Is the life span of a usb harddrive directly related to use?

[yoda313]

I think I have asked this in a different way before but I thought I'd check again.

I am starting to backup my computers more frequently nowadays. That includes video and music. I have one 500gb drive that I bought last fall that is nearly full and that is acting as my "main" drive for videos and other stuff. But I have them backed up on dvdrs as a precaution. I also have an older 320gb harddrive that I"m pressing into service to serve as a redundant backup to the "main" drive and the discs.

My question is since drives are so cheap relatively speaking these days should I just go ahead and buy another 500gb or so drive for peace of mind? I would use that as my, well, secondary backup.

I mentioned in another thread I did buy a 2tb drive recently but that is intended for my bluray and dvd backups only. This is for uncompressed stuff (well not further compressed). The two drives I'm talking about now are for things i've gotten from other sources as well as home movies and music from amazon and cd rips and the like.

I guess in the end I'll probably buy another 500 or 750gb drive for under a 100.00 in the near future for piece of mind.

But my main question is about the secondary drive (the 320gb one). You see it is hardly ever on. It mainly sits on a shelf and remains unplugged and unused. So is this essentially a "new" drive? I mean in the sense that its potential failure rate is not as significant if it was used regularly?

Thoughts?

Or am I being a bit over-protective of my stuff? Some stuff I have triplicated so its not like I'm relying on one backup method or unit. And also I have different brands of harddrives from different dates. I think I'm spreading my risk around enough to the point should any one unit fail I shouldn't have a hard time rebuilding my stuff.

Thanks.

[aedipuss]

hard drive death is pretty random. you can have 6 of the same drives in a computer and have one, none or all die in the average 4 year life span of a desktop. most harddrives are rated for 5 years but how often it's cycled on/off, temp, and voltage stability have effects. letting a drive sit too long might allow moisture in and rust, or lubrication to migrate causing seizing. google reported an interesting finding about drive life and temps once, cooler running drives die faster. ?!?

[deadrats]

I guess in the end I'll probably buy another 500 or 750gb drive for under a 100.00 in the near future for piece of mind.

for $100 you can get a much bigger drive:

http://microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294945771&sortby=pricelow&page=2&...-:-MicroCenter

for the C-note you can get a nice 2tb usb 3.0 drive, a much better buy.

But my main question is about the secondary drive (the 320gb one). You see it is hardly ever on. It mainly sits on a shelf and remains unplugged and unused. So is this essentially a "new" drive? I mean in the sense that its potential failure rate is not as significant if it was used regularly?

my opinion: unless you cause some kind of physical damage to a drive or expose it to extremely high heat (like putting it in an oven or microwave) it's not possible for a drive that's not powered on to fail. hard drive failure rates are measured in mean time before failure and typically range between 1 million and 1.5 million hours.

i do think however that this metric is somewhat flawed, as i have seen some anecdotal evidence that so-called "green" hard drives have lower life spans do to the drive's propensity to power down and park the heads.

then we have what crucial says:

http://www.crucial.com/support/ssd/hard_drive_failure.aspx

now, we need to keep in mind that crucial's "memory experts" recommend conventional hard drives with SSD's in order to avoid the so-called "problems" that the russian study they linked to found, but it's kind of a self serving suggestion since they stand to profit from the findings.

personally, i don't think we can ever know conclusively what the truth is, but i find it hard to believe that a hard drive that is not powered on can possibly fail.

be that as it may, for my most important backups, i have a bd burner and bought a stack of 25gb bd-roms, i just back up the really important stuff onto them and them store them in a safe location, of all the backup solutions, i would trust properly secured optical media over pretty much anything else.

[deadrats]

cooler running drives die faster. ?!?

it's funny you mention this, i used to have 8 500gb hard drives and one day i decided to buy a couple of hard drive coolers to test because the temps inside the case were through the roof. will you believe that the 2 hard drives i put coolers on were the ones that died, the others that used to get so hot you couldn't touch them are still alive and kicking.

go figure...

[fritzi93]

I have to agree that a 2 TB drive is a much better deal. The "sweet spot" may even be 3 TB now, as they're getting to be pretty cheap.

Are enclosures more (sufficiently) reliable now? Back in the PATA days, I went through several. My two (rather cheap) SATA enclosures have a couple years on them, so that's been good. I've always bought separate enclosures, so I dunno anything about the reliability of complete units. I'd be interested in members' views on that.

[aedipuss]

i've had decent luck with cheap enclosures. my two boys have been kicking one around (literally) for 6-7 years that holds all their wii games. i can't even count how many times it's been dropped, knocked over running, and otherwise abused. another went off to college and even survived beer spillages.

[yoda313]

Interesting. Thanks everyone.

Are higher than 2tbs ok on vista? Thats what I'll be using for the forseeable future (as well as a xp computer).

----------------------

it's not possible for a drive that's not powered on to fail.

