Two Hard Drives Failing Simultaneously.

[halfpower]

A lot of people have two internal hard drives. Of those, may use one for back-up. How good an idea is this? I realize simple mechanical failure in both drives is unlike to occur in both drives in a four week period. On the other hand, a big power surge, a spilt beer, or some other freak accident might take out both drives at once. I was wondering, has anybody here ever heard of a computer that had two simultaneous hard disk failures?

 

[wisdomtooth]

Rare, but known to happen. (click for photos)

 

[Arcanedeath]

As long as you keep the 2nd drive disconected from the system most of the time (like in a removable drive frame) this shouldn't happen as a surge won't take out your backup if it's electricaly disconected from your system.

 

[sharkeeper]

Yes as in catastrophic failure.

If anything can fail it will often on a Saturday night (eek!).

The chances outside of catastrophe are unlikely to highly unlikely.

 

[biostud]

Our company had 13 out of 14 SCSI drives fail simultanious.

 

[lenjack]

Easy to be mislead...when it happenned to me, it turned out NOT to be the hd's...it was bad caps on the mobo.

 

[halfpower]

As long as you keep the 2nd drive disconected from the system most of the time (like in a removable drive frame) this shouldn't happen as a surge won't take out your backup if it's electricaly disconected from your system.

Can I do that with a SATA drive?

By the way, I once had a sprinkler system go off on the floor above me. There was water everywhere in the stairwell. Water started dripping down through the ceiling on to my laptop keyboard and the disconnected USB hard drive siting next to it. Luckily I was there at the time.

 

[imported_miahallen]

Yes, they do make external cases for SATA drives, check it out.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Bigger issue might be the IDE controller, don't ever depend on one in a mission critical scenario!

 

[hippotautamus]

It's rare, but it can happen - power spikes have been known to take out entire RAID and SCSI arrays, which is why surge protectors are such a good idea lol.

If you have truly mission critical data, it's usually a good idea to invest in a DVD burner and a stack of DVDs as high as your leg. Make weekly backups of all your sensitive data and send it to a safe deposit box or a friend's house for safe keeping. Even an external HDD in a sealed ESD bag is better than nothing, if your data is really important.