External Hard Drive Purchase Help

[Ponder5]

I've been using Western Digital drives for 2 decades with 0 failures. Knowing how to perform routine maintenance on a drive and spotting the early warning signs of failure helps.

I will never own another Western Digital drive. Not since i had three separate drives quit in one day.
Maybe i'm not so good at the 'care and feeding' -- which might be good to know -- but WD is off my list.
Completely superstitious, totally illogical, and bordering on irrational. Yes. I accept that. But like it or not, even with inanimate objects there exists a 'trust' and WD has broken that trust.
I still have the drives. If i could recover them myself (without big $$) i might be inclined to be less bullheaded about it.

I don't think there's any use in comparing brands when talking about external drives. You don't know what's inside. There might be another brand of disk, or even another brand of USB controller some day.

Among some drives this is true. Repackaging goes on with everything from cars to cellphones. But some drives keep it all under wraps. I pay a few extra bucks for a Toshiba because I've been told, and for now believe, they keep a better eye on things than the wholesale clearance brands.

Before getting flamed, yes, i realize this is nothing more than Ford/Chevy talk. But we all go with what works, whether it's brand loyalty or brand avoidance, either can be indicted equally.

P5

 

[TAE]

It's 2018 almost 2019...In da Clouds is where it's at....Google drive now known as Back Up and sync.. It continually backs all important files in a bullet proof environment. Been using it for business for 3 years now and I am not turning back ...I do use a $100 external drive (3 TB Seagate Backup plus) that I store everything on including my google drive folder ( where I store everything that I want redundant back up of) aside from the end of the world / nuclear holocaust my files are as safe as they can be anywhere... Who's the third largest manufacturer of servers in the world? Google...Who do they sell to? No one they only make them for themselves. 2 TB in one of the most secure cloud settings there is for $10 a month..worry not my stuff is secure...

 

[Nola]

I will never own another Western Digital drive. Not since i had three separate drives quit in one day.

How on Earth. 3 in one day!?

I haven't purchased a WD in 5 years or so because they never break. Maybe something has changed since then with QC if you're speaking to newer ones.

 

[miroslav]

I've been running 4 WD Velociraptor drives in my DAW for about 4 years now...not even a hiccup.

The thing is....there isn't "one" model of hard drive to pick from, same as with other brands.
If you buy the top-shelf models, the enterprise quality drives...it's not the same as a cheap model you find at Wal-Mart.

AFA what and how much to back up...well, if you take the position that no one will give a shit about the many versions you have of a recorded mix, etc...
...from that perspective, you can take the even broader position that no one will give a shit about anything you record...so why even bother?
I mean, it's not about preserving your work for the next generation or for someone to discover 50 years after your dead, and turn all those tracks into posthumous "gold".
It's mostly about having a "record" of your work over the years. If it's not important to you, then by all means, no reason to back it up or save it over time.

I still have the first cassette mixes I did of some of my first recordings. I haven't played them in many, many years...but I still have them.
Just like every scratched out bit of lyric or chord pattern that never matured into a full song. There's a full of paper scraps.
I once thought about bailing on all this music/recording stuff....back in the late '90s. I had other things that had distracted me, and the music and recording had stopped for awhile, so as with anything, the more you stay away from it, the further it gets from your heart and soul...so I thought maybe it was time to let it go.
Then I realized that music and recording have been the only threads that have run through my life from the time I was little kid...and if I stopped, it would be like severing those threads.
Now I'm deeper into it than ever before...and I save and backup all my stuff.

OK...so much for the philosophical sided of back-ups. Like was said before, get a few of any old external drives, and do a few backups.

 

[Ponder5]

AFA what and how much to back up...well, if you take the position that no one will give a shit about the many versions you have of a recorded mix, etc...
...from that perspective, you can take the even broader position that no one will give a shit about anything you record...so why even bother?
I mean, it's not about preserving your work for the next generation or for someone to discover 50 years after your dead, and turn all those tracks into posthumous "gold".

Yes, we're well aware anything can be taken to absurdity.