That isn't exactly what I was questioning. I meant long periods of inactivity.

letting a drive sit too long might allow moisture in and rust, or lubrication to migrate causing seizing.

That is a concern. I do have a much older 160gb drive that was my first backup drive that hasn't been used at all in a long long time. I have since bought a replacement larger capacity external drive for that particular computer so I'm not concerned about what was on it.

Fyi the 320gb is western digital that is a complete standalone usb unit. It actually has an esata and 2 firewire ports on it but I only use the usb. Its one of those older "full size" units that I would say is about the size of two standard paperback books put together.

I think in the not too distant future I will invest in a larger redundant drive as future proofing.

Though for piece of mind I will continue to burn to disc and backup to harddrives.

Thanks everyone.

Edit - also I have two western digital passport usb drives that i use for operating system backups using the paragon software. My media backup drive is a seagate external one that looks similar to the passport units except square instead of curved.

[aedipuss]

yes vista can handle gpt drives - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463525

[hello_hello]

Are higher than 2tbs ok on vista? Thats what I'll be using for the forseeable future (as well as a xp computer).

Apparently 2TB is the limit for XP, but I assume it only applies to drives connected to the motherboard which XP would access "directly". I've had a friend's 3TB USB drive connected to my XP PC and had no trouble accessing all 3TBs of it (I bought it for her and filled it completely by copying everything over from her older, smaller drives) so I assume the SATA to USB translation effectively overcomes the XP 2TB barrier. I don't know whether XP could format it, but you have a Vista PC for that.

[jagabo]

i find it hard to believe that a hard drive that is not powered on can possibly fail.

It can happen. I've had fluid bearings freeze up. And manufacturers' MTBF numbers mean almost nothing as far as hard drives are concerned. They certainly don't mean you can expect a drive to last 1 million hours -- the way the average person interprets them.

[nic2k4]

Good question, I'll tell you I have little faith in the crap coming out of Thailand. You really should research what you buy first, some drives are highly reliable and others are just gonna die on you, the question is when. I had a 500GB Seagate (the dreaded 7200.11) bite the dust in about 450 hours of use (bad bearing), it was being used for backups and just sat on a shelf most of time. Good thing it had 5 years warranty, it quit after 4.5 years. Yet, I have drives that are over 15 years old that still work even after gathering dust for years; the difference, they weren't made in Thailand. I don't think HDD's are a good backup media, I know that most enterprise IT departments don't think so either; they prefer tape.

The frustrating thing with very large drives is that if you lose one, you lose a lot of data in one shot. It might be a good idea to spread the risk and have 2 or 3 mirrored drives; there are some RAID USB enclosures available. Is it wise to have all the drives in the same enclosure? I don't know, just another risk to assess. I must say, I think the key here is decent backup software that allows you to create and save tasks.

Another option would be to backup to multiple smaller drives, but that might increase the risk of data loss as you would be increasing your odds of having a drive fail.

[p_l]

Are higher than 2tbs ok on vista? Thats what I'll be using for the forseeable future (as well as a xp computer).

I have a couple of 3TB drives and a couple of 4TB drive running on my Vista machine.

[yoda313]

Thanks everyone for the input.

I think I'll go for an extra 1tb drive for longevity. That way it will be enough for my needs and will be newer than my spare backup I'm using right now. Because my seagate 500gb is my "main" drive for my media needs and the 320gb wd external standalone is my backup and the wd is the one that is quite a bit older and has not been regularly used.

I have two other wd passports but those are strictly for my os backup drives of my two desktop computers. I am trying to use those a couple times a month to backup my two computers.

Please note I don't use my computers every day. So I don't really have much that changes all the time. But I want to try to stay in the habit of backing up as a good practice.

And I think I'll try to get around to changing my cmos batteries this weekend. I did buy the batteries last weekend, now just to do the switch.

Thanks again.

[yoda313]

Well I did it. I picked up a 2tb wd standalone usb drive. It was a 110.00 or so at best buy - maybe 120 can't remember right now. I just installed it (plugged it in ) and I am backing up one of my folders right now. Its going to take awhile. That particular folder is 138gb or so and 30,000+ files.

At one point it said four hours and now its at 11 hours. Please note I'm still on usb2 even though the drive is usb3 capable.

Now that all but a few of my usb drives are 3.0 I may finally go ahead and buy a 3.0 usb pci card to upgrade to 3. I'm sure the faster transfer times would be beneficial.

By the way I have a couple of front usb ports that are tied into the motherboard (the stock hp desktop layout). If I were to upgrade to a 3 how do you tie the front ports into it? Do the pci cards have an input jack to take the front ports and make them 3.0?


Edit - it dropped down to 4 hours again so hopefully it won't be a half a day to copy that one folder. But its not the end of the world if it does.

