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Maintenance and Backup
Summary: After experiencing another hard drive failure, I realize why you should be scared, and want to share yet more reasons that backups are so critical.
This article's not borne out of a question, per se. This one's my own experience that I want to share.
I know my regular readers are probably sick and tired of me evangelizing
(really just a nice term for "harping on") the need for regular and complete
backups. (Perhaps almost as tired of that as they are Hotmail password articles
.)
But if you're not backing up or you think it just doesn't apply to you - it's time to rethink and back up. The end is nearer than you think.
The end of your drive, that is.
•
My 1.5 Terabytes of Woe
This morning I woke up to failing hard drive: the primary hard drive on my primary machine ... again. It had been working just fine since I installed it as a replacement for a prior hard disk failure a few months ago.
As I type this, the repair and recovery software (SpinRite) is doing it's magic, with a projected completion of ... 5 days from now.
Did I mention that this is a 1.5 terabyte drive?
The replacement will be here and installed before the repair operation is completed.
That's just one of several new ways of thinking about hard drives that I think is important to cover.
Hard Drive Lifespan
How long should a drive last? I have no idea. All I know is that if it contains something that matters Murphy's Law means that a hard drive probably won't last as long as you want.
The drive I'm having troubles with was around four months old. That seems young, but then again it was also my primary drive - the drive used the most, and it's on my primary machine - the machine I use the most.
And it's the largest drive I own - 1.5TB.
In researching its replacement, I read some very interesting and insightful comments expressing ideas that I think are worth repeating here - if for no other reason than to put the fear of failure in front of you to get you to start backing up.
Drives are Huge
I don't mean just big, I mean frakkin' HUGE! I mean, really, one and a half trillion bytes in a single small enclosure? Using my "Bible as a somewhat more understandable measurement of size" approach - that hard drive could hold the full contents of 300,000 copies of the Bible.
Capacity comes at a price, however.
The drives have gotten larger in capacity, but the actual drives are physically the same size. If anything, as the capacities have gotten larger the drives themselves have become smaller. That means that hard drive manufacturers are squeezing more bits per inch on the media putting them right on the bleeding edge of readability.
It's a well known fact that today's hard drives have incredible error rates - but you typically don't see that because of all the error detection and correction techniques that are involved. It's only when the errors exceed a certain severity or quantity that you and I as users start to see things actually fail.
The important take away? Drives are always closer to failure than you think.
Drives are Cheap
I don't mean inexpensive, I mean frakkin' CHEAP! I ordered a replacement drive (downsizing to "only" 1 terabyte) for $70 - including next-day shipping. Seventy dollars. All the major brands were comparably priced.
High capacity disk drives have become a commodity. More importantly: a replaceable commodity.
If your hard drive dies, it's incredibly cheap to replace it. Heck, you'll probably get a larger capacity drive as part of the bargain. Such a deal.
Hard drive manufacturers are struggling - not just to stay ahead of each other, but to continue with a viable approach to making money. With drives being as cheap as they are, you know that the manufacturers can't spend a ton of effort in QA and test on each device. My suspicion is that the number of drives that arrive dead is much higher than it used to be. I'll also bet that "infant mortality" rates (drives, like mine, that experience a problem within the first few months of use) is also much higher than in the past.
The important take away? Drives are allowed to fail more often because they're so cheap to replace.
But What About the Data?
Aye, there's the rub.
The drives may be cheap and easy to replace if they fail - even if they fail often.
But your data? Not so much.
Which leads me to the inevitable and quite expected conclusion: back up.
I may recover my 1.5 TB drive, and I may not. When the replacement arrives I'll restore my most recent backup and carry on. Absolute worst I'll reinstall from scratch, but in no case will any meaningful data be lost.
Now, you may never experience a failure. You may have a drive that's in fantastic shape that'll last for years.
Or not. You don't know. And if you think you know, you're wrong.
If your data is stored in only one place, then it's not backed up.
If that one place is a hard drive, it may well be more vulnerable than you think.
The solution is simple.
Article C4379 - July 24, 2010
I work at a data recovery lab and most of the drives we receive for data recovery services [link removed] are large capacity drives. There is no favourite drive manufacturer; all are destined to faile at some point in time. In many cases I have seen newer and larger capacity drives going down within days of use.
