Topic: What is your favorite hard drive

[Joeski]

for backing up your recordings.

Thanks

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The one that doesn't fail.

There really is no such thing.  You'll hear horror stories about each vendor.   I tend to prefer western digital and tend to order from the same vendor, newegg (unless I pickup an external drive from costco).

A friend just bought a couple of segates and one of them was an OEM version with a non-standard firmware (despite being the same model).  He determined the firmware was non-standard after putting it through his normal extensive break-in/test process.  You probably wouldn't want that odd OEM firmware, though most people would not notice it.  So, it's really a crap shoot.

[Brian Skalinder]

The one two that doesn't fail.

FTFY    (Because at any given time, at least one of them may.  Not sure quite what you mean by "backup", but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

I'm with Fl on this one.  I also prefer WD, but yeah...it's a crap shoot.  FWIW, I've had better success with better spec / longer warranty models targeted to some degree for the business market than I have with the uber-cheap, low-end consumer-targeted HDDs.

[DigiGal]

I use external LaCie drives with a FireWire 800 connection in the Mac realm. 

One is configured for Time Machine which does automatic backups.  2 others are for file storage, so far no problems with any of them.

[Patrick]

I use external LaCie drives with a FireWire 800 connection in the Mac realm. 

Yep.

I've also had really good experiences with Glyph drives for intense multitrack sessions.  Not a good idea for long term backup (from a price standpoint)

[Scooter123]

Western Digital Green Cavaier.

I grabbed a 2tb Hitachi on sale for $150 and fired it up and it was frigginig hot, you could not grab it with your bare hands.  And it was noisy.

Then sprung $190 for the WD Green drives, and they are barely warm, and super quiet.  They are variable in RMP, and spin from anywhere from 5400-7200rpm depending on processing load. 

If you RAID a couple drives, your processing speed will increase, and the drives will run cooler because the 1's and 0's are being spread out over multiple drives. 

[live2496]

My current personal favorite is a 1.5 TB Western Digital SATA drive with one of these...

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1346&ID=1642

Prior to this I have been pretty happy with the laptop Scorpio drives in external chassis. But I am starting to use SATA as EIDE are less and less available.

edit: Yeah... the Green WD drives are super quiet and run cool.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

For many good reasons, I am very anti-raid on home systems.  Most people have no idea of the risk and the potential negative consequences..  Raid is for two things: keeping your system running when a drive fails, and potentially increasing performance.  It is in no way a "backup" solution.

Scooter brings up an excellent point on heat.. In general, you want to read the reviews and avoid drives that run hot (careful reading of specs can reveal some of that)... And you want to return any drive that runs abnormally hot. I also avoid new drive models, and drives that push the envelope on capacity.  You don't want to be on the bleeding edge without good reason.

I monitor my drive temps, and use case airflow to keep drives below 30C.  I think that heat kills drives, and anything over 40C is bad.

Unfortunately it can be hard to monitor temps on USB drives.  The WD external drive firmware idles drives when not in use because the cases do not allow sufficient cooling for continuous operation (especially when people cover them, etc).  I tend to prefer external drives that have well ventilated enclosures.

YMMV....

[rastasean]

Unfortunately it can be hard to monitor temps on USB drives.  The WD external drive firmware idles drives when not in use because the cases do not allow sufficient cooling for continuous operation (especially when people cover them, etc).  I tend to prefer external drives that have well ventilated enclosures.
YMMV....

After discussing RAID with David and reading about them, I don't think they are really suitable for at least me and I think the majority of home computer users. There's this one called RAID 0 (zero) which doesn't back up any data at all. From my understanding, it writes to the drives at the same time the same data. not backing it up because if one drive fails, all data is lost even though you may have 2 1 tb drives.
how impractical.

I don't like the idea of external USB/firewire drives so why not buy an exteranl usb/esata drive and an internal sata drive to install in that. you can choose the drive and the case does not always have to be on.

[live2496]

I use RAID at work, but never at home. I'm more hands on when it comes to protecting data related to my work at home.

I work on audio projects on my laptop and use external drives for backup copies. My intention is to have the same data on two different drives at any point in time. If any one disc fails I don't want to be vulnerable. Having data on two disc drives seems like a reasonable solution.

I did have a Passport drive that went bad on me, and so I tend to be really careful about backing up data to multiple drives just in case.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

FWIW, I'm preferring the WD Caviar Green drives after having them for a few weeks.  I have two DLINK DNS323 bricks.  The one with the Seagate can be heard spinning up when I'm down the hall.  The WD drives don't make a sound when I'm in the same room. 

I've been using a DLINK box as a mirroring RAID for a couple of years and it kicks ass. 