[hello_hello]

Now that all but a few of my usb drives are 3.0 I may finally go ahead and buy a 3.0 usb pci card to upgrade to 3. I'm sure the faster transfer times would be beneficial.

Definitely. I haven't tested it extensively but I think USB3 tends to be a little slower than a straight SATA to SATA connection, probably because of extra overhead involved in the SATA to USB translation (guessing) but it's way, way faster than USB2.

By the way I have a couple of front usb ports that are tied into the motherboard (the stock hp desktop layout). If I were to upgrade to a 3 how do you tie the front ports into it? Do the pci cards have an input jack to take the front ports and make them 3.0?

Someone may be able to correct me, but from memory I'm 99% sure USB2 and USB3 use a different header for connecting to the motherboard (the USB3 header has more pins). If you have a spare floppy or optical drive slot in the front of the case, there's PCIe USB3 cards which come with front panel mounting thingies. This sort of thing.

You can probably buy USB3 cards which have a couple of USB3 plugs for the rear of the case and a header for a couple more at the front.

[yoda313]

If you have a spare floppy or optical drive slot in the front of the case, there's PCIe USB3 cards which come with front panel mounting thingies. This sort of thing.

Actually I'm wanting to do pci as I only have one pci-e slot and that is for my video card (its an older desktop unit - a hp pavilion model).

But yes I do apparently have a slot for a floppy drive. I checked my front slots where the usb ports are and there is a little piece of plastic that looks to be removable and looks to be about the size of a floppy drive (3 1/2" naturally). So that would work if you can't reuse the existing front usb ports. I should be able to just snap off that front plastic part where are there perforations.

Thanks hello_hello. I think i'll finally check out some usb 3 pci cards and see whats available.

Edit - can this hook up to any usb 3.0 card:

http://www.amazon.com/HQRP-20-Pin-Motherboard-Header-Female/dp/B00A6Q2ACY/ref=sr_1_87?...b+3.0+pci+card

I'm having a difficult time sorting just pci usb 3.0 cards. Almost no site has just pci interface selection options anymore when I search usb 3.0 pci cards. Its kind of irritating.

[hello_hello]

I'm not sure there's such a thing as a PCI USB3 card. I've never seen one. PCI wouldn't be fast enough for USB3.
I made the mistake of buying a gigabit Intel PCI ethernet card a while back and took so long to install it I couldn't return it by the time I realised I'd bought the wrong one. When I benchmarked it against the ethernet controller built into the MB it was definitely slower, so it appeared the speed of the PCI bus was causing a bottleneck. And if memory serves me correctly, the maximum theoretical speed of USB3 is about 5 times the speed of gigabit ethernet.

To be honest if there is such a thing as a USB3 PCI card I'd be wondering if it's worth it. I just did a quick google to check and the maximum speed of the PCI bus is 133MB/s (how much of that is overhead I'm not sure). According to Wikipedia tha maximum throughput for USB2 is around 35MB/s whereas for USB3 it's 400MB/s (whether all cards are that fast, I don't know).

Maybe that explains why USB3 seems a little slower than SATA to me. According to Wikipedia the speed of a PCIe 1 slot is 250MB/s whereas for PCIe 2 it's 500MB/s. I'm pretty sure my PCIe slots are version 1. Mind you given hard drives don't do much more than 100MB/s anyway, you wouldn't think it'd make much of a difference.
Now you've got me thinking about it I might try some hard drive, SATA vs USB3 transfer speed tests tomorrow to see if there really is a speed difference. I've not tested it properly before so it could be I'm imagining USB3 is a little slower.

But anyway.... I'm not sure USB3/PCI would be worth the bother, if there is such a thing.

[yoda313]

I have seen usb 3.0 pci cards. Startech has some.

Apparently the pci bottleneck will throttle it somewhat. I think 2gbs or something like that, maybe 1.5gbs.

Point being though it should still be faster then usb 2 is.

I'm not sure USB2/PCI would be worth the bother, if there is such a thing.

I think you mean usb3/pci

Thanks for the input. Anybody else with usb 3 pci experience would be welcomed.

[jagabo]

It's true that the PCI bus is limited to 133 MB/s (not much overhead as it uses DMA), and USB 3.0 is limited to 400 MB/s (in the real world about half that due to overhead), but the hard hard drive in the external enclosure is limited to 80 to 150 MB/s depending on which cylinder is being accessed. So a PCI card would still be much faster than USB 2.0. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many (any?) PCI USB 3.0 contollers.

[yoda313]

So a PCI card would still be much faster than USB 2.0. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many (any?) PCI USB 3.0 contollers.

I guess I'm confused on the controller issue. If I were to get a usb 3.0 pci card wouldn't all I need to do is plug it in and go?

[jagabo]

I guess I'm confused on the controller issue. If I were to get a usb 3.0 pci card wouldn't all I need to do is plug it in and go?

Yes.