aldi-500GB hard drive 109€

BostonB · 09-03-2008 1:58pm

zod wrote: »

yes I've owned both types

Which did you prefer and why. I interested in getting one of those. Which has the best remote for example?

ch750536 · 09-03-2008 2:00pm

mickoneill30 wrote: »

I don't think the chances would be enough to make me buy two different drives.

Cool, was just pointing it out.

BostonB · 09-03-2008 2:07pm

ch750536 wrote: »

Without going off topic too much, if you are setting up a raid 0 or 1 then you are not really using raid as intended, well, not exactly anyway, as either of these systems are useless with regards to integrity. (Not quite...)

Consider this, lets say a courier dropped a box of drives, making them a bit wobbly. What are the chances of buying 2 wobbly drives from the same place if 1 is already wobbly.

You know it makes sense.

No one mentioned RAID 0 or 1?

Hypothetical scenarios are all well and good but I've not seen it happen in many years of IT. I've never seen people mix disks in large disk arrays. If it was that significant then I would assume they'd do that. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway the same disk as a backup is better than no backup.

zod · 09-03-2008 2:24pm

BostonB wrote: »

Which did you prefer and why. I interested in getting one of those. Which has the best remote for example?

remote and menu system is basic for both systems with the iomega winning by a whisker, seemed a bit more intuitive .. the storex tries to give a thumbnail preview of the movies .. which slows everything down .. I've used about 4 types of the hd players now and none really standout from a menu / remote point of view.

the_syco · 09-03-2008 2:37pm

zAbbo wrote: »

But what will we backup the backup backups on ?

Tape. Tape has been proven to be reliable for the long term. Other than that, on a reliable (expensive) DVD's. Cheap 75cent DVD's won't last that long (long being more than a 2 years).

BostonB · 09-03-2008 2:40pm

zod wrote: »

remote and menu system is basic for both systems with the iomega winning by a whisker, seemed a bit more intuitive .. the storex tries to give a thumbnail preview of the movies .. which slows everything down .. I've used about 4 types of the hd players now and none really standout from a menu / remote point of view.

Ok cheers for that.

zeusnero · 09-03-2008 2:53pm

Have to agree with the previous poster as regards the iomega screenplay - it's sheer class and well worth the price (I have 2 and bought 2 others for friends)

Also Iomega products (both Iomega manufactured and rebranded) tend to be high quality - in total i've hard 4 hard drive crashes since 1998 :1 was hitachi, 1 was Seagate, 2 were Iomega. The Iomega crashes were completely my own fault though through lack of care.

Moral of the story: Hard drives crash. It's just a question of when. So,always back up everything that is important to you - movies and music are easy enough to find again - not so with pictures and documents...

jayteecork · 09-03-2008 2:58pm

zod wrote: »

then buy one of these

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/638604/art/iomega/screenplay-360-gb-usb-2-0.html

or

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/525074/art/storex/mediaplayer-club-mpix-355.html

Plays xvid/divx straight into scart

well worth the extra couple of euro

Stay an absolute million miles away from pixmania.
I tried to order an external hard drive off them last week. They accepted my order, debited my card then the next day then DEMANDED a scan of my passport and a scan of a utility bill. I found this ludicrous after they debited my card but against my better judgement I emailed them the documents.
But apparently this still wasn't good enough and they demanded me to fax them the documents instead. WTF?
Anyway I cancelled the order immediately and I am still waiting on a refund.

I went with this instead:
http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=4HMJ

Capt'n Midnight · 09-03-2008 3:14pm

BostonB wrote: »

Makes sense to buy two and have one as backup as the other.

actually you woudl be slightly better off buying a second one from a different batch in case of a "bad batch"

BostonB · 09-03-2008 3:20pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

actually you woudl be slightly better off buying a second one from a different batch in case of a "bad batch"

Sigh. Do you have ANY stats to back that up. How likely a drive from the same is likely to fail. Have you had it happen? How often?

