Seagate hard drives....

[Bob Romano]

Please take this for what ever it is worth to you...

Stay away from Seagate hard drives. I have just had my third Seagate drive crash. They replaced the first two because they were under warranty and luckily those two were just for downloading and moving files around. The third one was an internal drive that I used for all my restoration work. I would move the raw files to the drive, work on them and once the job was finished move the final results to another drive for storage. I have had WD, Hitachi and Toshiba drives that have been in service for years. The Seagate drive I just lost was relatively new (within in the last 12 to 18 months). No more I say!!!

I even went through the task of trying to recover the files with no luck at all. Too many I/O errors.

Oh well.... back to work.

 

[JonUrban]

Well that really sucks. Seagate used to be a great name, but I don't think the current "Seagate" has any relation to the former "Seagate"

 

[timothyemerson]

I heard the same thing from a dude who transferred some 8mm movies to BD for me a few years ago. With each frame being about a 20MB TIF, he burns through a ton of hard drives and said he's had more Seagates die than any others. He was sticking with Western Digitals.

 

[The Bright Side]

Weird, been using Seagate for a long time (since the 90s) and I don't think I recall any ever dying on me. So sorry it happened to you so often! I might look for another brand next time I buy a mechanical HDD.

Hope you had most or all of your files backed up when the HDD kicked the bucket.

 

[jimfisheye]

Friends don't let friends buy Seagate. I repair and refurbish computers and Seagate is the number 1 failure I see.
Hitachi, WD (they're both the same co. now), Samsung seem to be the best HDD's.
Not sure that I have a strong opinion against any particular SSD yet. There was that firmware bug Samsung had in their cheaper (non-pro) SSD'd a few months back but they honored their warranty.

Backups backups backups!

Drives fail. Not 'if' but 'when'.

Use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner to make backup clones of all your drive volumes (and especially your system volume). This app makes backup clones that are identical and bootable just like the original. Schedule backups, etc, etc. I think of "Time Machine" as a sort of demo backup app as you'll need to manually reinstall your OS and a few other things if you end up restoring from a Time Machine backup.

 

[fredblue]

Do any of you folks know who makes the guts in LaCie's Porsche Design 4TB drives by any chance?
(Hoping it's not Seagate now!!)

 

[jdmack]

Related to this - Hard Disc Sentinel is a program that can give you some warning when your hard drive its about to go. Free if you don't mind the nag screen. Not too expensive if you do.
Saved my ass just last week!

http://www.hdsentinel.com/

 

[winopener]

I've had hd failure from all brands... last dying HDD was a 3tb WD one month ago and the only solution i have is daily network backup on a nas, and [belt and suspenders mode ON] weekly backup of the n.1 nas to a n.2 nas. The n.2 doesn't need to be a high-profile name device, even a zyxel or d-link is enough since the only thing going on there is a rsync destination task.

 

[kap'n krunch]

I've had hd failure from all brands... last dying HDD was a 3tb WD one month ago and the only solution i have is daily network backup on a nas, and [belt and suspenders mode ON] weekly backup of the n.1 nas to a n.2 nas. The n.2 doesn't need to be a high-profile name device, even a zyxel or d-link is enough since the only thing going on there is a rsync destination task.

I apologize, and thanks for the lesson, but can we get a "layman" translation of this or shall I g**gle it?

 

[kap'n krunch]

Also, If I may, might add that hard drives will always go to heaven in a handbasket is not an issue of "if", but "when"...the thing is , what is the alternative?? Has anybody come up with a PERMANENT solution to long term storage?...all media has a "built in" fragility/designated failure obsolescence...
Anybody???
I am convinced SOMETHING will be discovered...(or has already been but we know why we don't know about it..BUSINESS!!!)

 

[fredblue]

I've thought about getting a series of smaller capacity external SSDs (one solid state drive for Scheiner 5.1's, one for EJ 5.1's, one for Bowie 5.1's, another for Queen 5.1's etc.. for example..) but have heard they can go belly up just as much as any other HDD.. don't know how true that rings with QQ members?

 

[DuncanS]

SSDs will go phut, the FLASH memories do deteriorate eventually. Lots of Writes to a location will trash them (each time the transistor threshold changes irreversibly) and they also rely on Error Correction to get round Read errors. 5-10 year life. So back-up is essential. Traditional Hard Disks will retain their data for quite a while, but its the bearing going or the head gouging a furrow in the disk that do the real damage with them.

 

[winopener]

I apologize, and thanks for the lesson, but can we get a "layman" translation of this or shall I g**gle it?

HD: hard disk drive
HDD: hard disk drives
3tb: Three Terabyte
WD: Western Digital
NAS: Network Attached Storage
Zyxel: hardware manufacturer
D-Link: hardware manufacturer
rsync: network protocol used to replicate the data from one device (source) to another (destination). Can be setup on computers or nas and scheduled for specific date/time.

No need to google, have a look on ebay for NAS of some brand (synology, qnap, hp, d-link etc...) and you can have the idea.