[rjp]

I'm running an OpenSolaris server with one mirrored pair of drives for the operating system, and an eight-disk RAID-Z2 array (two drives worth of redundancy) for the main storage pool. All drives are 500 GB, half Seagate Barracuda and half WD Caviar Blue.

In my experience, both the Seagate and WD drives are very quiet - the case fans are noisier than the entire drive array. I'm not sure I'd go with the Caviar Green drives though - they have a tendency to go to sleep very easily, resulting in lots of start/stop cycles (bad for longevity). Which costs more - the extra electricity or the cost of replacing a drive?

Why OpenSolaris? ZFS. No need to worry about partition sizes, instant filesystem snapshots, and every block written to disk is checksummed. Corrupted data is detected automatically, and reconstructed if you run redundant drives or configure a single drive to write multiple copies of disk blocks. ZFS also integrates nicely with CIFS for Windows file shares, NFS for Linux/BSD/Solaris shares, and iSCSI for SAN-type functionality (sharing a volume that a remote system sees as a disk).

You still need a backup solution though - as many have pointed out, RAID is not backup. If your system fails catastrophically, or gets stolen, or is lost in a fire, you need something to fall back on.

In addition, OpenSolaris isn't exactly friendly to the average computer user, and Linux has better hardware support. Even if you're a Linux guru, it can be a bit of a culture shock, but I've found it worth adding to my home network anyway.

Here's a good starting point on setting up a home ZFS system.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I depends on the intended use. My WD Green drives are for long term storage of masters and periodic back up of personal folders. They spin up, get lots of action, and then return to low power mode for many days. For periodic bulk transfers the lifetime number of cycles is going to be pretty low. I don't think anyone would really use a NAS as a workspace. 

Solaris is a very nice option. You are right that its a little more effort to pull in and install all the packages for a general purpose work station but for the scaled down application server environment we run it's been awesome.  Are you using software RAID or a controller card?

[Joeski]

Thanks for all the good info.

As far as backup is concerned.  I mean to get the music or video off the recorder and place it some where safe,  I had 2 1TB Seagate hard drives poop the bed recently.  I am making DVDs of all my stuff that I know isn't on the Archive.  Then the stuff that is on the bt sites to DVDs because when one might want it. It may not have a seeder.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

As far as backup is concerned.  I mean to get the music or video off the recorder and place it some where safe,  I had 2 1TB Seagate hard drives poop the bed recently.  I am making DVDs of all my stuff that I know isn't on the Archive.

I hope you didn't lose anything.  While I would never wish such a failure on anyone,  it is usually something we learn hard lessons from... Lessons we otherwise might not believe.   I've experienced silent data corruption where data was corrupted as it was written to disk (friends have too)..

As another example, if you buy two of the same drives at the same time, you risk that they both might fail simultaneously due to a manufacturing issue... You reasonably think you have redundancy in your backups...  There really is something to be said for mixing up your drives.  Even if they are the same model, having them come from the same batches.   The same goes for DVDs..  If you burn two identical DVDs as "backups" (from the same spindle of blanks), doesn't it make sense that they'll both fail around the same time at some point in the future?

Anyone remember the IBM deathstar drive fiasco?  Huge numbers of drives were defective and doomed to fail...   So even if you bought your drives months apart, your data were probably screwed.  I have a number of 80 gig drives I need to copy off onto newer large capacity drives.  It is a chore I am not looking forward to..  On the one hand, the data is on a bunch of different spindles.  It will be nice to consolidate it onto larger drives, but then my eggs are in fewer baskets..

Reliable long term backups and archiving are a PIA..

What was the Jim Morrison quote?  "No drive here gets out alive!"

[rjp]

Solaris is a very nice option. You are right that its a little more effort to pull in and install all the packages for a general purpose work station but for the scaled down application server environment we run it's been awesome.  Are you using software RAID or a controller card?

The ZFS RAID-Z system is software RAID - and thus works best with simple controllers. That being said, there's a performance bottleneck that I think is a result of my mix'n'match SATA controllers, and I want to get an 8-port Intel HBA (SASUC8I) to run the big array. This card can operate in JBOD mode, which is perfect for a ZFS setup.

I prefer software RAID - I've used Linux MD-RAID for years. With modern CPUs, the extra processing for RAID is no big issue, and you don't have to worry about finding an exact replacement for a blown controller. Hardware RAID controllers tend to use proprietary data formats - you lose the controller, you lose the array.

