best/most reliable storeage hardware, advice please

happyhero

Hi can anybody guide me which would be the best hardware for storeage, reliability being the most important thing?

I want to be able to store over 100gb and have a device that I can plug into a smart TV or PC so I can carry my pictures and videos around to my family's house's and plug into their TV (probably USB socket).

I was thinking to get an SSD drive as one of the more reliable storeage hardware, am I right, what would you suggest, (no moving parts as opposed to a normal external hard drive with moving parts)?

I've had several memory sticks over time, cheap and good quality ones, and several have let me down. Once I bought 3 PNY memory sticks all the same and all 3 obviously worked in the beginning and suddenly for no reason I could see one stopped after about 1 year of working perfectly. I'm always careful and eject first.

I want to keep stuff safe on it as well as carry it round to family and friends houses, ie use it as a backup but I worry that all hardware can let you down and I could lose everything. The cloud seems the only reliable storeage area but I rapidly run out of free room on them and they are any good for displaying on peoples TVs if they dont have the right equipment.

Any help/guidance appreciated.

forgotmyname

If its on one device then one day it wont work. You need a backup.

esuhl

Mechanical hard drives are probably the most reliable. Optical (writable) discs degrade within 10 years.

Memory chips (such as those in USB sticks and SSDs) tend to fail instantly, whereas mechanical drives, fail more gracefully -- often giving time to extract data before the drive dies.

Any hardware can fail, causing you to lose everything. That's why you have a backup.

happyhero

esuhl wrote: »

Mechanical hard drives are probably the most reliable. Optical (writable) discs degrade within 10 years.

Memory chips (such as those in USB sticks and SSDs) tend to fail instantly, whereas mechanical drives, fail more gracefully -- often giving time to extract data before the drive dies.

Any hardware can fail, causing you to lose everything. That's why you have a backup.

Ok thanks guys, I had been thinking this may be the case. Any make of optical drive you would go for in particular, I mean I can see on Amazon by the reviews which are better, ie putting them in review order, gives a load of Seagate drives in 1st place?

Does it make any difference it being optical when connecting to USB ports on TV's?

I will buy one drive to start and use the Cloud as backup but I sometimes feel powerless when it comes to the Cloud as they could close a site down or it could fail for some reason and I could do nothing about it, any thoughts on this?

Nilrem

esuhl wrote: »

Mechanical hard drives are probably the most reliable. Optical (writable) discs degrade within 10 years.

Memory chips (such as those in USB sticks and SSDs) tend to fail instantly, whereas mechanical drives, fail more gracefully -- often giving time to extract data before the drive dies.

Any hardware can fail, causing you to lose everything. That's why you have a backup.

I'd query mechanical drives failing "gracefully" - I've had more die with little or no warning than have failed with enough warning to recover the data off them* (they're also the most fragile of the storage media which if being moved a lot is an issue, an optical disk or memory stick is pretty much unphased by being dropped, a mechanical drive will be lucky to stay working after a relatively short fall).

Optical discs vary massively depending on the type of disc (cdr/dvdr/bdr), how you write them (fast or slow), and the actual make up of the disc.
You can get "archival" discs which are much better quality than the cheap ones (largely in terms o dye used and how well made they are), and if stored properly they can last a very long time.
I've still got some CDR's I burned back in 2000 that are fully readable today, and to date every one of my DVDR's is still readable (except a small number that were written with a failing drive, but that was spotted thanks to a habit of randomly checking the newly burned discs in another drive).
However I do store them in DJ or DVD cases out of the sun, and in a room where the temperature and humidity doesn't vary a lot in a short space of time.

Personally I tend to take a multi format approach to storage.
Bulk stuff tends to be stored on at least two hard drives (one internal, one external), smaller stuff tends to be stored on a hard drive and flash drive.

I also use BDR's to burn copies of certain files, and make use of online photo storage for my photos in addition to any other storage used, so it's not uncommon for me to have at least 3 copies of data.

In the op's case the cheapest way would probably be a rugged external drive for carrying the stuff about (although he may be able to get a 128gb memory stick for about the same price as a 1tb rugged drive), but then also keep copies on an internal drive or an external drive that doesn't get moved.

