slow. 5-15 mb/s transfer, quite a joke since it comes with a gigabit LAN connection. The CPU cannot keep up with the (software) raid5 computations. Think they underpowered the CPU to keep the cost, heat and noise down, pity.
 

nooooo...........no seagate for me... explaination above.

Aiyah... no matter Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung or .... there is always a possibility of failures...

I used to be a failue analysis engineer in one of the HDD company... I know...

:dunno:
 

Aiyah... no matter Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung or .... there is always a possibility of failures...

I used to be a failue analysis engineer in one of the HDD company... I know...

:dunno:

That is why i still trust the good old FILM, well kept and protected, it will definitely
outlast me.

Just my 2 cents.
 

yes same go with my maxtor,western digital...all prone to failure..
just get a new asap once u sense something wrong with the hdd
 

Status
Not open for further replies.