Hard drive issues :(

[angelnetgirl]

Hard drives seem to hate me, just before Christmas my 500GB Buffalo Drivestation external hard drive started to make a peculiar alarming noise, I guessed it was going to give out and the next time I turned on the computer I was right. 

I was rather disappointed as I have only had it for a year and half and it hasn't been used extensively as I don't tend to use the big computer that often.   It was of course my backup hard drive :)  Thankfully I am paranoid and have various copies of my stuff as I don't trust hard drives. 

I had a few vouchers for my Christmas for amazon so rather than buying DVD like I was going to I thought I best buy a new external drive, I bought what I thought was a shiny 1TB WD My Book.  I plugged it and off it went, I set up the back-up and left it as it was 370GB in size it would take a while, I came back later to discover "Destination Location Not Available".  Every time I click on the drive I got an I/O error.  I re-attached the drive and it appeared again, I then stayed around to see what happened, I have done this on a few occasions now and sometimes it installs OK but after so long it just decides it doesn't like it and bugger off, sometimes it doesn't even install.  After doing some digging around I discovered that people who like me are running Vista are having similar problems, I have to conclusion that even thought it says its compatible with Vista that's just a lie.  I am going to wait till Dad comes home so he can fiddle with it, he can have a look at my dead Buffalo drive as well. 

If like I expect he doesn't get any further I will be returning it to Amazon, I am now left with a problem as what to buy now.  I was looking at Buffalo Drivestation 1TB from Amazon.co.UK.  Being as the same make as one I have just lost does worry me.  I am thinking about having two 1TB external drives.  I have two internal hard drives, one that just stores my video/graphics/fanfics basically everything that is holey to me, I have a direct copy of that drive on a 320GB hard drive and I did have a back-up on the Buffalo.  Now that one hard drive has failed my paranoia can only grow, I was thinking about another internal drive but I don't know if I have a spare bay.   I know I should back up on DVD extra but do you have any idea how many DVD/CDs that would take, not to mention the time.

Does anyone have any recommendations?
 

Comments

[siluria]

I have a Seagate and have to say I haven't had any problems with it at all. Although hearing stories about HD's stopping working does have me a little concerned that I have all my 'eggs' in one basket.

[angelnetgirl.livejournal.com]

I was looking at Seagate ones today. I have lost data too many times in the past that I am now kinda fanatical about backups and such, I like to have so many copies with the vain hope that they wont all die at the same time cause that would just be too unfair. I will look into the Seagate ones.

[glorfinniel.livejournal.com]

I don't know very much at all I'm afraid but my uncle works on computers for his job and I remember him saying that it's actually better to get a harddrive with less memory because they're less likely to die on you :P Dont know how true this is or the reason behind it but it might be worth getting a couple of 250GBs instead maybe? Sorry I can't be of any more help!

P.S I love having Vista but it's a bugger waiting for the rest of the computer world to catch up with their software and hardware!

[angelnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah I seem to be seeing the same advice about getting smaller hard drives, I am going to look into it.

I really love Vista as well, its so pretty and shiny, its been out for a while you would think everyone would have caught up now.

[wenchpixie]

Seagate's a good mf, but give me a yell if you see something, because there aren't all that many manufacturers in the world and a lot of the cheaper drives are just rebranded.

if you've the USB ports (or actually, even if not because you can always buy a wee powered hub) then I'd suggest getting a couple of littler drives. The 1tbs are as reliable as the smaller drives (same technology, same issues, basically), but you'd have to have 2 500gB drives fail to lose a whole 1tb so the % are in your favour. Once you've a set of external drives you can look at some automatic back up jobs to keep them in parity. Make sure you've a surge proof power bar to plug them all into - that's the single biggest cause of mass hardware failure.

[angelnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks hun, I have been looking all day as I am not any nearer in making a decision LOL. I have been looking at Seagate's, Buffalo and Western Digital mainly as even though I am having issues with this new one we have about 4 other WD that have been no bother.

It is a USB hub I use but I think the one I have may be full, can soon get another one though. Yeah everything is surge protected, I am always very concious about that. I use Memeo Auto backup which I know lots of people hate but I get along with very well, I also use Sync toy which is very handy.

Right I will go and look at smaller hard drives. I currently have a WD 320GB which has been running well for years, its basically used to store a copy of all my essential files so I still have one back up as such, its really hard to pick one as there's always at least one review saying it failed but I know that's pretty much unavoidable with hard drives.