I wondered when the egos would surface on such a simple issue. Apparently right away.

It would be an interesting curiosity to know if there's a Day of Reckoning or not. It might be worth seeing, 50 years hence, what is considered worth the time to listen to and what is not.

Oh well... just more philosophy.

P5

 

[miroslav]

It might be worth seeing, 50 years hence, what is considered worth the time to listen to and what is not.

It will be hard to do that if you toss most of it away as you go along.

 

[cyrano]

I will never own another Western Digital drive. Not since i had three separate drives quit in one day.

Look at backblaze's stats. If there's one brand that has the occasional monday morning model, it's Seagate. Besides, Seagate and WD merged in 2017.

Among some drives this is true. Repackaging goes on with everything from cars to cellphones. But some drives keep it all under wraps. I pay a few extra bucks for a Toshiba because I've been told, and for now believe, they keep a better eye on things than the wholesale clearance brands.

Before getting flamed, yes, i realize this is nothing more than Ford/Chevy talk. But we all go with what works, whether it's brand loyalty or brand avoidance, either can be indicted equally.

P5

Toshiba might be the only exception. But all the other external harddisk box makers put in whatever's the cheapest atm.

The worst I have seen in recent years, was the 320 GB in 3.5". Used a lot by Apple in iMacs. This drive "forgot" it's own firmware, resulting in the strangest errors. I must have one around that's seen as "write only" by the OS. Mind you, the problem is in the quality of the three ARM processor's internal eproms, not with the drive. I could reflash it, but the drive's parameters are also in that rom. So it wouldn't be very reliable. And since these drives are mostly a few years old before they get amnesia, it's not worth the trouble.

 

[Ponder5]

This may sound like I'm trying to start a fight, but I'm really not. Just throwing out another viewpoint.

First and foremost, I am absolutely all for a guy doing whatever he wants with his gear and his art. If his needs are best served with an abacus or a Cray, I'm all for him doing that. He can use Pro Tools or smoke signals and it's all the same to me. I absolutely refuse to tell someone else what to do. All I can do is mention what i do and why. Which brings me to this:

It's 2018 almost 2019...In da Clouds is where it's at....Google drive now known as Back Up and sync.. It continually backs all important files in a bullet proof environment. Been using it for business for 3 years now and I am not turning back ...I do use a $100 external drive (3 TB Seagate Backup plus) that I store everything on including my google drive folder

When i think about it, Backup is a funny thing. It's what we do because we know that something isn't gonna work.

This is why I can't pull myself to cloud storage. Many do. Many large and prosperous businesses do. I don't and never will as primary backup.

To me, too many things have to work for the cloud to be desirable. On the cloud? To me, i find it little different than handing my data to Ralph next door. A LOT of stuff has to work. My access. THEIR access... and everything in between. And i have to have full faith that it will 'be there' henceforth and forever. You know how many server farms went belly-up in the 90s? Bunches. Probably not Google. Probably. But all it takes is one court case or one NSA trip-up and the data is lost in the cloud.

A cold drive; a detached drive; a simple USB external hard drive is great backup. Two redundant externals would statistically be completely dependable. With a drive, I got it in my hands. My hands. My mitts. All I gotta do is find a computer built in the last 20 years with a USB port and I can manage and manipulate the data.

Not near so much has to work and I have control over all of it. That's my prejudice, I guess.

Cloud does some cool tricks. I can go to Bahrain and pull up my mixes. Way easier than shipping a disc. No contest.

But the dependence upon the entirety of the system to work gives me the willies, that's all. No logical reason. It just does.

Glad it works for anyone that likes it. Also glad they still have a cold drive.

Computers are an odd mistress. Few people keep the necessary spare parts for their cars on-site, and if we had a car as suspect as our computers, we might be tempted to ditch the thing. Yet here we are. Just kinda funny, IMO.

Ponder5

 

[miroslav]

This is why I can't pull myself to cloud storage.

Well...you won't get a fight out of me.
Cloud-based services have their use...but it's not something I would ever use for primary/only storage of any kind of data.

