Storage: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives?
- 5/29/09 1:02 PM
Yes, Of Course
by rsx1 - 5/23/09 7:10 AM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
All mechanical devices have a life expectancy in that they will eventually fail. At five years, your hard drive is getting a little long in the tooth.
Today's hard drives are getting more and more inexpensive. My suggestion is to get two external drives, and alternate backups to both. If a drive eventually fails you will still have the other backup version.
I would also suggest backing up more often than a few times per year. Remember, your PC hard drive will also eventually fail, and you will want your backup to be as current as possible, especially with the Quicken files you are storing.
External Hard Drive
by Miller Ree - 5/23/09 12:54 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Turn off the external hard drive when you are not using it.
Ree Miller
External Hard Drive Life
by FRKolb - 5/23/09 1:09 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
External hard drives will live forever and never die. After all there are no internal moving parts or anything that could possibly deteriorate or degrade causing harm. That is why all manufactures making these hard drives devices put a lifetime warranty on these items.
To be safe - you need redundacy - cheap at today's prices
by jas34613 - 5/23/09 2:54 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Disk prices are dirt cheap compared to what we have invested in our systems in money, time and the emotional value of our data. Do not trust any one single drive to keep your precious data.
For example, a friend lost everything when her $1400 laptop crashed. A new EIDE drive cost only $87.00 ($37.00 if it would've been the new SATA technology). What an unnecessary nightmare.
I have a clone hard drive for all three of the systems in our home. I use multiple external drives for routine backup of my treasured data.
Life expectancy is a crap shoot. I have several old hard drives (one age 20) from old systems that I now use as extra external drives via a universal USB adapter ($12.00 on Ebay for USB to Sata, or 40 pin IDE, and or 44 pin IDE - power supply included). Then I had a laptop drive die after only 11 months.
A bit of advice for all of you that have the older IDE drives (40 pin desktop - 44 pin laptop) that plan to stay with your system for a while. Buy a replacement disk now while they are still available because all the manufacturers are in high volume production of the newer SATA drives. It's more important for those of you with a laptop because you can not easily and neatly use an IDE to Sata converter like desktop owners can.
Moral, if given the choice of losing your precious data or buying extra backup disk, a new disk looks cheap at five times the price!
Life expectancy for external hard drives
by FILIBERTO HERNANDEZ - 5/23/09 4:53 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I wish I knew a definite answer, but in my experience I had two external hard drives, a MyBook(400Gig) and a Maxtor One Touch(500Gig)that died after 12 months each. I asked Maxtor to give me an estimate to restore my files and they quoted $3000.00 without even looking at it. Obviously, I didn't do it. Luckily, I still had most(but not all!!!) of my info in the hard drive, so I just bought a couple of more and it's been about 15 months now and everything is working fine. I have made dvds with my photos and made some dvds(compressed)for some of my music as well, just in case.
No different to any other hdd
by seafm - 5/23/09 6:31 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Yes there is a life expectancy on external hard drives. If you ever have the opportunity or the misfortune to dismantle one you will see that the hard drive looks no different to what is inside your pc. The only visible difference is it may have a sata connection rather than ide. I discovered this by chance when the connection pins on an external device my son had were no longer usable and we replaced the case.
As for how long an external hdd will last for can only be answered by another question. How long is a piece of string? It could die next week or in ten years time. Only plug it when you actually need to use it would be the only way to ensure a long life.
External Hard Drive
by dbm12 - 5/23/09 6:40 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Look at the drive's specifications, you will find the MTBF number.
Subtract 20% from the MTBF number and "chuck" the drive when you reach your number.
Just a very good rule of thumb.
Often your first sign of failure is the "instant" when the drive fails.
1. Replace your unit after 5 years; 2. Re-Format this drive
by davagain - 5/23/09 8:39 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hard drives store data in magnetic tracks that are laid down when you format the drive. Over time, the magnetic signal fades. The rule of thumb is that the strength fades 50% in 5 years. You can refresh this by re-formatting the drive.
Of course, in order to re-format, you have to copy your data elsewhere first. Storage is dirt cheap these days. Get another drive, copy your data onto it and use the new one as your primary drive. Re-format the old one, then copy your data back onto it and keep it as a back-up.
If you really, REALLY care about your data, I also recommend an offsite backup service such as Mozy or Carbonite. There are lots around these days and they are not expensive.
Life Expectancy for Hard drives
by rameez2086 - 5/23/09 11:06 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear friend,
The average service life of a hard disk is usually given as "5 years or 20,000 hours." This means if a hard disk operates 24 hours a day, you will need to replace your drive with a new one every 1.5 to 2 years. (For specification details, refer to your hard disk drive's user manual.)
