What is best storage? Backup Hard Drives, why bother they seem unreliable? WTF

**Rip'nStick** · 09-20-2015, 09:51 PM

So I bought a Seagate 2TB hard drive to backup and store extra video on. Formatted for MacBook Air. Beeotch is not talking anymore. Had another similar experience a few years ago with WD.

Maybe this is user error, but at this point I am wondering... why bother. Way more unreliable than my laptop... I backup and download devices every few months.

I guess the question is, what am I doing wrong? I know this is the right forum to ask, not a computing forum that backs their shit up daily. I just want to get my Lake Powell houseboat trip up and not worry that I'll never be able to see it again.

I didnt search first..please link

Thanks Mags,
Rip'nStick

**huckbucket** · 09-20-2015, 10:06 PM

If you don't access the data often, Amazon glacier does 2Tb for $14/month. Cloud, never worry about the quality of the media, blah, blah.

Actual pricing is $0.007/month/Gb in case you don't need a full 2Tb.

https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/

**Supermoon** · 09-20-2015, 10:41 PM

Unlimited photo backup with Prime from Amazon too.

Hard drives fail, so building in some redundancy for anything super important is key. Hard drive plus cloud backup with Amazon, google drive or Dropbox is a pretty solid setup for anything like family photos. Lose a HD and spend a couple hours putting the cloud files onto a new one.

LC · 09-21-2015, 02:16 AM

One backup drive, plus one backup for the backup drive. Disks fail, deal with it.

**ctsmith** · 09-21-2015, 04:11 AM

If its backing up Mac's I've had good luck with Apple Time Capsules and the time machine application. It backs up your Mac over wifi, and if you ever need to recover files or your entire HD you can.

**Aus George** · 09-21-2015, 05:47 AM

External hard drives have a rough life of 5-7 years. I mark all mine with a date when i buy it. After 5 years it goes in the 'corrupted' pile. Ive only had one start to go before the 5 years, and i knew it was on the way out, when files start disappearing and some things just wont work. That was a Toshiba, personally have had really good success with WD.

For me, if its really important i keep it on my computer (internal HDD's dont have the poor shelf life) and back it up on an external.

At the end of the day though, you would be surprised how quick you get over it when you loose so called 'important' data.

**TexasGortex** · 09-21-2015, 06:15 AM

You'd ideally want at least one off site backup in case of fire, flood, power surge, burglary etc. The cloud is cheap and easy, if it meets your security needs.

**RShea** · 09-21-2015, 06:34 AM

More reliable local storage include: SSD - solid state drives with no moving parts and not as susceptible to drops or bumps especially in external portable enclosures. Also any of the flash memory media- SD cards, thumb/flash drives also for important stuff as a second method but smaller capacity so you need multiples of each. Cloud backup- anything from syncing to Google, Amazon or Apple accounts to purchasing storage from one of the many online backup services (names like Carbonite, Mozy, etc.). If you have a fast internet connection, maybe even full backups, if not then at least important data that changes being synced to the data center storage as a supplement to local backups.

You need multiple copies- whether that is 2 or more drives locally being rotated or a combo of both local (for fast full recovery) and cloud for offsite disaster recovery.

**TCNROMPER** · 09-21-2015, 12:50 PM

I have always had great success with g-drives by g-technology…a little more coin than what most box stores stock, but I have found them reliable.

**bern43** · 09-21-2015, 01:10 PM

Check out Crashplan. If you sign up for 1 year it comes to $5/month. After the initial set-up it runs in the background so you don't have to remember to backup. Couple that with an external hard-drive back up and you should be set.

**Skistack** · 09-21-2015, 07:14 PM

Google drive is $1.99/mo for 100G and $9.99/mo for 1T. The data mining comes free.

**huckbucket** · 09-21-2015, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by Skistack

Google drive is $1.99/mo for 100G and $9.99/mo for 1T. The data mining comes free.

I assumed he didn't want to spend $240/year for cloud storage. That's a little steep. Then again, Google converts all your MP4's to youtube vids while in Drive. It's kinda nice actually.

**Altaholic** · 09-21-2015, 09:09 PM

I have two external hard drives my six year old 2tb & a new 2tb I just transferred all my files to. I like having to pay once & done, not every month. Plus I have music/movies I downloaded or got free, Apple told me they would only back stuff I bought from them. Screw that.

**Below Zero** · 09-21-2015, 09:22 PM

I have a WD MyCloud that backs up my laptop automatically. I like it. The "cloud" aspects kinda sucks though.

**Swine** · 09-22-2015, 08:28 AM

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. If something is truly that important I have it on three drives and possibly in Dropbox as well.