Capt'n Midnight · 09-03-2008 3:23pm

the_syco wrote: »

Tape. Tape has been proven to be reliable for the long term. Other than that, on a reliable (expensive) DVD's. Cheap 75cent DVD's won't last that long (long being more than a 2 years).

so should a HDD in a sealed bag (to stop oil evaporation)

Tape is a complete pig to restore if you don't have the right software / tape unit / firmware. Tapes can last 30 years. But finding a tape drive / software to restore that tape - good luck.

stuff like having to go back to NT4 sp3 because they changed the compression algorithm in later service packs
and don't get me started on DLT's lack of backward compatability
Vs80 drives won't re-use DLT IV's formatted in another drive
SDLT drives are a disaster with DLT tape header - it fits the manual says it works, but in reality it just loves to eat the tape

I really hate Arcserve and Backup Exec , they don't do you any favours when it comes to old tapes, a lot of the time you can't restore till you index the tape - which takes as long as a full restore

IDE drives from the first 286 will work in the latest PC and visa versa, at the worst you would have to buy a controller card and set the drive parameters manually. And if the drive dies the data can be recovered, at a cost. You also get to keep the filesystem and file permissions too.

bk · 09-03-2008 4:12pm

BostonB wrote: »

Sigh. Do you have ANY stats to back that up. How likely a drive from the same is likely to fail. Have you had it happen? How often?

Yes, Google released a fantastic paper with an analysis of HDD performance and failure across their massive server farms, you can find the paper here:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

This tallys with my own experience, we buy many HDD for our server test lab in work and we often see multiple HDD failures from the same batches.

It isn't an issue for us as our test server lab is only for running test suites, so no important data is lost, however for important servers with data we always mix HDD from different manufacturers in our RAID arrays.

My advice to people is always have three copies of your data with at least one copy off site.

For instance from my non tech savy sisters, with lots of digtal photos of baby and family trips, they keep one copy on their laptop, one copy on an external HDD and one copy on a different brand HDD that I keep for them in my house.

They are very happy with this, the expense of a different brand external HDD is relatively minor compared to the emotional impact if they were to lose their photos.

BTW the reason for keeping one copy of site, is what happens if your house gets broken into or burned down?

jayteecork · 09-03-2008 4:26pm

All this photo stuff sounds very Blade Runner.
"Did you get your precious photos?"

Capt'n Midnight · 09-03-2008 7:32pm

BostonB wrote: »

Sigh. Do you have ANY stats to back that up. How likely a drive from the same is likely to fail. Have you had it happen? How often?

Worst was Dell P3 desktops we've had 50% failure rate on Quantum Fireballs (by name and by nature) over three years.

Roughly 5% of the servers we've got have had a drive fail in the first two months.

laptops it's hard to tell since they get bounced and dropped, they aren't meant to be moved in use

Look up the names of the hard drive companies that no longer exist or got of the market , there was a race to the bottom to provide the biggest cheapest drives rather than the most reliable ones. Hard drives are the one PC component that got LESS reliable over time. SMART reporting means you can predict drive failure up to 50% of the time. even taking that into account they are worse.

Head crashes could possibly be drastically reduced by performing RAID between the platters on an individual drive.

that pdf suggests that high temp will increase the risk of drives in year three. laptop drives would typically run hot

jayteecork · 09-03-2008 8:51pm

So if you just use the Hard Drive for storage and not be running anything off it does that prolong its life?
Say I had a bunch of movies on one and just transfered the file to my laptop to watch then turn off the external hard drive?

Surely it will keep indefinitely this way?

Capt'n Midnight · 09-03-2008 8:56pm

jayteecork wrote: »

So if you just use the Hard Drive for storage and not be running anything off it does that prolong its life?

Yes.

Surely it will keep indefinitely this way?

No.
the lubricating oil will still evaporate
drives can fail at any time with no warning

jayteecork · 09-03-2008 9:33pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Yes.

No.
the lubricating oil will still evaporate
drives can fail at any time with no warning

Lubricating oil eh? I'm intrigued. First I've ever heard of it.
Can this oil be replaced?

bk · 09-03-2008 11:31pm

jayteecork wrote: »

Say I had a bunch of movies on one and just transfered the file to my laptop to watch then turn off the external hard drive?

If your data is important to you, here is some advice:

1) Always keep three copies of everything.
2) Use different manufacturers for each and if possibly different technology (also consider tape and optical disc).
3) Keep at least one copy off site.
4) Every few year, as prices come down and capacity increases, buy new media (HDDs, optical discs, tapes, etc.) and transfer your media from the old media to the new.
5) If any of the three fail or indicate that they will fail, then quickly replace it.