And of course if it's important stuff, a burned backup to DVD or BD that can be redone on a regular basis (every couple of years).

The key is multiple copies across different media, preferably at least one kept off site (so a house fire doesn't destroy all copies), and refresh the storage media at regular intervals.


*I've only ever had a SMART message about a drive failing appear in Windows once, usually either SMART doesn't seem to catch the issue until too late, or it only flashes up for a moment during boot in my experience (windows will happily log "drive read fail" or whatever in the events, but won't actually tell me! I've ended up catching drives failing by noticing slow transfer rates and checking the log rather than any obvious and helpful warning).

esuhl

happyhero wrote: »

Ok thanks guys, I had been thinking this may be the case. Any make of optical drive you would go for in particular...

Er... Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. A mechanical hard drive would be better than an optical drive. Optical disks degrade within 10 years on average (often sooner) and have a relatively tiny capacity.

Nilrem wrote: »

I'd query mechanical drives failing "gracefully" - I've had more die with little or no warning than have failed with enough warning to recover the data off them...

Sure. I've had drives fail suddenly, but most of the time (in my limited experience) they fail "gracefully"... disconnecting from the bus intermittently, taking ages to mount, or making a clicking or grinding noise.

It could well be coincidence, but I've never had a Western Digital drive fail suddenly, so in the last 20 years I've stuck with that brand.

You're right about SMART. It's never alerted me to anything!

Nilrem wrote: »

* (they're also the most fragile of the storage media which if being moved a lot is an issue, an optical disk or memory stick is pretty much unphased by being dropped, a mechanical drive will be lucky to stay working after a relatively short fall).

Yep -- can't disagree with you there. Mechanical drives aren't the best if you're going to chuck them in a bag and carry them around.

tizerbelle

esuhl wrote: »

It could well be coincidence, but I've never had a Western Digital drive fail suddenly, so in the last 20 years I've stuck with that brand.

Unfortunately, this has just happened to me with a 9/10 year old Western Digital My Book. Worked fine last Sunday when I added something to it. Thought to myself, probably wise to make a back-up of the back-up but didn't do it there and then. Mistake! Come Thursday, drive not visible on pc. Fortunately it was the case that failed not the drive and the local pc shop had the old (EIDE?) connector needed to be able to retreive the data for me.

esuhl

tizerbelle wrote: »

Unfortunately, this has just happened to me with a 9/10 year old Western Digital My Book. Worked fine last Sunday when I added something to it. Thought to myself, probably wise to make a back-up of the back-up but didn't do it there and then. Mistake! Come Thursday, drive not visible on pc. Fortunately it was the case that failed not the drive and the local pc shop had the old (EIDE?) connector needed to be able to retreive the data for me.

Ah, all (but one of) the drives I've used have been (E)IDE or SATA.

I have a Western Digital portable drive, but it's the only portable drive I've ever had and it's quite new, so no idea what its expected life might be.

happyhero

Sorry guys it was me getting mixed up, I meant I would now consider a mechanical drive and not optical. I want to be able to store stuff on a drive and not disks of any kind.

But yes the carrying around a drive with moving parts bit does worry me, which is why I started off looking at SSD drives with no moving parts, I felt there was little to damage if it suffered a few odd bumps. Not that I would bump it but I'm just thinking worst case scenario.

thescouselander

I agree with your original thought - SSDs are more reliable in my experience. When a hard drive goes it's usually the mechanical parts that are the problem - SSDs clearly avoid mechanical issues. Yes SSDs can develop problems but they usually go a bit at a time as the various address wear out (which takes a long time).

To be honest neither is a really suitable backup option. I'd go for a cloud based solution with a local backup on whatever technology suits you best.

forgotmyname

The best mechanical hard drives are 250GB one from most brands.

Seems to be the high point for size a reliability at the time, after that they tended to fail far more often.

I had a pair or 250's running in RAID on a machine that ran virtually 24/7 for over 10 years, yet i have had a few 1TB drives fail in the same machine. One didnt even last a month.

gave me just long enough to copy oof my photo's off old computers and drives etc and then it failed. Learnt my lesson that family pictures must be copied onto several devices.