Having a mirror set, RAID-5, or RAID-10 for redundancy is an excellent idea, yet does not guarantee against the data loss as we get RAIDs of all configurations with multiple failed drives quite frequently for recovery.
If your data is important for your person or business then there is no better alternative to have regular data backups at multiple locations.
Posted by: Sam Merchant at July 27, 2010 8:09 PMInteresting that you've chosen to delete all critical comments (including mine) that refer to your use of these phrases Leo:
"I don't mean just big, I mean frakkin' HUGE!"
and,
"I don't mean inexpensive, I mean frakkin' CHEAP!"
I'm disappointed that you've chosen to selectively 'censor' perfectly legitimate concerns from the members of this site; members who support your ongoing (and excellent) efforts to provide an all-inclusive teaching and information sharing site.
Surely you should've responded to address those apparent concerns regarding your non-usage of the normal technical vernacular?
I understand, and fully accept, that this is YOUR site to run as YOU see fit Leo, but nevertheless, I see this instance of moderation as repressive, overly-autocratic, and even maybe a little paranoid.
Can we surmise from this exercise that you feel that it's fine and dandy to be critical of others' work in the IT field (as you often do - and with justification), but won't accept ANY negative criticisms being directed towards yourself?
I'll be interested to see if you let this comment remain for all to see, or it simply disappears into the 'black hole' of cyberspace as have our previous comments on this issue.
—Geoff.
I take, and post, criticism all the time. Spend some time reading more comments on this site and you'll see plenty of criticism directed at me, though typically it's people who disagree with a position I've taken in an article, not about a particular word I happened to use.
Personally I'm actually very disappointed that people would take offense at something so silly - a made up word (made up on a TV show, no less), used here purposely and simply to emphasize a point.
Obviously I have mixed feelings about leaving your comment here - not because it criticises my writing, but rather because it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the article.
I guess in that sense "you win" by my even taking the time to address this non-issue.
No futher comments on the word choice will be allowed in this article - simply to keep the focus on the topic of the article. Send your comments to me directly, if you like, or come on over and comment on the Facebook fan page where I actually brought it up myself a day or two ago.
Actually, I've created a thread on my Facebook discussion board: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=15189&post=65626&uid=53134842962#post65626 feel free to discuss my word choice publicly there.
29-Jul-2010
Posted by: ausGeoff at July 28, 2010 9:05 PM
Leo, friend, are you suggesting that there are no reliable hard drive companies you might recommend as being superior to less reliable providers of such products. Surely, there must be, at least one company that produce reasonably respectable hard drives. If, as you seem to indicate, all current hard drive manufacturers fall short of "state of the art" reliability, perhaps I'm better off retaining my current one, until, if and when, such is available, in the relative short term, and, of course diligently backing up my data, per your guidelines. You are a Major source of insight, yet I suspect there must be sound knowledge as to decent, superior hard drives, you happen to be unaware of. I cannot imagine that an entire industry would subscribe to producing a questionable product. On the other hand, if you are indicating that no hard drive manufacturer has achieved, as yet, an excellent, and statistically reliable hard drive, and you have solid evidence for such, please provide factual information. Thank you sir.
Posted by: John L Brown at July 29, 2010 9:24 PMBacking up to an image file will work great.
But what if not only the hard drive but the computer is fried, lost or otherwise gone? If I have to replace the computer the image will not work, even if the drives are the same size.
So beside backing up my notebook to an external drive I frequently backup the MY Documents folder, where I keep all my personal files, to a USB pen drive and keep it at another location. These little USB drives are getting bigger and cheaper so it makes sense to be careful. I live in California near a major earthquake fault, so I never know when the BIG ONE will hit and take everything with it.
Posted by: Ken at July 31, 2010 11:16 PMLeo, you're 100% correct, we'll never know for sure how long our hard drives will last. That's why I keep a second one on hand, larger than my current one, as well as a 500GB Seagate backup drive, and use Acronis True Image 2010 Home Edition as my backup system. It's the best on the market. However, if you can't afford Acronis, Macrium Reflect has a really good free backup program, and the one that's included with Windows 7 is good, too. I've used both free options, and recovered with both.
Posted by: Charles Tilley at August 2, 2010 7:37 PMBut not having a backup at all is flirting with disaster, and I learned the hard way too. Paid or free, I will have some sort of a usable backup program, and drive to store it on.
And lastly, don't forget to create your bootable media (CD), as without it, your backup may still be useless.