External HD failure?

[Larkone]

Assuming that the drive is toast and that you’re looking to replace it, I would give some serious thought to doing so with a two-bay NAS such as available from Synology and using a pair of NAS-spec drives in RAID configuration.

This will be more costly than a simple external HDD, but will last much longer and the RAID gives you further recovery options should one of the drives fail.

RAID can fail and when it does you can loose everything - I know I have seen it happen in my career in IT more than once. Add to that most home NAS units will not have UPS protection in the event of a power failure - a well known way of taking down a RAID array.

A better and cheaper option for home use would be to buy two drives for backup, alternate them and keep them in separate places.

 

[st13phil]

Without derailing the thread too much; to those who knows, is it worth changing to SSDs for external storage ( in terms of reliability more than speed)

Not really.

You need not just reliability but also high capacity, and that gets prohibitively expensive very quickly for SSD’s.

 

[st13phil]

RAID can fail and when it does you can loose everything - I know I have seen it happen in my career in IT more than once. Add to that most home NAS units will not have UPS protection in the event of a power failure - a well known way of taking down a RAID array.

A better and cheaper option for home use would be to buy two drives for backup, alternate them and keep them in separate places.

True, but as always it’s a trade off between data security and usability. And the chances of losing everything with simple RAID 1 (mirroring) due to disk failure is tiny - I never encountered such during my IT career, so maybe I was lucky. RAID 0 is another matter, of course.

 

[BTB 500]

Without derailing the thread too much; to those who knows, is it worth changing to SSDs for external storage ( in terms of reliability more than speed)

Speaking as a user rather than a hardware engineer I think SSD is at the stage now where the expected lifespan 'in average use' exceeds HDD.

SSD has a finite limit to the number of times each block of storage can be re-written, and that's the limiting factor. HDD is limited by the lifespan of the mechanical moving parts.

Obviously SSD is more expensive, and when externally connected you won't get the same speed benefit that you do when used internally (because the data transfer rate is a bottleneck).

 

[AMGeed]

Should I choose to replace this external disc with another, anyone got a preference to brand?
This is the second Western Digital hard disc that has failed me, usually arounf the 5 year mark.
Not too keen on getting another of the same brand.

 

[AMGeed]

External HDDs definitely have a limited lifespan - I've had a couple die in a similar manner. I use them for backups and normally buy them as a pair - I keep one connected to the computer and the other in a different part of the house, swapping them over every couple of months. So if the worst happens (computer catches fire maybe) I still have a reasonably recent backup. I take a simple copy of all the folders/files every time ... not incremental backups.

I have a similar set up. The disc that just failed was back up for the other external disc that was removed from my desktop and put in a caddy when I changed to from Win 10 to Win 11 and a new SSD. In effect ,with so much storage, the one that failed isn't a great loss as its a back up for things already saved on the one in the caddy.

 

[Doodle]

Should I choose to replace this external disc with another, anyone got a preference to brand?
This is the second Western Digital hard disc that has failed me, usually arounf the 5 year mark.
Not too keen on getting another of the same brand.

I've used WD Red and Seagate Ironwolf extensively for home storage - the latter has proven more reliable.

 

[Larkone]

True, but as always it’s a trade off between data security and usability. And the chances of losing everything with simple RAID 1 (mirroring) due to disk failure is tiny - I never encountered such during my IT career, so maybe I was lucky. RAID 0 is another matter, of course.

RAID is a useful tool if you need high availability such as production environments, overkill for a personal/domestic backup. The OP is just using the drive for backups so having a simpler solution with more than one copy of the backup is the way to go, less hassle, lower cost, high reliability.

 

[AMGeed]

As above, RAID is a bit of overkill for my back ups. After the failures of both WD drives, I've gone this one.
I opened up the failed drive to find it was a 2016 HD.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9494459?clickPR=plp:1:5

 

[ALFAitalia]

Now the 1900+Gb isn't even showing in the Volume.
I think its had it.



There is no back up. This was the disc I was using for back up's of my photos , documents, downloads etc.
Ironic its failed.

I'm sure your local PC shop will be able to retrieve the data.......its mostly like its there.....just that you cant access it. The local guy retrieved mine complete with operating system when my on board HDD died on my last PC....not much money either.

 

[AMGeed]

I'm sure your local PC shop will be able to retrieve the data.......its mostly like its there.....just that you cant access it. The local guy retrieved mine complete with operating system when my on board HDD died on my last PC....not much money either.

Fortunately all the data I lost was a back up's for material on another disc which I still have.
I've copied across all the data I want to the new disc and have scheduled a daily back up which I can delete as and when necessary.
The Seagate HD I now have to replace the Western Digital is handy for laptop backups too as there is only a USB C connection and no mains lead to connect.
I put a lump hammer into the failed disc so nobody will be recovering anything from that.
As a matter of interest what sort of money did the data recovery cost?

 

[fabes]

You've spent the money now Roger, but did you consider moving to a One Drive account?

I did years ago and all seems well....

 

[AMGeed]

You've spent the money now Roger, but did you consider moving to a One Drive account?

I did years ago and all seems well....

Got the basic free One Drive storage, but no I hadn't considered cloud storage Jon.