It's funny how many people don't even have a grasp about what "the cloud" really means. There's a belief that putting your files in cloud storage is kinda like a safe-deposit box in the sky. That someone would have to show up with guns-n-dynamite to blast their way in to remove your stuff from it's "box".

Government systems have been hacked multiple times, even some with higher-level security.
Financial systems have been hacked.
Credit reporting agencies have been hacked.
Election systems have been hacked.
Social media systems have been hacked.

So like...some cloud storage system where you pay a few bucks to put your data is somehow immune to that?
Heck...it doesn't even need to be hacked. Just a disruption of services...servers going down, networks and routers crapping out, power grid crash...etc...and you can't access you stuff.

The most anyone got out of any of those organizations/business that have been hacked or that crashed...is some lame "sorry"...and then some after-the-fact offers to fix things and do better next time.

My data isn't of earth shattering importance...I could move on if I lost it...but *I* wanna be the one to lose it, and not some place that really doesn't have a personal interest in my data.

 

[cyrano]

If you buy the top-shelf models, the enterprise quality drives...it's not the same as a cheap model you find at Wal-Mart.

It will surprise you, but "enterprise level" harddisks are mostly the same as consumer drives. Except for SAS or SCSI drives. It's the warranty that's different. Not a longer warranty, but replacement drives are shipped immediately, without discussion. Sometimes the firmware is slightly different, to provide for 24/7 running. And some drives aren't available as "enterprise level".

I recently came across a no-brand 750 GB 2.5" drive. That was a first. Probably bought in India. It was in a MB Pro that had been upgraded. Never seen before...

 

[miroslav]

It will surprise you, but "enterprise level" harddisks are mostly the same as consumer drives.

So you're saying that basically all the models from a given manufacturer are of the same quality...just with different warranties...?

I don't think so.

People can choose to stick whatever kind of drive they want into an "enterprise" level system...but there certainly are top-of-the-line drives, with better specs, longer lifecycles...and then the cheaper stuff.
That's why I find it funny when people say..."I'll never buy another _____drive"...as though every model from that manufacturer is the same quality, but they are not.

 

[Ponder5]

So you're saying that basically all the models from a given manufacturer are of the same quality...just with different warranties...?

I don't think so.

So are you ALWAYS looking to pick a fight? Cuz that's not what he said AT ALL. Leastwise, I sure didn't get that from it. He made the very common sense observation that repackaging is far more common than re-engineering.

People can choose to stick whatever kind of drive they want into an "enterprise" level system...but there certainly are top-of-the-line drives, with better specs, longer lifecycles...and then the cheaper stuff.
That's why I find it funny when people say..."I'll never buy another _____drive"...as though every model from that manufacturer is the same quality, but they are not.

So, how, exactly do you make this determination of "quality"?
Do you go by Price?
Or do they give you a factory tour of Level 5 production control facilities?
Or is it somewhere in between?

Some manufacturers, it could be reasoned, market different 'levels' of quality. Why, I'm not entirely certain except for the exigencies of marketing.
While other manufacturers simply don't have the chops to make the Good Stuff.
Still other manufacturers play the numbers and the stats, banking on "acceptable return rates."
So spill... how do you know these things? How has this gradient level of quality been revealed to you?

See, I see people like WD packing a slow drive with small cache into the same box as their "good stuff" with the same capacity. Only that product they market specifically for "surveillance and security". After all, access, response, and read/write isn't NEEDED in such an application. Some may say, "good for them." To me, that makes it a chinzy product and they just have clever marketing to sell substandard items. What we call "making virtue of necessity". Placed inside a high level CAD system (like mine) it'd be total crap. No argument.

Trouble is, I now know they make total crap. Not all products, but certainly some. This begs the question, "will they divulge when it's crap and when it's not?" If you can't trust the ad men at a multi-billion corporation, who can you trust?