BTW A convenient way of keeping three copies of everything while reducing cost is to do it in conjunction with family or friends you trust, backing up pictures, etc. on each others HDD.

jayteecork · 10-03-2008 12:06am

This is all news to me.
Just shows that I haven't a clue.
I thought those things would last for decades.

BostonB · 10-03-2008 12:24am

bk wrote: »

Yes, Google released a fantastic paper with an analysis of HDD performance and failure across their massive server farms, you can find the paper here:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

This tallys with my own experience, we buy many HDD for our server test lab in work and we often see multiple HDD failures from the same batches.

It isn't an issue for us as our test server lab is only for running test suites, so no important data is lost, however for important servers with data we always mix HDD from different manufacturers in our RAID arrays.

My advice to people is always have three copies of your data with at least one copy off site.

For instance from my non tech savy sisters, with lots of digtal photos of baby and family trips, they keep one copy on their laptop, one copy on an external HDD and one copy on a different brand HDD that I keep for them in my house.

They are very happy with this, the expense of a different brand external HDD is relatively minor compared to the emotional impact if they were to lose their photos.

BTW the reason for keeping one copy of site, is what happens if your house gets broken into or burned down?

Can you quote where in that PDF it gives stats on how likely a drive is to fail if another one in the same batch fails or any stats on when drives from the same batch fail at the same time.

Did you read that paper? It actually says "....all result show in the rest of the paper are not affected significantly by population mix...with the exception of seek error" even then its focused on same drive manufacturer rather than drive model or batch. I can't see anywhere where it mentions same batch drives failing at the same time. But I might have missed it.

BostonB · 10-03-2008 12:45am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Worst was Dell P3 desktops we've had 50% failure rate on Quantum Fireballs (by name and by nature) over three years.

Roughly 5% of the servers we've got have had a drive fail in the first two months.

laptops it's hard to tell since they get bounced and dropped, they aren't meant to be moved in use

Look up the names of the hard drive companies that no longer exist or got of the market , there was a race to the bottom to provide the biggest cheapest drives rather than the most reliable ones. Hard drives are the one PC component that got LESS reliable over time. SMART reporting means you can predict drive failure up to 50% of the time. even taking that into account they are worse.

Head crashes could possibly be drastically reduced by performing RAID between the platters on an individual drive.

that pdf suggests that high temp will increase the risk of drives in year three. laptop drives would typically run hot

I never said drives don't fail. Drives fail all the time. When you run large disk arrays, or even large numbers of computers disk failures are a normal. But overall the % failure is very very low, and with all mechanical products if its going to fail it usually does with the first couple of months. Same thing if you bought a car, or TV anything. But I've never seen drives from the same batch fail AT THE SAME TIME.

Lets get a grip on reality here. All I said that if you are buying one of these drives, its a better idea to buy two. Because if you buy one drive and it fails then the data is gone. Buy two, then at least you'll have a safe backup, while you run out and get a replacement. Its only €109. Sure if you want to be sure to be sure then buy different brand and model numbers.

If you have multiple backups of your data then drive failure isn't critical at all. Drive reliability isn't either, as you never lose data, or have any significant interruption either. Just replace the drive and keep on working.

But if you've only one drive, then you are in trouble.

bk · 10-03-2008 2:12am

BostonB wrote: »

Can you quote where in that PDF it gives stats on how likely a drive is to fail if another one in the same batch fails or any stats on when drives from the same batch fail at the same time.

Yes, I did read it, but back when it originally came out and no I'm not going to take the time to read through it again.

Look you guys can take my advice or not, my advice is based on my own experience of working with a large test lab of high end enterprise servers.

I really don't get why there is any argument here, we all agree that it is a good idea to keep two separate backups. Even if it is a relatively small extra risk having two external HDD's from the same manufacturer, why take that risk when it is so simple to buy two different external HDDs from two different manufacturers, they are even almost the same price FFS:

Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB2.0 - €94
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=333054

Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 2.0 500GB USB2.0 - €96
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=341593

Just add both to your cart and buy, but wow, there is a whole difference of €2, that is really going to break the bank!!

BTW buying the above two, even including P+P, still works out at €16 cheaper then buying two of the Aldi drives and you also get peace of mind.

BostonB · 10-03-2008 3:32am

bk wrote: »

Yes, I did read it, but back when it originally came out and no I'm not going to take the time to read through it again.