As I was setting up my ZFS array, I witnessed how silent data corruption can occur in a hard drive, and also witnessed ZFS recovering from it. One of the array's drives (used in a previous Linux RAID array) was a bit elderly, and would happily write data onto previously-unknown bad sectors. After I had restored my backup onto the ZFS array, I ran a "scrub" operation, which verifies all written disk blocks against their checksums. The scrub wound up finding a slew of bad blocks on the old drive, so many that the drive in question got kicked out of the array. I installed a replacement, added it to the array, and let it resilver - problem solved. If I had tried to read a file that included those corrupted blocks, the data would have been transparently recovered from the redundant drives, with the errors logged.

On big arrays, it's good to have two redundant drives, so in the unlikely-but-possible event that a second drive fails while rebuilding the array, you're still covered. If you're extra paranoid, RAID-Z can run with triple redundancy.

[Buzzy]

To date I have never had an issue with internal Western Digital hard drives. I've had a couple of Seagates drives fail before. I a bit leary of external hard drives at this point and have not found a perfect solution to backing up data other than dvd discs. Keeping your drives defragmented on a regular basis is simple but important especially if you write and delete large (in my case video) files.

[RobertNC]

I am a little perplexed as to why people that seem to at least have the technical ability to understand RAID hardware and software elements and procedures would even consider it as a solution suitable to home and music file backup?

I mean if I have a SQL Server or Oracle database that needs to be striped over 5 drives to meet my performance demands, the yes, absolutely, I need a RAID backup architecture as well. 

I don't understand what advantage there is to using RAID at all much less as a "backup" methodology when I do not need a stack of drives - some or all of which at any given time may in fact have to come from a primary stack and others or all may in fact have to come from a backup stack - in order to run my application.

I would avoid Seagate drives like the plague.  Larger drives with more density are more prone to failure anyway, but Seagate has gone from being the industry leader in technology to making a lot of crap.

These external drives that come with enclosures - ditto.  No fans, not enough shock protection. 

If you have a laptop, or just for greater convenience, external drives are still the way to go.  Just get a decent external enclosure bay that has good solid mounting rails and fan.  Then load your own.  Right now I am using Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB drives and I am very happy with them.

It may sound crude but often simpler is more reliable.  What I do is I have one drive that is for music only.  I copy the files manually and then verify the checksums and that is all I use that drive for.  No auto backups, no defrag needed, no reindexing etc.  That is my high reliability backup. 

Then I have a second drive that is also used for example my regular laptop auto backups etc.  It gets a lot more grind, but if it fails it is pretty unlikely my other drive will also fail at the same time.

As far as offsite goes, I am content to be selective for now.  Sure I don't really want to lose anything, but many if not most shows, if I had to recover only my 16bit tracks from say LMA, I am OK with that.  Some really pristine recordings and all the ones that I cannot easily recover from a sharing system, I backup my masters only along with the workflow text and cues that I would need to reproduce everything I have done.

[rjp]

I am a little perplexed as to why people that seem to at least have the technical ability to understand RAID hardware and software elements and procedures would even consider it as a solution suitable to home and music file backup?

Defense in depth. As you point out, extra-high-density drives mean extra-high-density headaches. I'd much rather build a 2 TB RAID array than use a single 2 TB drive for main storage, no matter who made the drive. If you use a single drive, when it fails it's time to break out the backups. With a double-parity RAID array, you'd only have to restore from backups if you lost three drives at once.

First line of defense: the RAID itself, and ZFS data integrity features
Second line of defense: ZFS snapshots and clones
Third line of defense: external drives (which could also be ZFS)

Maybe it's overkill, but I've had RAID (even classic Linux MD-RAID) save me from lots of aggravation more than once.

In addition, a large storage system gives you lots of flexibility when you have multiple machines.

I have a fan-cooled USB enclosure with a 1.5 TB drive (and room for one more drive), to provide an extra measure of backup - but it isn't a 24x7 drive.

Regarding manufacturers, all of them have good and bad drives out there. At work, I have a stack of dead 40 GB WD drives that lasted less than a year before going "click, click, click" - and I've had Seagate and Samsung drives that failed prematurely as well. I've also had drives from all three companies that chugged along year after year without trouble. Seagate does seem to have entered a "down" period lately though... and I've replaced failed Seagates with WDs (and expanded my array with WD drives as well).

[Fried Chicken Boy]

These external drives that come with enclosures - ditto.  No fans, not enough shock protection. 

If you have a laptop, or just for greater convenience, external drives are still the way to go.  Just get a decent external enclosure bay that has good solid mounting rails and fan.  Then load your own.  Right now I am using Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB drives and I am very happy with them.

Agreed.  I'm guessing that folks have low opinions of external drives due to them being in crappy enclosures that are prone to overheating and drive failure.  Put together your own with a good enclosure and drive (quite easy to do, actually) and you'll be much better off.

