The best Hard drive Backup?

Community Forums/General Help/The best Hard drive Backup?

Hotshot2005(Posted 2011) [#1]
I was thinking of getting Western Digital Elements 2TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive but there is quite lots of good hard drive out there.

Are they reliable?(meaning it will last for years before the hard drive died)

The reason why I ask was that I am unsure which one to buy thought.


GfK(Posted 2011) [#2]
You'd really trust any single unit with 2tb of data? i wouldnt.


Brucey(Posted 2011) [#3]
I've got a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, with a mirrored set of 2 x 2TB drives, over gigabit ethernet, which backs up all of my music, videos and photos.
I have an external USB2 750gb drive which Time Machine uses to backup my internal drive...


Perturbatio(Posted 2011) [#4]
I've been looking into buying a synology nas box recently, haven't quite decided yet, but the 2bay model seems pretty good spec wise


Hotshot2005(Posted 2011) [#5]

You'd really trust any single unit with 2tb of data? i wouldnt.



Could you tell me Why?
So what you saying is that I would be better off getting 1TB Hard drive then?

Last edited 2011


Brucey(Posted 2011) [#6]
He means that it's safer to have more than one drive... if your only drive fails, where is your data?


Hotshot2005(Posted 2011) [#7]
I see.....good points....

Which Hard drive should I get?


GfK(Posted 2011) [#8]
Go with bruceys suggestion or something similar.


Hotshot2005(Posted 2011) [#9]
thanks GFK and everyone :)


Nice_But_Dim(Posted 2011) [#10]
Hehe 2x2TB drives makes my 160GB drive look like a modern day floppy disk. :)


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#11]
Are they reliable?(meaning it will last for years before the hard drive died)


Most are, some aren't.

Hard drive are very high-precision devices, with lots of potential points of failure. The majority of them will still be alive by the time their warranty expires, but entrusting important data to a single drive is insane, regardless of the make/model/manufacturer.

When you come down to it:

There's only a couple of harddrive manufacturers left in the world: Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Hitatchi, and Samsung.
All of them are more or less equal, when it comes down to drive quality.

Seagate is in the middle of taking over Samsung's HD division, while Western Digital is in the process of buying out Hitachi's HD division -- When those are completed, there will only be three companies that make hard drives... Only two of which produce 3.5" drives (Toshiba only makes 2.5" laptop drives)


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#12]
(By the way: with 2TB internal drives routinely on sale for $79 at places like Newegg, there is no good excuse not to buy a backup drive)


Ross C(Posted 2011) [#13]
The thing that worries me, is the amount of data and information you collect on your hard disc. It soon gets out of hand. My hard disc has 50 Gb of photos. RAW photos come in at 15 MB per photo, and jpegs in at 4 MB. How long before my backup drive is used up. I don't know what, but something just seems wrong. If my backups failed, I'd lose so much stuff I couldn't ever replace.

Isn't there any data storage solutions that are permanent, can be added to (but not amended) and super safe?

Last edited 2011


Steve Elliott(Posted 2011) [#14]

You'd really trust any single unit with 2tb of data? i wouldnt.



It's a fair point. But what are the alternatives? Use raid and half your HD capacity? Fill your desk with drives or internal drive space?

I'd rather just backup important files to DVD's.


Graythe(Posted 2011) [#15]
It's best to burn twice onto media produced by different manufacturers. If the DVD has the capacity burn multiple sets of the data. That way if the disk takes damage you are far more likely to recover the data intact.


Brucey(Posted 2011) [#16]
I'd rather just backup important files to DVD's.

Considering I can fill 32gig of SDHC on a single trip to the botanical gardens with my camera... I can't imagine sitting with a pile of DVDs to back it all up.

I've just ordered a 2TB USB drive to plug into my NAS to act as a backup for the NAS. It should remove the single-point of failure in the hardware of the NAS machine itself... backing up the backup :-)


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#17]
Isn't there any data storage solutions that are permanent, can be added to (but not amended) and super safe?


No for the prices you or anyone else are willing to pay.

Large corporations deal with this by having large redundant drive arrays, mirrored to similar systems in geographically separate locations, often in additional to tape backups.

Single hard drives have moving parts and bearings that die on you, physically scratch the disk, and store data magnetically which can degrade over time.

DVD's, CD's, BluRays, etc. can be scratched, and use organic dies that degrade over time until they can't be read anymore. Exposure to sunlight and high humidity accelerates the decay. (In some parts of the country they are unreadable after just a couple of years)
Note that there are (significantly more expensive 'archival grade' discs that last longer, but very few people use those.

Backup tapes degrade (Very slowly) over time, and are an inconvenient format with relatively low capacity.

you can decrease the risk of harddrives by using a (more expensive) RAID array, where the data is split across multiple drives with redundancy. For RAID-5 you need 3 or more drives, and get the usable space of all-except-one. RAID-6 has two redundancy drives, and needs 4 or more drives to give you the space of 2-or-more. If any of the drives dies, your data still works. You can replace the bad drive with a good one, and it will automatically re-distribute the data and add your redundancy back in. However, they are still not perfect: a bad controller, lighning strike, etc. can take out more than one drive at a time, at which point you still loose all your data.
Same thing if your computer corrupts it for you (virus, malware, accidentally deleting the wrong folder, etc.)

For best results, make *multiple* backups, so you can deal with it when (not if, but when) they die. Ideally, don't have all of it connected to your computer at the same time.


What I do myself:

Since we have multiple computers in the household, I use a shared folder where I can copy a limited number of my most important files to the other computers. The chances that both computers die at the same time are relatively small.

Furthermore, I have two USB 3.0 hard drive docks, similar to this:


And just keep multiple 2TB drives around, so I can have 2-3 copies of all my important data.

Of course, there's always a chance for losing your info -- for example, having a dozen copies still won't do you any good if your house gets broken into and your computer stuff stolen, or if the place burns down... So if things are really irreplaceable you should look at having an off-site copy somewhere. (safety box, parent's place, ...)


Ross C(Posted 2011) [#18]
It's incredible though. If you want to permanently store information non electronically you write it in a book and it lasts centuries, and costs peanuts, ensuring you store it properly. Right, i'm going to get myself 2 x 1 TB drives and spread my backups over those.


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#19]
If you want to permanently store information non electronically you write it in a book and it lasts centuries, and costs peanuts, ensuring you store it properly


Only if you use the expensive acid-free paper, 'normal' modern printer paper will degrade strongly over the decades as well.

On top of that, data density and throughput rates suck when it comes to paper. :-?


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#20]
Get a NAS with raid (and a 3rd disk to plug in for remote backup which you can store offsite or in your shed or something.)


Gabriel(Posted 2011) [#21]
If you're only looking to backup a relatively small amount of data (<100GB) then I'd suggest cloud storage. Let other people worry about redundancy and drives breaking. Since you're looking at a 2TB drive, I'm thinking this probably won't meet your needs.


Steve Elliott(Posted 2011) [#22]
Don't think I explained myself fully. I just copy across from my internal hard drive, to a linked 4Tb external drive (2 drives in raid).

Then onto DVD ASAP. Backup as I go. So I always have 3 copies of everything important.

Last edited 2011


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#23]
Have you tried using a sync program like GrSync(linux and osx), FreeFileSync(iirc the name for windows) ?
(it basically only copies stuff that has changed)

Will save your disks a lot of chewing (and time for that matter).