The measure of service life used by most hard disk manufacturers is "mean time between failures" (MTBF)*1 (usually quoted at between 300,000 to 500,000 hours). The ratings (for expected service life) used by PC makers are more conservative, as they are based more closely on "real world" usage conditions. Since expected service life and MTBF figures can differ by hundreds of thousands of hours, we recommend you use the expected service life value. For example, the usual service life of a 2.5 inch drive will be almost 5 years or 20,000 hours, if used at the temperatures specified for your PL. However, if a drive is operated continuously, i.e. 24 hours a day, its service life will be shorter.
Also, when using a drive in equipment that runs continuously, you can extend the drive's life by using the PL's BIOS area "sleep" feature to turn the drive OFF after it is unused for a specified period of time. (BIOS area "HDD Power Down" feature's "time" setting.
Certain hard disks are equipped with a periodic head cleaning function, which also helps to extend drive life.
*1 Mean Time Between Failures = Total operation hours (hr)
--------------------------------
Total No. of Breakdowns *2
*2 Excluding breakdowns caused by external factors such as improper handling, usage at temperature or voltage levels in excess of those specified, host PC and interface problems.
life expectancy
by jer5050 - 5/24/09 6:18 AM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
your looking at about 5 years, but alot depends on the brand and usage of the Hard Drive. Always, back up your data, if possible use more than one back up source. For example, photo and word docs can be burned to CDS also USB sticks is good for this.
External Drives
by hank robinson - 5/24/09 11:10 AM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Back up the Back-up.
Sounds redundant, but that is what backups are.
A minimum of 3 backups in different places. Computer, an external drive, and either another drive, disks, online service, etc. kept not connected to your system.
I recently had both my 2 year old HP laptop and 4 year old Maxtor drive expire 3 days apart. My DVD backups saved the day on are now on my "other then HP" laptop.
HR
How long has this been going on?
by geofbrewer - 5/24/09 11:36 AM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Mr. Koo,
Once again the participants in this thread have come through. MTBF is typically 10,000 hours. Unless one has an hour meter connected, it is difficult to keep track of the number. There are some utilities out there which approximate the value based on "power-on" to the system. This does not take into account "read-write" cycles or field strength loss. External drives use convection to cool them which may be a problem unless you keep your home at a frosty 55 degrees (F) or 13 degreees (C). Plus it doesn't hurt to use some canned air on them occasionaly. Moving any drive while powered-on is a no-no. Gyroscopic effect. It can only be moved in the direction 90 degrees from the spin axisis. And that doesn't take into account the read-write head. Last the five year rule is a good approximation. If it doesn't fail immediately, one is safe for at least five years with proper care, and possibly longer. I would advise playing it safe. In fact I have an internal drive about due.
hard drive life expectancy
by nateb2065 - 5/24/09 12:46 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It has been my experience that they do in fact have a life expectancy. As with conventional hard drives like in your pc the external drive has moving parts, platers, heads, and hopefully a fan. They are a normal drive with a fancy package. My question would be do you leave in on all the time or only when backing up files? Some things to make it last longer would be keep it as cool as possible while it is on. Try not to move it while it is writing or reading data. Similar to a cd walk-man if your jogging and listening to the cd it can bump the disc into the internals while it's spinning and damage the disc. The tollerances inside the drive are very tight. It is possible to scratch the platters while they're spinning.
Bottom line if you're worried about it failing make hard copies to disc or get a new external. When chosing a new one look for a model that you can replace the drive. Your current one might be replaceable too. Check your documentation or manufacturers web site. One more idea. Some web services offer online back ups. All ways better safe than sorry. Best of luck.
Hard Drive Life Expectancy
by Acaykath - 5/24/09 3:54 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The life of any magnetic media type of hard drive (aka not flash) was studied by google. Hard drives less than 2 years old have a 2-3% chance of failing at any time. After that the failure rate jumps considerably to 7-9%. It is almost completely unlikely that drives will last longer than 15 years.
There are some things you can do to reduce your drives chance of failure, the most effective of which is running GRC's Spinrite on a regular basis. It will keep your drive in good shape and is likely to warn you of imminent failure.
I would also recommend using an uninterruptable power supply to prevent sudden power losses which can damage drives or the contents therein.
The final and most important thing to do is backup. One copy is no copies.
Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives
by jbk9255152 - 5/24/09 5:30 PM In reply to: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I certainly wouldn't trust one that long, although I've had a SimpleTech 160G for about 3 years. I bought a Seagate 500 about 18 months ago, and it crashed big time when I pulled it off a cardboard box onto a carpeted floor by snagging the chord. I hoped it would be more rugged. The point is accidents, happen and lost pictures are a real heartache. Get another and have redundant backups, since it can take 2 or 3 weeks to replace your computer when it fails. Also, you may find you travel with you USB so you can share pictures. BTW, a Passport USB requires a very short cable on some laptops because of the limited power supplied thru the USB port.
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