Need A New Hard Drive For Backups

[Ensamvarg]

Hey all, I'm a little paranoid that my single hard drive might fail on me. So I'm going to buy a new one. It'll probably be 500 gig. Should I go with Samsung SpinPoints or a Western Digital? I've heard bad things about all the other brands, so I'm sticking to these 2. I think my current one is a WD. Can anyone recommend me a specific drive? What about firmware etc? I don't really know what that does as I'm not really a computer genius like most of you here but I expect it plays an important part.

Thanks all.

[NeoGeo333]

Samsung all the way. I have numerous WD died on me like a 74g raptor and 400g RE enterprise edition twice. With the sammies i have 11 500g and no problem what so ever since 2years ago.

[Heretic]

Samsung all the way. I have numerous WD died on me like a 74g raptor and 400g RE enterprise edition twice. With the sammies i have 11 500g and no problem what so ever since 2years ago.

And this post is why the "I've heard bad things" argument holds no water. HDDs die. It happens. It's basically up to chance once it ships from the manufacturer. I'm not saying that there are some drives with a higher defect rate, but I haven't seen or read about such issues with current drives. I HAVE heard about some compatibility issues with the current Samsung Spinpoint drives and some nforce chipsets...I believe disabling NCQ resolves the issue.

If you're paranoid about failure, use RAID 1 + backups. That way, you'd have to have all 3 drives fail within a short time period to lose your data. Also, I'd use an external drive that is only connected to the PC for backups and stored elsewhere the rest of the time. The 640gb WD is one of the top performers if you just want another drive, but performance of the drive isn't that important for backup drives (more important for RAID) as you're usually bottlenecked by the USB/Firewire most external enclosures use.

[Ensamvarg]

Thanks alot guys. So it doesn't really matter which I get? What about the AAKS and AAJS etc at the end of the manufacturers code, does that mean anything?

I've just looked around and it looks like I'm going with either a Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint F1 or a WD5000AAKS or WD5000AACS.

[zanzabar]

the samsung is faster and quieter, and i like them much better and ive never had a samsung die (but thats my experience some havnt had a WD die)

[Stealth42o]

And this post is why the "I've heard bad things" argument holds no water. HDDs die. It happens.

Yup, I have both and have run both for years. No problems. I have had 1 HD fail in my entire life. It was WD, but that did not turn me off from them. They both make quality hard drives. It's just preference.

[Heretic]

Thanks alot guys. So it doesn't really matter which I get? What about the AAKS and AAJS etc at the end of the manufacturers code, does that mean anything?

The codes are different revisions/versions of the drive. You can't really use them to compare across a line of drives, but you can use them to compare specific drives (e.g. you can't use the fact that the 640gb AAKS is fast to say that the 500gb AAKS is equally fast, but you can compare the specific qualities of the 500gb AAKS with the 500gb AAJS). Use google to find speeds, sound, etc.

[Soulburner]

I suggest WD 1TB GP in an external enclosure w/eSATA.

[Ensamvarg]

Once funds pick up I will go for an external e-sata drive. But for now I think I'll go with the Samsung 500 GB. I don't even have that much to back up but the extra space would always come in handy I'm sure. Thanks alot guys =]

[Soulburner]

Is this drive going to be removed when its not being used? If not, I'd recommend it.

At the very least disconnect it from the board and PSU.

[Ensamvarg]

I wasn't planning on disconnecting it. Why should I do that? Does it increase the drives life span?

[Soulburner]

If its a Backup drive, it shouldn't be in your system unless you're using it.

[Jazz_Data]

I wasn't planning on disconnecting it. Why should I do that? Does it increase the drives life span?

You want an off-site or "alternate location" backup. What happens if someone steals your pc with the backup drive inside?

[Soulburner]

Not just theft...but power problems, virus/trojans, data corruption. All of that can happen if your drive is kept connected. Really not much point in having a backup if it isn't disconnected.

[Ensamvarg]

Ahh that makes perfect sense then! Yeah I'll just save a bit more and get an external drive then. I don't have too much to back up but of course it's all important to me so I need it. Thanks alot guys.