External Hard Drive Reliability?

[Rezident]

Am I just very unlucky with external hard drives or are they fundamentally less reliable than internal ones? I have had a lot of internal hard drives over the years, like ten or so and only one has actually failed (a Samsung, my 3 other sammys are perfect, WD, Intel all fine). My old Maxtor that must be nearly ten years old still worked last time I tried it.

My last three external hard drives have all died suddenly for no good reason I can discern. My Western Digital one died within months, as did its replacement, then last week my Seagate FreeAgent Pro that had been working fine for two years (although I only use it very rarely for backups, say once every three or four months max) died when I was backing up and Seagate still haven’t replied about if it’s still in warranty.

I rarely use these drives (for backups only once every few months) why are they all so unreliable? Does any manufacturer have a reputation for external hard drives that last? I’m thinking of just getting an internal drive, backing up to it, and taking it out of the case, what do other people do?

Cheers.

 

[alaricljs]

Buy my own external case and "internal" hard drive and build my own.

 

[corkyg]

Buy my own external case and "internal" hard drive and build my own.

This. Thus the reliability is about the same - maybe better because of less heat, etc. I have used commercial externals as well, and have never had one fail. (So far, all Seagate FreeAgent Pro and Go.)

 

[Plester]

heat is what kills them, plain and simple. unless there is active cooling in an enclosure, aka a fan - you are on borrowed time. even slick all aluminum enclosures that incorporate some revolutionary cooling technology with a trademarked name won't save your drive. also wise to avoid apple timebombs.

on top of that, if what you put on an external drive is important, then you must consider 2 drive enclosures that can be set up in raid1 or mirrored.

I use these enclosures with 1.5tb drives as media arrays connected via a cheap ($15 ebay Lacie brand) esata siliconimage based xpresscard with Avid Media Composer. They are as fast as the drives are natively and I have a bit of raid1 peace of mind.

 

[jjmIII]

You need a fan!

I run my external 24/7 with no problems. As stated, build your own.

 

[corkyg]

. . . on top of that, if what you put on an external drive is important, then you must consider 2 drive enclosures that can be set up in raid1 or mirrored.

Or, have 4 duplicate externals. That's how I store 10 years worth of digital imagery and MP3 files. None of them run all the time - only when I need to add files or access specific files. I then do one drive and sync the rest over my LAN.

 

[COPOHawk]

I have had a number of different brands fail...and the vast majority of the time, the USB circuitry fails, while the drive remains intact.

Did you extract the drive to try in another enclosure?

The most reliable so far is the WD ones, My Book or Elements...check the user reviews before you buy 🙂

 

[FishAk]

Sorry for the hijack here, but where can I get good info on syncing disks, corkyg?

Recently, I changed my RAID 10 to RAID 1. I've been using SyncToy to synchronize my drives, and I used it to repopulate my array. When I was done, I noticed my internal backup, and now the array, was light on files, missing a couple hundred GB over a few partitions. I manualy transfered files from my external BU to make sure I had everything. But now I'm afraid of SyncToy, and want to read up on syncing drives.

It's possible that pasting an image of my OS partition from an earlier time, which I do occasionally, caused the data loss. Does that sound right?

 

[C1]

Are you using these xternals on the same machine & how are the xternals getting power? Wouldnt hurt to verify the voltage on the xternal interface when the xternal HDD is under load.

 

[Soundmanred]

I've had multiple externals (8 WD MyBooks, 1 WD Elements and 2 Seagates) and only one has messed up. The only reason it did was because it was plugged in, transferring data and my daughter tripped over the USB cord and it fell 14-15 inches to the floor.
All of the others run flawlessly, fanlessly and half of them are on 24/7.

 

[corkyg]

FishAK - I use GoodSync by Siber Systems. Fits with my Roboform.

C1 - They are on three different machines. The 3.5's are eSATA and have their own power modules. The USB ones are connected to powered hubs. None use the PC PSU. I turn them on only when needed.

 

[Rezident]

I have had a number of different brands fail...and the vast majority of the time, the USB circuitry fails, while the drive remains intact.

Did you extract the drive to try in another enclosure?

The most reliable so far is the WD ones, My Book or Elements...check the user reviews before you buy 🙂

No I did not extract the drive, is it messy?

 

[Rezident]

Are you using these xternals on the same machine & how are the xternals getting power? Wouldnt hurt to verify the voltage on the xternal interface when the xternal HDD is under load.

Yes the last few are on the same system. They all get power from a separate AC plug.

The Seagate FreeAgent that dies recently had previously been fine. I was backing up a system image (50 - 60 gigs), it took ages over Firewire (maybe an hour or two) and it dies three minutes from finishing! It was very hot to the touch. Does copying large files like that make them more likely to die?

 

[Emulex]

its the usb cable - they are crap. the usb port is overloaded. and bumps kill the drives.

the bricks die too.

99% = brick dead, usb cable too sucky.
1% usb port overloaded

actualy dead 2TB seagates: none