To add my 2 cents, I've had every brand of drive fail on me at least once but the WD's seem to be the most reliable and run the coolest and quietest.  I've had decent luck with Seagate, too, but they make a lot more racket.  I've used a few Toshiba notebook drives that were fine.  I stay away from Hitachi and Maxtor but strangely enough, I've had a Maxtor running for over 10 years that hasn't given me a lick of trouble.  Only a matter of time, I suppose, since every other one of their drives I've used has catastrophically died.

[Scooter123]

RAID is not a back up feature.  It is a storage feature.  I have over 2tb of music.  So I'll take 3 WD Drives, each a tb, and then RAID them as my back up.  Not a primary drive, mind you, but a 2nd SATA Array, right?  I'll use RAID 5 so if one of those drives craps out, the other two have the data striped, and my back up survives.  Go RAID 1 and you have mirrored drives,  Go RAID 6 and you have a two drive redunancy.

Most Firewire-USB Back Up Boxes have a built in RAID controller for either RAID 0 or Raid 1.  RAID 5 or 6 typically requires a separate controller card on the PCIe slot. 

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I'll use RAID 5 so if one of those drives craps out, the other two have the data striped, and my back up survives.

I think concatenation is a much more reliable choice than striping in that case.  Each drive should be an individually mountable file system (not all raid allows that).  That way each drive has actual files on it, not just useless pieces.  It *greatly* increases the chances of recovery when things go very wrong.

[DigiGal]

For complete backups I've outgrown my old LaCie D2 Quadra drive, which will be used for other file storage now.  This LaCie drive blew a TVS zener protection diode since my last post but it was easy enough to replace the diode and bring it back to life again. 

Primarily looking at G-Technology G|Drive for full backup needs for 2011 and well beyond.   Alternatively, considering a comparable OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro.

Anyone have experience; pros and cons with these drives?

[Fried Chicken Boy]

I don't have any experience with either the G-Technology or OWC Mercury drives, but they do look purdy.   In all seriousness, I'd be leery of the G-Technology drives as they use Hitachi hd's.  From personal experience and from the tech geeks I know (they number quite a few in my business), those drives are some of the least reliable out there.  LaCie, for some inexplicable reason, actually switched to using Hitachi's several years ago and saw a considerable increase in their external drive failure rates.  Did some considerable damage to their reputation, too.  Can't seem to find what the guts in the OWC Mercury drives are.

I would suggest building your own external drives; if you can use a screwdriver, you should have very little trouble.  Go to Newegg.com or some other vendor and buy a bare 3.5" SATA drive (I prefer WD Caviar Black 1TB hd's but others will have their own opinions) and an enclosure for it (with a fan, if possible, and read the customer reviews).  It will probably take longer to format the drive after you put it together than to actually build it.  Directions on how to do it are all over the internet, one set being here > http://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-External-Hard-Drive

[DigiGal]

I don't have any experience with either the G-Technology or OWC Mercury drives, but they do look purdy.   In all seriousness, I'd be leery of the G-Technology drives as they use Hitachi hd's.  From personal experience and from the tech geeks I know (they number quite a few in my business), those drives are some of the least reliable out there.  LaCie, for some inexplicable reason, actually switched to using Hitachi's several years ago and saw a considerable increase in their external drive failure rates.  Did some considerable damage to their reputation, too.  Can't seem to find what the guts in the OWC Mercury drives are.

I would suggest building your own external drives; if you can use a screwdriver, you should have very little trouble.  Go to Newegg.com or some other vendor and buy a bare 3.5" SATA drive (I prefer WD Caviar Black 1TB hd's but others will have their own opinions) and an enclosure for it (with a fan, if possible, and read the customer reviews).  It will probably take longer to format the drive after you put it together than to actually build it.  Directions on how to do it are all over the internet, one set being here > http://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-External-Hard-Drive

Well thanks for the suggestion but I ended up getting the G-Technology G-Drive based on other reviews I'd seen.  Fingers crossed that I made a good choice (3yr warranty), time will tell... 

I was originally planning to build my own using WD's green drive with a OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro housing then leaned toward putting a Hitachi in OWC case after reading of problems with WD green drives.  The OWC's are also available with your choice of drive mfgr. either pre-built or DIY.

FW800 was essential and I ultimately didn't want any fan noise on my desktop.  G-Technology's case design with its integrated heat sink plus oversized and vented enclosure looked to provide the best no fan option especially after your mention of potential overheating.   

Had only briefly considered Lacie this time around because of having to replace a zener diode internally on my old one over the last year.  Lots of people were reporting power supply problems with their current crop of Poulton designed D2 Quadra's which tells me they still have powering issues.  My old Lacie Porsche designed drive has had no problems at all though.

[Chilly Brioschi]

WD Black