Hard disk failure - a warning

jhob

jhob

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My hard disk failed yesterday, fortunately leaving me just enough time to back my photos and other documents up, a job I had been putting off as it does take a while and is tedious. Lucky for me my computer didn't die straight away and I was able to copy off the important stuff but it could have been oh so different if it had failed suddenly and terminally.

Let my misfortune be a lesson to you all - hard drives ARE unreliable and WILL fail, probably when you are least expecting it BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!!
 
good advice
 
Totally with you on that one. I have a RAID5 array, which although slow will keep running if a disk fails, and kick another one in to replace it. I also back this up on to an external USB2 drive on a monthly basis, just in case something catastrophic happens to the server and wipes out the disk.

I've got through more HDDs in my time than I care to remember!
 
My mate had RAIDed his disks, one failed but the RAID didn't save him - only some of his data was retreivable and he had to rebuild his pc.
 
RAID should not be treated as a panacea for reliable data storage, all that it buys you is increased availability. It will not protect against filesystem corruption etc, there is a single point of failure on the RAID controller/motherboard and you're still at risk from fire or theft.

RAID isn't a bad thing by any means but you need to be pragmatic and use it as part of a more rounded backup/recovery plan.
 
rpstewart said:
RAID isn't a bad thing by any means but you need to be pragmatic and use it as part of a more rounded backup/recovery plan.
Click to expand...

That's why I have the external disk :)
My main reason for going with it was to remove the risk of 1 disk dying and losing everything, and to increase capacity a bit.

Not bomb-proof, but better than nothing.
 
I've just bought a 300Gb external drive. I've also got a Powweb webhosting account (about £35) which has just as much space on it spare for backing up files.
 
Learnt the lesson the hard way with most of my home vids.... and a years worth of photos. Might have gone a bit too far the other way now, as the Laptop photo directories are replicated on Two separate External HDD's and also the contents are copied to a dedicated Photo/Movie drive.
HDD on K: is backed up to HDD on J:, J: backed up to K:, Laptop backed up to both.
Only one not backed up is the dedicated drive for photos etc. However, as the photo's only get there via the Laptop and the other two drives, all I'd lose were this to fail would be a folder full of RAW files.

I also accidentally re-formatted one of the drives a couple of weeks ago but managed to restore everything with some recovery software.....
 
I've also been bit, lost a fair bit of data and a lot of images when a hard drive died without warning. Now I back up religeously.
 
I've learnt the had way too, last 18 months worth of SAGE accounts (back up files were corrupt :bang: ) and lost most shots since crimbo :( , luckily had some of them on the laptop. Taking HD down to local comp shop to see if they can retrieve any data or pics, the pics I desperately want, shots of my son etc. And as for the SAGE data- 18 months of accounts to redo ASAP before Mr Taxman goes :annoyed:

I must get an external HD but not to savvy on comp stuff, so any surggestions??? Oh, and I'm not made of money either, so sensible prices please :lol:


:thumbs:


Sorry for the smiley overload
 
It hits us all sooner or later, but it's a bitter lesson to learn. ;)
 
Waterworx said:
I must get an external HD but not to savvy on comp stuff, so any surggestions??? Oh, and I'm not made of money either, so sensible prices please :lol:
Click to expand...

What I do now is just get a normal HDD, connect it to the system, back up onto it and then remove it again. Saves the temptation of using it as your storage fills up and cheaper than an external drive too. Only hassle is the initial format, big disks take a while.
 
I use Hardware RAID 1 (none of that softy software crap :D )

And have a USB drive ready to run off with in case of fire/holidays/dead drives etc etc

i learnt the hard way a few years ago
 
I backup to DVD and then have a backup to that DVD when I not lazy enough.

Until then I have 3 hard drives and my photos are backed up to the one drive automatically every night including any changes such as deletions e.t.c. Then every Sunday night it is backed up to the 3rd drive as a weekly backup. son/father/grandfather method except without the grandfather ;)

e.t.c....e.t.c

This is all schedueled to be done automatically so I can't forget and I don't have to think about it :)

Raids are clever and impressive but you end up using extra drives as parity drives and no space advantage and I ain't prepared spend that kind of dollar. Raids are usually are used to speed recovery rather than a total backup solution in a professional setup and the data is also backed up to another medium such as mag tape every night.

I have seen to many raid sets die from 2 drives going down at the same time and unrecoverable data to trust them fully. Yes it's rare but stll the possibilty. My way I could have 2 drives go down and still have my 3rd drive's backup intact and I get to use the space from all 3 drives.
 
siejones said:
I backup to DVD and then have a backup to that DVD when I not lazy enough.