 

[winopener]

Also, If I may, might add that hard drives will always go to heaven in a handbasket is not an issue of "if", but "when"...the thing is , what is the alternative?? Has anybody come up with a PERMANENT solution to long term storage?...all media has a "built in" fragility/designated failure obsolescence...
Anybody???
I am convinced SOMETHING will be discovered...(or has already been but we know why we don't know about it..BUSINESS!!!)

At present time, nothing permanent... even glyphs on prehistorical stones can be erased.

 

[winopener]

SSDs will go phut, the FLASH memories do deteriorate eventually. Lots of Writes to a location will trash them (each time the transistor threshold changes irreversibly) and they also rely on Error Correction to get round Read errors. 5-10 year life. So back-up is essential. Traditional Hard Disks will retain their data for quite a while, but its the bearing going or the head gouging a furrow in the disk that do the real damage with them.

If the problem with flash memory would be only "lots of write" it would still be ok for definitive archiving, for example a audio file that is ok and need only to be played back (=read) and not touched anymore but only read.
The BIG (and i mean BIG) problem with SSD is the offline data retention (that's the official jargon), which translates in: how much time the data recorded on a flash memory that is kept unplugged from power can be read back safely?
Here's a Intel document about their SSD, and the ones from other manufacturers doesn't differ too much on that:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww.../product-specifications/ssd-dc-s3700-spec.pdf

see on p. 13, Data Retention: 3 months at 40 degrees. Lenght is more with lower temperatures, less for higher temperatures. Please notice that Hard Disk drives data retention is calculated in years, not months.

No fun.

 

[Neil Palfreyman]

Also, If I may, might add that hard drives will always go to heaven in a handbasket is not an issue of "if", but "when"...the thing is , what is the alternative?? Has anybody come up with a PERMANENT solution to long term storage?...all media has a "built in" fragility/designated failure obsolescence...
Anybody???
I am convinced SOMETHING will be discovered...(or has already been but we know why we don't know about it..BUSINESS!!!)

As far as I'm aware Cloud storage (which is still slow and relatively expensive) or personal RAID 1 / RAID 5 either locally or on a NAS are the closest you can get today.

Even so, the best advice is to backup, backup and then backup.

 

[fredblue]

If the problem with flash memory would be only "lots of write" it would still be ok for definitive archiving, for example a audio file that is ok and need only to be played back (=read) and not touched anymore but only read.
The BIG (and i mean BIG) problem with SSD is the offline data retention (that's the official jargon), which translates in: how much time the data recorded on a flash memory that is kept unplugged from power can be read back safely?
Here's a Intel document about their SSD, and the ones from other manufacturers doesn't differ too much on that:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww.../product-specifications/ssd-dc-s3700-spec.pdf

see on p. 13, Data Retention: 3 months at 40 degrees. Lenght is more with lower temperatures, less for higher temperatures. Please notice that Hard Disk drives data retention is calculated in years, not months.

No fun.

Wow! So SSDs need to be plugged in and used constantly (or at least once every couple of months) or they go kaput?

 

[fredblue]

So.. my Mac Mini has a built in SD card reader round the back.. (stick with me and bash the idea in a minute if you think it sucks!)..

..so was thinking to get the biggest one I could get.. 256? (do they even do 512gb SD?) and putting the 5.1/Quad music I listen to the most on it..

..a pretty much read-only solution, I would copy over the files from my conventional LaCie HDD in one fell swoop and probably not write anything new to it at all (well, possibly but v.seldom..) and then just point Kodi to it in addition to the LaCie.. it would be used several times a week most likely..

Less volatile method of storage in that scenario?
What do you think guys?

(HELP!!! I've only been using the computer, a 2012 Mac Mini, in earnest about 6 months to play Quad etc so I'm new to all this and it's not a brand new machine by any stretch.. it feels like Russian roulette every time I boot the old girl up whether or not the HDD is gonna go bye byes..!!) :yikes

 

[The Bright Side]

Very true about SSD, but we also need to consider real-life usage. They do last several years, and for the money they cost (I think around 130 bucks for 256 GB atm, but would need to double-check), getting a new one every couple of years (like, 5-6 years) is no problem and you're likely gonna do it anyway.

The first one I ever got was a Crucial back in 2011, and it still runs in my laptop today. It's stable like day 1. I have since bought Intel twice, because they have a reputation for putting enormous efforts into their SSDs to make them reliable, safe and secure.

I would highly advise against using SSD for the files you work with regularly, because that means writing to them. The current standard is:

SSD for your operating system.
HDD for your files and operations.

In my personal case, I have a 256 GB SSD with Windows and Linux on it. I gave 12 GB to Linux (it's slim, I love it) and the rest to Windows. Then, I gave the 1.5 TB I have in HDD space to Linux. All my daily work and operations happen on Linux, and I only have Windows for video games, which I run from the SSD, which is nothing short of awesome.

For backup storage, use conventional hard disks. SSD is not meant for that.

 

[The Bright Side]

Here's what they wrote about Intel's rigorous validation process back in 2012, when Intel came out with the Cherryville drives:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce

That's what swayed me to go Intel for SSDs back then. Note: a more recent article (March this year) suggests Corsair is now the best to go with, though the comments thread has people who keep having great experiences with Intel.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-most-reliable-massive-study-sheds-some-light