I've had good luck with OWC Mercury Elite Pro drives. And if you want to get real fancy Glyph was the go-to for music and media for a long time. I have an 11 year old Glyph external that I still use as the third option for redundancy. Most of these drives still use Seagate or WD platters but the enclosure is much better designed, heat and shitty power are your enemies. I'd never use only a consumer level off the shelf Mybook or the like as my only backup.

It's also usually possible to recover most "lost" data with third party high powered software.... You might have to bang on the drive or put it in the freezer first if it's physically damaged though.

**oftpiste** · 09-22-2015, 09:15 AM

I use this https://www.backblaze.com and redundant physical drives with both Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner as well as archiving photos on a dedicated 5TB external. Having experienced catastrophic data loss once many years ago I am committed to never, ever going through that again.

**TahoeJ** · 09-22-2015, 10:16 AM

I've had good luck with Lacie drives (the orange ones meant for on-the-go use) - but major +1 to the no moving parts / solid state recommendation.

**Flyoverland Captive** · 09-22-2015, 10:17 AM

How are those of you who use the cloud for storage able to upload huge files? I've got almost 1TB of music/photos; with my shitty internet, it would take me days to get it all uploaded. How are you doing it?

**shroom** · 09-22-2015, 10:40 AM

full veeam to tape baby

**bern43** · 09-22-2015, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive

How are those of you who use the cloud for storage able to upload huge files? I've got almost 1TB of music/photos; with my shitty internet, it would take me days to get it all uploaded. How are you doing it?

It takes days for the initial backup. But after that it just backs up anything new.

**sethschmautz** · 09-22-2015, 07:30 PM

I have a small home NAS with two mirrored 1TB drives. At work, I have a single 1TB drive. My work computer and my home computer both share a Microsoft 365 account with 1TB OneDrive storage.

Home computer syncs files (Synkron - contribute only) from its OneDrive folder to the NAS. At work, my computer copies files from the same OneDrive account to the single drive. All files go into OneDrive folder including photos.

Should be bomber. Physical drives shouldn't both go away at the save time, and because they are contribute only, they won't be affected if OneDrive somehow goes away.

Not the cheapest, but seems fairly comprehensive. Office 365 gets you a full copy of office and 1TB of online storage for $100/yr. Well worth it, I think.

**RShea** · 09-22-2015, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by Swine

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. If something is truly that important I have it on three drives and possibly in Dropbox as well.

It's also usually possible to recover most "lost" data with third party high powered software.... You might have to bang on the drive or put it in the freezer first if it's physically damaged though.

Dropbox can be another cloud syncing option if you have enough storage available- most use whatever they offer in the free account, but they do allow you to purchase higher amounts of storage.

Your statement on the recovery really is limited to certain types of drive failures. As for the comments on the software recovery and/or stick it in the freezer, depends on what was damaged- freezer trick will not work for any circuit board failure, nor will it help if the drive heads are detached. May help for a clicking issue.

**Swine** · 09-22-2015, 11:12 PM

Originally Posted by RShea

Dropbox can be another cloud syncing option if you have enough storage available- most use whatever they offer in the free account, but they do allow you to purchase higher amounts of storage.

Your statement on the recovery really is limited to certain types of drive failures. As for the comments on the software recovery and/or stick it in the freezer, depends on what was damaged- freezer trick will not work for any circuit board failure, nor will it help if the drive heads are detached. May help for a clicking issue.

I conflated those two issues and wasn't clear enough, for sure. I've had the clicking issue in the past and was able to pull all data off fully intact after freezer/knocking the drive.

Several years ago I put in a new 7200 rpm drive in my laptop and it started to crap out after about a year. It went downhill quickly, less than a day and I thought I lost all data. It wasn't anything physical from what I could tell. Drive Genius and two other programs let me recover about 80 percent. Some of which was corrupted. Luckily I had a fairly fresh backup of important media. It still sucked though.

I imagine shit is really lost if drive heads detach. If circuit board goes couldn't someone salvage the platters if it was absolutely necessary, or maybe for that matter with the heads detached?

**kootenayskier** · 09-23-2015, 06:04 AM

Backing up on an external drive won't help in the case of fire or theft. I've tried a few cloud services, and although you can get it for free these days, l continue to pay for Carbonite because it works and I don't have to.

**Flounder** · 09-23-2015, 06:26 AM

I have pretty much the same setup as Seth. Just upgraded to a new NAS to increase storage. Just starting to sync files with OneDrive but mostly for access. Been using Amazon Glacier back up for a while now. Wicked easy to set up with the NAS software. I've got a couple of different back ups going as I swap in the new system. Just shy of 4 TB runs me just over 4 bucks a month and I can retrieve individual files or the full system.

Office 365 is a good deal - with 5 office licenses I've got the parents and in laws setup using OneDrive for their needs.