Until then I have 3 hard drives and my photos are backed up to the one drive automatically every night including any changes such as deletions e.t.c. Then every Sunday night it is backed up to the 3rd drive as a weekly backup. son/father/grandfather method except without the grandfather ;)

e.t.c....e.t.c

This is all schedueled to be done automatically so I can't forget and I don't have to think about it :)

Raids are clever and impressive but you end up using extra drives as parity drives and no space advantage and I ain't prepared spend that kind of dollar. Raids are usually are used to speed recovery rather than a total backup solution in a professional setup and the data is also backed up to another medium such as mag tape every night.

I have seen to many raid sets die from 2 drives going down at the same time and unrecoverable data to trust them fully. Yes it's rare but stll the possibilty. My way I could have 2 drives go down and still have my 3rd drive's backup intact and I get to use the space from all 3 drives.
Click to expand...

The chances of 2 drives going together are small, v.small.
Your way is very much like a manual raid system and still very prone to failure.
Your also using two parity drives for one drive and that is very inefficient. You'd be better off using RAID IMO.
 
brummie said:
The chances of 2 drives going together are small, v.small.
Your way is very much like a manual raid system and still very prone to failure.
Your also using two parity drives for one drive and that is very inefficient. You'd be better off using RAID IMO.
Click to expand...

Yep small but I have seen it about errr say 5 times or so but then again that is in a commercial enviorement when they are battered constantly day and night. I have been involved in the panic that ensued :)

Parity drives are pretty much set aside just for use to the raid and the user does not see or use this drive at all. This is not the case with my system and I get to use all 3 drives as normal and they can be any size I want. I don't see how this is inefficent? It's twice as effiecient and has better redundancy. It's even more unlikely that all 3 drives go down.

There are disadvantages of coarse in that I am not not mirroring the whole drive and I am only backing up selected data (the pics) and not the all the drives data but then again I only want to backup selected data.
 
i see what you are trying to say but it just seems so wrong using 3 drives that way :thinking:
 
I personally am building a hardware, 5 disk raid3 array. I personally believe it gives the best ratio of security to usable space to money spent. 1 Parity disk, and 4 data with 100% data recovery, even on the fly, if a single disk fails. yes yes, i know, if 2 go then im screwed, but its already established that the chances are way too small to realistically worry about.

Bottom line is, the best way to back data up imo is to buy two of each hard disk you ever buy, and copy the data from one disk to its corresponding partner disk, and then put the partner disk in storage. No chance it will fail then. Of course, this is very expensive, and in most cases, not necessary.
 
I have 48 minutes left for the disk copying process to complete and then I can find out if I've lost anything or not. Fingers crossed...
 
lucky for me I lost NO data! New hard disk is both larger and quieter to boot.
 
Phew! What a relief :D
 
Woodsy2k said:
I personally am building a hardware, 5 disk raid3 array. I personally believe it gives the best ratio of security to usable space to money spent. 1 Parity disk, and 4 data with 100% data recovery, even on the fly, if a single disk fails. yes yes, i know, if 2 go then im screwed, but its already established that the chances are way too small to realistically worry about.

Bottom line is, the best way to back data up imo is to buy two of each hard disk you ever buy, and copy the data from one disk to its corresponding partner disk, and then put the partner disk in storage. No chance it will fail then. Of course, this is very expensive, and in most cases, not necessary.
Click to expand...

I assume you have some external backup too?
 
I had backed up most of my stuff to DVD already and very fortunately for me the old hd worked perfectly when transferring the data to the new hd.

It was making some awful clunking noises and would completely freeze my system at points. It sounded like something was getting mechanically stuck or catching somewhere and after a few tries would free itself, work ok for a bit and then get stuck again until at one point it just got stuck permanently and I had to restart. After I restarted the system it seemed fine and wasn't making the horrible noises of earlier but when an hd starts making noises I'm not taking any chances. At the time I thought is was a head crash and it still might be but that disk isn't getting used again that's for sure!
 
Cannot agree more with all above. I too have fallen foul to hard drive crash but also DVDs failing too (corrupt unrecoverable data)!!

I started backing up and at the moment have quite a collection of disks

Intrernal
300Gb Maxtor
250Gb Maxtor
200Gb Maxtor

External
400Gb Seagate
2 x 200Gb Maxtors

1 x Epson P-2000 40Gb drive good for backing up and showing off some of the better images I have.

Always backup your images......
 
you probably won't want me to tell you that it was a maxtor disk that failed then!
 
Hi chaps
I too have felt the pain of raid hdd failure
I now use this outfit
www.carbonite.com
$50 = £25 for a year ... bargain
safe secure backup.
it does what it says...

Dave S
 
I like the sound of that carbonite thing. Is there a limit to the amount of data you can store? Do you just tell it to backup certain directories and it goes away and does its thing?
 
within reason... no limits read the t's and c's
I've got 11 Gb in 1990 files archived
you right click and click carbonite this file / folder / drive
any size
the initial backup takes DAYS .. this is normal
after this it sits in the background doing its thing..
wont be without.. wonderfull

Dave S

PS broadband only.. dont even think dial up!!
 
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