Hard disk crash

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I did store last images up to fill one DVD size on an external Hard disk (NetGear) storage solution it is a small office solution user can access as a network drive. It was a bad choice , my HDD was cooked inside. One disk is gone and another one works but data was gone also. I would like to warn you HDD can be crash so not a good solution to store images there.

maddog10 · Expire: 2015-02-12

I had a hard drive go bad a few months ago. It had been several months since I backed up the photos to the external drive. I lost a lot of photos, as the shop could not recover any data from the bad drive. This one gave no warning it was going bad. One day the computer worked fine, the next day it would not even start.

Live and learn.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

We should not lazy anymore to burn immediate to DVD ...

hexi · Expire: 2011-11-18

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

sichko · Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Posts: 2475 Location: South West UK

I have two external HDDs which are are mirrors of each other. Of course if the house burns down..... but then I might be worried about other things.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

I have heard you backup,then backup some more then back up that back up!!! Shocked

welcome to the computer age!

Seele · Joined: 17 Apr 2009 Posts: 741 Location: Sydney Australia

When I need to burn to disc blanks I tend to make two (or more) copies, each on a different brand of blanks just to even out the odds. One set is stored off-site, just in case.

Rolf · Expire: 2015-12-26

In total I have 6 TB disk space at my IMAC.

2TB working space, 2TB backup 1 and 2TB backup 2. And my "best" images are stored outside at smugmug in the case of a burnig house Rolling Eyes

And then there was a problem with Amazon S3 server farm where smugmug stored the images and many 10000 people thought that they have lost their data.

Wink

LucisPictor · Expire: 2013-12-03

Nothing is 100% safe.

I use several external HDD to backup and every now and then I backup on DVD.

But also DVDs are not forever. They will deteriorate.

Back up and migrate that's the solution. But even with a compex system ... nothing is 100% safe. Wink

Seele · Joined: 17 Apr 2009 Posts: 741 Location: Sydney Australia

LucisPictor,

I reckon my b/w negatives are keeping quite well though! Wink

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Now I know a bit more , there were two disk inside. One had trouble sometimes, it had sound click, click... sometimes only, I guess disk head did try to move head to right position but it couldn't. Now this disk is dead , click sound come permanently. Another works fine after reformat on normal temperature.

Nesster · Expire: 2014-02-20

scary stuff... I do have an external backup, as does daughter. I started backing up on DVD but the damn photos took too many! I got tired of it.

Exclamation

I know! I'll take photos of the pictures on the monitor... I mean real film photos... and that way they are secure Laughing

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9098 Location: Houston, Texas

Recently I was reading some threads I came across on the topic of DVD and CD longevity, since lots of folks are using them as archives nowadays. I read many messages where people claimed the life of their CDs or DVDs was anywhere from 2 to 5 years. I was really surprised by this, but there were enough folks who reported this that I'm now pretty well convinced.

Makes me wonder why my 8-year-old movie DVDs and some of my close to 20-year-old CDs still work just fine? Are the CDs and DVDs available nowadays pure crap or something? Not sure.

But there are archival quality "gold" CDs and DVDs. They are expensive, though, because they use real gold as part of the burn medium, which makes it much more stable. Amazon sells a 25 pack of "100 year" 4.7gb DVDs for $65.00 (which is a claimed 50% savings off list price). Still, if you value your images, and I suspect you do, I think this is the best way to go and that ultimately the price will be worth it.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

+1 for gold dvd.

alex · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 561 Location: UK

I use two external drives, each 500Gb. The second drive is kept in sync with the first using Microsoft's Synctoy utility. (I'm using both XP and Vista.)

I've changed the location of '(My) Documents' to the first external drive, and I don't use the internal drive for anything but intermediate or working files. This means all my files are instantly portable, and if I want to, I can just connect the drive to my laptop instead. At the end of each session I just click on the Synctoy folder pair name and the drives are synchronised.

Every so often I copy to a duplicate pair of DVDs. As all my picture folders start with YY_MM_ in the name, it's easy to keep track of what's been copied already, just by knowing what month it is.

I use Google Calendar, and every six months, I have it send me an e-mail reminding me to check the DVDs for reliability, and re-copy if any of the pairs has a problem.

A family friend lost her entire family photo collection due to a corrupt disk. They'd only digital cameras and all the pictures of their young family were on the family computer. The only pictures recoverable were those I'd taken for them at a family event, and only because I'd copies in my own archives. It's a scary thought to think how easily one could lose the family photo history.

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

DVDs go bad typically though oxidation of the metal layer; depending on environment oxidation can happen within a few months or take longer than 25 years.

DVDRAM forget about it; failure rates are high and get worse over time.

RAID is expensive for parts and for extra power to run it and isn't as reliable as manufacturers want us to believe.

The business copied all data onto a backup server each night, for speed, and then from backup server to 2 tapes the next day, two tape copies per day, one is immediately posted and stored offsite.

At home I use two portable drives, for 3 copies of everything; one on internal drive, one each on two external drives.

haley · Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 154

Backing up to another hard drive and putting it in a different physical location (at work, at a family member's house, in a safety deposit, etc) is a good idea, but you have to remember to keep updating it every so often. I also use Mozy, which is like $9/mo for unlimited backup, just in case.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Farside · Expire: 2013-12-27

I copy the images I really want to keep onto gold CD or DVD. My external disk drive has most of them, but I make sure it never powers down and also keeps well ventilated. It's about due for replacement by now, so I will relegate that to another machine. External HDs are now so cheap it's easy to have any number as backups and only connected when needed.

@Attila - it's a well known trick to put a dead or sticky HDD into the freezer for a few hours then connect it up - often it will free up and run for long enough to get the data from it.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Wow! I didn't know that Dave! Thanks!

larsr · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 272 Location: Helsinki, Finland

Having been deeply involved with computers for the last 20 years, I've learnt not to trust any physical medium so much to put all my stuff in one place.

I've heard lots of horror stories of external Lacie USB hard drives, but my 250GB Porsche has worked for quite long. Yet I am not storing any of my more precious stuff on it, just in case. I also have a 500GB Western Digital MyBook USB drive, but it being a single-drive bay I just store miscellaneous stuff on it.

My latest purchase was a 2TB Western Digital MyBook Mirror Edition, which is big but houses two SATA hard drives 1TB each which mirror each other as a RAID1 stripe, and I believe this is the cheapest and safest way to store stuff at home. More on CD/DVD discs later on..

RAID1 works in a way where two same-size disks mirror data off each other, ie. they contain exactly the same data. The mirroring is done by writing a copy of the data on both drives simultaneously. When one of the disks crash, I can replace the disk with another one, wait for the data to be mirrored from the intact disk to the other, and then just continue working.

CD and DVD discs, on the other hand, are a good storage medium provided they are used due to their specifications and even then with a hint of salt. For example, say you buy discs which claim you can burn them in 16x speed and a drive that says you can burn 32x speed. Some people miss the fact that physical discs really need to be written with the maximum write speed they are specified for, ie. you write a 16x disc with 16x speed and no more, even if your drive had the capability.

Now then, the problem which arises from writing in high speed is directly related to the physical disc material. The faster you write discs, the more power is required from the laser, thus the discs heat up and more wear is imposed on the disc surface. This has a direct effect on the longevity of the discs, which I for example never burn discs with more than 8x write speed, no matter what.

I am also still hesitant on using CD-R/W or DVD-R/W discs at all, as you can easily misplace them and they are much easier to destroy than a hard drive, at least based on my experience.

In addition to my RAID1 hard drive, i store my photos to Flickr and then to a backuped webstorage space I get courtesy of my company :)

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11