Pity...

bk wrote: »

... they are even almost the same price FFS:

Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB2.0 - €94
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=333054

Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 2.0 500GB USB2.0 - €96
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=341593

Just add both to your cart and buy, but wow, there is a whole difference of €2, that is really going to break the bank!!

BTW buying the above two, even including P+P, still works out at €16 cheaper then buying two of the Aldi drives and you also get peace of mind.

The Aldi is eSata and USB whereas those drives are USB only. Theres also a difference in warranty. 3 for Aldi, 5 for Seagate and 2 for WD. From previous threads the Aldi drives are usually a known brand like WD etc. Since not many places make HD's that hardly surprising.

bk · 10-03-2008 10:57am

BostonB wrote: »

The Aldi is eSata and USB whereas those drives are USB only. Theres also a difference in warranty. 3 for Aldi, 5 for Seagate and 2 for WD. From previous threads the Aldi drives are usually a known brand like WD etc. Since not many places make HD's that hardly surprising.

Then buy the Seagate and one Aldi.

Here is the point, if a HDD has a manufacturing defect, then there is a much greater risk that more or all of the same HDD in the same batch have the same risk. It makes logical sense, if one of the machines used in the manufacture of HDD was slightly wrong, maybe a little bit of dust got where it shouldn't be, then it is likely to impart the same defect to all drives in the same batch. Or maybe some of the raw materials supplied by a subcontractor where below their usual quality which would effect all drives of the same batch.

This isn't some unusual occurrence, it is a very real and regular occurrence in the manufacture of almost anything, but it is particularly true in electronics manufacturing.

You can take my advice or leave it.

ch750536 · 10-03-2008 1:26pm

Give up BK, I created a monster.

for the record I have trip redundancy of the most important thing in the house other than the people, the Pics & Vids.

One copy on Lappy, one copy on Aldi Drive, one copy on Google.

oh, same for my code of course.;)

In the event of a fire, the HDD would be lost quite quickly. In the event of theft, both external & lappy are next to each other. Bought 10gig of space on google for €15 a year (approx).

standbyme · 10-03-2008 2:12pm

So what about the 4GB pen drive- 16.99€, read 12MB, write 4MB.
Anyone recommend it?

ch750536 wrote: »

Bought 10gig of space on google for €15 a year (approx).

I didnt know about that, have you a link as it would be useful for my brother, as i've only noticed on the eircom site that you can have 1GB storage assuming you've got Broadband with them of course

Thanks

bk · 10-03-2008 3:39pm

standbyme wrote: »

So what about the 4GB pen drive- 16.99€, read 12MB, write 4MB.
Anyone recommend it?
I didnt know about that, have you a link as it would be useful for my brother, as i've only noticed on the eircom site that you can have 1GB storage assuming you've got Broadband with them of course

Thanks

I assume this is the google service ch750536 is on about, $20 per year for 10GB: https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage

Yes a USB flash pen would also be a good separate backup device if all your important documents fit on it. Don't forget to keep at least one off site (in your parents house, in the office, etc.) and synch it regularly.

ch750536 · 10-03-2008 4:00pm

^ like he says.

The photos & vids are on google via picasa.

All my code is there via gmail (you get 1 few gig for free)

All my docs & stuff is there on google apps.

Depending on direction, each friday I sync the 3 locations. To be honest, I dont bother with the pics etc as if google lost them it would probably make headline news, so I trust them not to.

I have the originals, just not the edited versions.

peckerhead · 10-03-2008 4:17pm

bk wrote: »

Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB2.0 - €94
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=333054.

That Seagate drive is €88.74 on dabs.ie, I just ordered three of them for work...

Capt'n Midnight · 10-03-2008 8:55pm

BostonB wrote:

But I've never seen drives from the same batch fail AT THE SAME TIME.

I've heard of two drives failing in a RAID 5 array - cant remember if was posted here on boards or not, rare but not unheard of

If you have multiple backups of your data then drive failure isn't critical at all. Drive reliability isn't either, as you never lose data, or have any significant interruption either. Just replace the drive and keep on working.

And this is how drive manufacturers operate, they have no problem swapping out failed drives. They wash their hands completely of lost data, because they'd rather sell you extra drives than go to the expense of making reliable drives and data recovery.

One tactic is to buy a new backup drive every 18 months / two years. You then copy everything off your existing drive to it and retire it. The new drive will have at least 50% free space too.

aldi-500GB hard drive 109€

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