How durable are those External Drives?

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WhoTurnedOffTheLights

Hey there,

I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am
now considering getting a coupla external drives to be stored in separate
households (family).

Apart from the obvious reason, I'm also needing to know if such external
drives are physically durable since I'll be away for 2-3 weeks and I don't
trust anyone to truly safekeep my stuff.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be dumb enough and nosy enough to play
around with these items but WHAT IF? I mean, let's not be silly. Obviously
dropping them in water/fire will do just as much damage as getting run over
by a 20 ton Mack Truck,

but are there any special precautions I should know of beforehand?

thanks in advance for any insight.
 
I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am now considering getting a coupla external drives to be
stored in separate households (family).
Click to expand...

Save and Save often.

I have lost 1 out of 4 external drives already. It was a WD 200 GB.

I cannot RMA the drive due to confidential info.

Thanks,
Lynn
 
WhoTurnedOffTheLights said:
Hey there,

I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am
now considering getting a coupla external drives to be stored in separate
households (family).
Click to expand...

I backup to an external HD nightly then copy a backup to DVD weekly.

Try the latest version of Ghost (based in Drive Image) to do this. Works
great.
 
Apart from the obvious reason, I'm also needing to know if such external
drives are physically durable since I'll be away for 2-3 weeks and I don't
trust anyone to truly safekeep my stuff.
Click to expand...

It's a good idea to get a padded case for carrying the drives around
and keep multiple generations of important data.
 
WhoTurnedOffTheLights said:
Hey there,

I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am
now considering getting a coupla external drives to be stored in separate
households (family).

Apart from the obvious reason, I'm also needing to know if such external
drives are physically durable since I'll be away for 2-3 weeks and I don't
trust anyone to truly safekeep my stuff.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be dumb enough and nosy enough to play
around with these items but WHAT IF? I mean, let's not be silly. Obviously
dropping them in water/fire will do just as much damage as getting run
over by a 20 ton Mack Truck,

but are there any special precautions I should know of beforehand?

thanks in advance for any insight.
Click to expand...

Take it apart and inspect. I have a couple of external drives that simply
have the disk screwed down onto a PC board. I also have a couple of
removable drive trays that cost a lot less than the removable drive
enclosures that have shock-mounting for the disks. Personally I'd trust
one of those more than I would the external enclosure. Get yourself a
Pelican case for each drive, put the drive in a static bag, put it in the
case, seal it with duct tape, and padlock it, and it should be fine through
anything short of a major fire. Dropping in water or being run over by a
truck should be no problem.
 
WhoTurnedOffTheLights said:
Hey there,

I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am now
considering getting a coupla external drives to be stored in separate
households (family).

Apart from the obvious reason, I'm also needing to know if such external
drives are physically durable since I'll be away for 2-3 weeks and I don't
trust anyone to truly safekeep my stuff.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be dumb enough and nosy enough to play around
with these items but WHAT IF? I mean, let's not be silly. Obviously dropping
them in water/fire will do just as much damage as getting run over by a 20 ton
Mack Truck,

but are there any special precautions I should know of beforehand?
Click to expand...

They dont like being dropped and that is a real risk.

They also can get stinking hot depending on the design too.
 
WhoTurnedOffTheLights said:
Hey there,

I've gone absolutely batty trying to backup up all my work on discs and am
now considering getting a coupla external drives to be stored in separate
households (family).

Apart from the obvious reason, I'm also needing to know if such external
drives are physically durable since I'll be away for 2-3 weeks and I don't
trust anyone to truly safekeep my stuff.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be dumb enough and nosy enough to play
around with these items but WHAT IF? I mean, let's not be silly. Obviously
dropping them in water/fire will do just as much damage as getting run over
by a 20 ton Mack Truck,

but are there any special precautions I should know of beforehand?

thanks in advance for any insight.
Click to expand...


Maxtor external "Personal Storage" are rated as not 24/7 operable (by
Maxtor himself).

On cheap branded "external Storage" they might use some older
Hardisks,which already lay around 1 Year in their stock.

Buy yourself some fresh Maxtor Diamond Plus9,Seagate 7002.8 or any
other actually sold Brand.When you order them,look at their Label.No
Disk should be produced after Summer 2004 yet.

Raidsonic 350U are external Cases without a fan.

Dont forget long enough USB cables,so the external Cases will be out of
reach.
 
Rod said:
They also can get stinking hot depending on the design too.
Click to expand...

True that.

I've got a CD-309-COMBO enclosure. The drive in it gets very hot.
I only leave it on long enough to copy files to or from it.

If you want something for any sort of extended use, it should probably
have a fan or at least a design that conducts heat well. The CD-309
has neither.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice.

Will try my luck with one first considering all that's been mentioned here.
 
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