Brand loyalty is silly, I agree. Brand avoidance is equally irrational, I agree. You're right. I admitted that when i said it. Especially when you realize that the factors we genuinely need to know to make an informed decision are not made public. No-no! Dust content. 6th Sigma Tolerance reports for bearings and components. These data are proprietary. We have to rely on "reputation" which leads to decisions as irrational as brand loyalty.

Even the stats pages are based on *reported* failures. There could be many more failures that could greatly skew those findings.

And also consider the busiest studio out there doesn't demand as much from their computing assets as a rather ordinary engineering house, we as a discipline, are hardly a blip on the scene.

P5

 

[TAE]

This may sound like I'm trying to start a fight, but I'm really not. Just throwing out another viewpoint.

This is why I can't pull myself to cloud storage. Many do. Many large and prosperous businesses do. I don't and never will as primary backup.

To me, too many things have to work for the cloud to be desirable. On the cloud? To me, i find it little different than handing my data to Ralph next door.

No I get ya about to each his own and more power to ya...all roads lead to Rome, whatever gets through the night ..it's alright.....but...to take the analogy of Ralph the neighbor a few steps further. Now if Ralph happens to live in a stainless steel clad mansion with 10,000 guards and millions of dollars in security equipment...might you consider keeping your valuable stuff there?

I am not saying that Google can't "lose it all" but the odds of them verses me and my little RAID setup losing my shit to a virus, hacker, fire, flood or other natural disaster at minimum has to be a thousand to one...I totally get being able to put my hands on my shit and everything I have in the cloud is also on my drive at home...Google is my backup for when my meager consumer hardware takes a dump....Already been there and ass has been saved by my G-drive so...for me...I like my Google drive data insurance policy..AKA back up...not looking back...

I have been building and playing with PC's since 1995 I kept every drive I ever had that failed or got corrupted until this year when I took the time to drill and then hammer / destroy each one....surprisingly I had a shit load of drives to destroy ....I know it was over 20 and I still am stumbling upon some....They are physical / mechanical delicate little beast ...castles made of sand guaranteed to eventually "fall into the sea".. I trust them not...I trust the third largest manufacturer of servers ( who only makes those servers for them self) in the world to protect my data ... I love me some google...

 

[miroslav]

So are you ALWAYS looking to pick a fight? Cuz that's not what he said AT ALL. Leastwise, I sure didn't get that from it. He made the very common sense observation that repackaging is far more common than re-engineering.

So then are you suggesting that they're repackaging top-shelf and selling at consumer prices or the other way around?

You guys are saying one or the other...either what he said or now what you say.
It's nothing to do with "picking a fight" (though you keep beating on that)...I'm just trying to understand the blanket statements you guys are making about drives, and what is really being said. Which I was tying into the notion floated earlier that "all WDs suck"...which is not true.
Didn't I even agree with you about cloud backups. Maybe I should have disagreed.

I've installed enough drives both at my IT day gig and in my personal use to know that there are cheap drives, low-performance, shorter lifespan...and high-end drives....and no, they are not all the same just repackaged differently or with different warranties...they are actually different build & performance quality drives.

So, how, exactly do you make this determination of "quality"?
Do you go by Price?
Or do they give you a factory tour of Level 5 production control facilities?
Or is it somewhere in between?

Some manufacturers, it could be reasoned, market different 'levels' of quality. Why, I'm not entirely certain except for the exigencies of marketing.
While other manufacturers simply don't have the chops to make the Good Stuff.
Still other manufacturers play the numbers and the stats, banking on "acceptable return rates."
So spill... how do you know these things? How has this gradient level of quality been revealed to you?

See, I see people like WD packing a slow drive with small cache into the same box as their "good stuff" with the same capacity. Only that product they market specifically for "surveillance and security". After all, access, response, and read/write isn't NEEDED in such an application. Some may say, "good for them." To me, that makes it a chinzy product and they just have clever marketing to sell substandard items. What we call "making virtue of necessity". Placed inside a high level CAD system (like mine) it'd be total crap. No argument.

Trouble is, I now know they make total crap. Not all products, but certainly some. This begs the question, "will they divulge when it's crap and when it's not?" If you can't trust the ad men at a multi-billion corporation, who can you trust?

