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12 May 15 - 09:44 AM (#3708399) Subject: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Needing new computer gear, I've noticed 5 TB usb 3 drives now discounted to approx 110 quid. So who would trust that much data to one hard drive ? Any opinions on reliability ? increased risk of failure ??? Is there a limit to how big these drives will get...??? [yes.. of course, in an ideal world everything gets backed up at least twice... but at this data capacity, backing up might take days...!!!???] |
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12 May 15 - 10:03 AM (#3708406) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Stilly River Sage If the price is right use it as an external backup, unplug it when not using to keep that data safe. The size may be overkill but if the price and the product are good, I'd get one. SRS |
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12 May 15 - 10:32 AM (#3708415) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker Thanks for encouraging me to be less wary.. I'm now sort of comfortable with 2 TB drives.... I've actually been quite lucky until last year when 2 approx 750 Gb USB drives both suddenly expired without warning. They were only being used for storing recorded freeview TV shows and movies. nothing vitally important. But it was annoying to lose a large collection of not yet watched music documentaries. The first 1TB USB drive I bought several years ago actually housed 2 x 500Gb drives in one case. So are these new 5Tb drives actually just one single hard drive ? |
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12 May 15 - 10:38 AM (#3708418) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Stilly River Sage I haven't looked for them - there are so many ways you can assemble memory, and most of it is very affordable these days. SRS |
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12 May 15 - 01:59 PM (#3708452) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Mr Red I have seen figures of 5 years MTBF for just about all forms of PC storage, NAND (SSD, SSD ext HDD, memory sticks) CD, DVD and even rotating HDD etc. The cloud is the best place, as long as you pay for it. It is better to have more than one external HDD and duplicate files. By and large it is obvious if you spot an error on one and not on the other. It all depends on how important the data are. Although the technology is packing more in a given space, but that space means less and less physical atoms can be allocated to a bit. Be it rotating magnetism or silicon. First adopters are gambling. Espescially if it looks cheap. |
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12 May 15 - 02:43 PM (#3708457) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Joe Offer I would think a drive that big would come with a USB 3.0 connection, but you must have USB 3.0 on your computer to take advantage of it. I don't think I'd want to mess with that amount of data on a USB 2.0 connection. -Joe- |
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12 May 15 - 09:36 PM (#3708549) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Stilly River Sage If you use it as a backup you could set it to run overnight and not worry about the slower connection. That's what I do any time I run a backup. SRS |
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13 May 15 - 03:49 AM (#3708589) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Amos With that much space it is likely to be twice or more times as big as your HD, so you could partition it and use it to back up several, or make multiple incremental backups. |
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13 May 15 - 07:35 PM (#3708760) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: Mr Red partition is not a good idea if error free is the aim. HDD's can fail for many reasons and the controller is one of them. Which sounds like the story with the OPers two 750Gb ones. My Humax recorder is set to record all the time it is so I can roll back to hear a joke again etc. The disk is constantly being written to, and I am expecting problems in a few years. Curiously I looked at SSD's and they are designed with redundancy internally, and the controller monitors the quality of bits (in blocks) and swaps-out blocks that are clearly getting too much use and as a result showing signs of degradation. The way NAND storage works means repeated use produces degredation. |
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13 May 15 - 07:53 PM (#3708764) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: GUEST,.gargoyle Save your most important information to TXT ANSI format...it has been stable for 30 years... AND ....print out a carbon on paper....print endures. Sincerely, Gargoyle if you think the "cloud" is more robust...look to the three floppy that once held the ST. |
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13 May 15 - 10:05 PM (#3708785) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker hmmmm... so if you were to print out the digital code for an average ripped CD [approx 700 mb] how many sheets of A4 would that work out at...???😕 |
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13 May 15 - 10:18 PM (#3708787) Subject: RE: Tech: 5 TB usb drives ??? From: cnd Just thought I'd bring it up: Sony just (about a year ago) made some 185 TB cassettes. http://nofilmschool.com/2014/05/sonys-185-tb-cassette-is-the-future-of-storage-cassette-tape Pretty crazy huh? |