Brand loyalty is silly, I agree. Brand avoidance is equally irrational, I agree. You're right. I admitted that when i said it. Especially when you realize that the factors we genuinely need to know to make an informed decision are not made public. No-no! Dust content. 6th Sigma Tolerance reports for bearings and components. These data are proprietary. We have to rely on "reputation" which leads to decisions as irrational as brand loyalty.

Even the stats pages are based on *reported* failures. There could be many more failures that could greatly skew those findings.

And also consider the busiest studio out there doesn't demand as much from their computing assets as a rather ordinary engineering house, we as a discipline, are hardly a blip on the scene.

P5

AFA all that ^^^...you're just floating speculation....and that's fine, you can do "what ifs" and all that...but I'm talking from having hands-on experience with many HDs over the last 20 years. Mostly internal at first, because externals were an expensive luxury for a long time...but the last 5-10 years, the prices of externals have gone way down to nothing. Heck, you can get a 32GB flash drive for like $10-$15!!! I would have killed for a 32GB anything back in the day.

Like I said earlier...I currently use WD Velociraptor drives in my DAW...and I know for a fact they are not the same as cheaper consumer drives.
I'm sure there are other brand models as good, maybe better, but for a spinning HD, they are actually quite good.
For many, many years I used Seagate drives almost exclusively...again, top-shelf SCSI drives...both at work and for my DAWs...though we use to also use HP hot-swap drives in a variety of servers.
With the Raptors, I abandoned the older SCSI technology and moved to SATA.
The real point here is that HDs (internal or external) are so cheap now (regardless off model quality) compared to what they were 10-20 years back, that it's not a big deal to have a bunch around, and you can do all kinds of safety backups for pennies.


I'm just giving you my experiences with HDs...you can interpret that any way that works for you.

 

[Ponder5]

Now if Ralph happens to live in a stainless steel clad mansion with 10,000 guards and millions of dollars in security equipment...might you consider keeping your valuable stuff there?

One big difference is that if Ralph next door in the mansion (i don't live in that neighborhood <L>) loses my data, I can go pound the crap out of him. Which won't get my data back, but it's eminently satisfying.

If Google loses my data, they won't even say they're sorry.
Which also won't get my data back and it's very disappointing.

You're right. I know you're right. It's not really a question, at least right now, of consistent reliability. I suspect the Google infrastructure will completely crash and burn just shortly after the IRS is outlawed. So it's good for anything short of planetary collision.

I'm just far more comfy with my stuff remaining with me. So if I go down, it goes down with me. Which, yes, I realize, is myopic and romantic in a less-productive way but it's a bit more satisfying. But then, it doesn't get my data back, either.

Ponder5

 

[Ponder5]

but I'm talking from having hands-on experience with many HDs over the last 20 years.

20 WHOLE years? 1998?
And i disagreed?
Wow... what was i thinking?

P5

 

[miroslav]

I see you're good at math...though you added question marks after the numbers, so maybe not.


2018-20 =1998


Whatever it is you're picking at...keep at it, it will work itself loose eventually.
Ponder that for awhile.

 

[keith.rogers]

My first hard drive was 10MB, in the PC (80286) I had around 1987. About 5"^3 and probably weighed at least 10lb. Would have made a terrific doorstop and I do regret not keeping it for that purpose. At the time I was writing the driver (in assembly) to adapt SCSI drives to "midi-frame" computers, probably to combat the scourge of smaller systems from DEC running Unix that were nipping at the heels of the mainframe company I worked at. When I got bored with DOS, I ran Xenix on that bad-boy, installing it from a set of 20 5.25" floppy disks (much more manageable than the 8" ones we had to use with the midi-frame). Those were the days.

 

[ecc83]

Err? Maybe not for the freebie but if you are paying Google it's a contract and they surely have a "duty of care"?

I would not expect for instance that Cloud data is all stored at the same location or even the same country?

Dave.

 

[TAE]

I would not expect for instance that Cloud data is all stored at the same location or even the same country?

Google ain't playing....