very big HDD problem, windows guru needed ...

[Olli]

This advice may sound not objective, but... IMHO Seagate hard disks are very bad election they have a huge historial of failures (much larga than other brands).

You are wrong !
Very good quality the SEAGATEs : they pass from 20 megabytes to 40 megabytes without failure ! Their 5¼ inches model are very good. I love Seagate.

That is the reason I advice marc256 to have two external USB harddrive : a Toshiba and a Western Digital.

I really love Seagate, yes, to do a museum. So never push a Seagate to the garbage : keep it and use it to do an exposition, hang on a beautiful white wall.

[AZJIO]

I've been using SEAGATE all my life, never let me down. A bad power supply is also the cause of failures. An uncontrolled computer must be provided with an uninterruptible power supply. instead of backups, I would rather do synchronization using FFS, specifying only important folders. if you often do a large volume synchronization, you can lose 2 disks, the source and the destination. I'm at work now, and I don't remember the name of the old program that read files in raw mode without knowledge of the file table.

[Caronte3D]

I was lost many Seagate harddisks in the past, even the good ones (like the fast Cheetah models), so now I'm away from Seagate many years and I haven't one failure anymore.

I think everyone have her own experience.

[Olli]

AZJIO

If the computer is struck by lightning, what do you do if you don't have any external hard drives?

[Kuron]

Not sure about now, but Toshiba's always had the best self-parking algo and would hold up to being jarred better than any other brand.

[AZJIO]

AZJIO

If the computer is struck by lightning, what do you do if you don't have any external hard drives?

When lightning struck the computer, I ordered a motherboard from China. Repair shops refused to repair or offer used, but offered to order in China. I did just that, I changed the board for 6 years already working. Lightning struck through the network cable. Visually, nothing is visible on the motherboard, but it shows the initial screen and freezes.
What is the question, such is the answer.

By the way, I understand that you can't do statistics on just a few of your disks, it's important to have feedback from many people, then the statistics will be correct.
I googled which hard drives are the best and the first results say Seagate.

"EasyRecovery" I used which recovered data in raw mode
FFS = FreeFileSync

[marc_256]

Hi,

Today I want to order a backup solution, so I'm looking on the internet...
But what is best ?
- 4TB SSD Samsung = faster copy rate +-1000 MB/s = +- 270 Euro
- 5 TB HDD Western Digital = Slower +- 500 MB/s = +- 110 Euro
- 5 TB HDD Seagate Expansion = Slower +- 500 MB/s = +- 110 Euro

- 4 TB NAS WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 8TB - RAID1 mode = +- 360 Euro

I can buy 2 HDD for the price of 1 SSD ?
and 3 HDD for the price of 1 NAS ?

Marc

[KosterNET]

Depending on how important your data is, I would always recommend a solution that has the following properties:

- Data on more than one disk; When one disk fails (and it will at one point) your data should be safe on the other disk.
- Data on more than one location; When you want to take into account lightning strikes; a harddisk is not safe because a lightning strike can cause a strong magnetic field (what in turn can create electric current in wiring) in a wider area
- Solution should NEVER depend on discipline; it should work automatically

My current solution is:
I have a NAS (synology) at my house. My PC uses Synology Drive to directly sync all changes on my PC to be copied to the NAS.
My NAS at home backups the data to an older NAS at my parents home. When I get a fire (or lightning strike) I can always revert to the backup at my parents place.

This might look like an expensive solution, but I buy a new nas every 3-4 years, to get my nas at home moved to my parents place. The old nas is therefor 6-8 years old before I get rid of it. I have had broken harddisks, but never lost any data.

As a complete spare, I also make 'half-year-backups' on tape. I got me a 24-slot LTO-5 drive and backup to tapes to store data for the longer period.

At the moment of buying disks, I have a look at https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaz ... r-q1-2023/

This company offers online storage, but does not use expensive enterprise disks, but work with 'ordinary' disks. I believe this saves quite some money, and this is used to have some people running around to replace disks. They publish their statistics and as it seems HGST has quite reliable disks.

Succes and I hope you never have to lose any data anymore..

Regards,
Geert

[Olli]

After having read the AZJIOs message about statistics, I went to search a site about it.
Seems you have Backblaze (I do not find others...) which offers downloadable recent database about harddrives crashes. Here is an example (2021, www.zdnet.com) :
I do not give conclusion (2 years old array). Just maybe see the ages of the hardrives, the quantity of each model studied, and finally the crash ratios.

[AZJIO]

I wrote a post, then deleted it, considering it personal and wordy, but in the end I send it. I wanted to agree with this that the responsible hard drive should not be old.

I can buy 2 HDD for the price of 1 SSD ?
and 3 HDD for the price of 1 NAS ?

I read that an SSD is better in the long run, but you don't use it often for backup, so it won't wear out and you can buy cheaper ones. You connect once a month and make copies. You can make daily quick backups, for example, add a command to the context menu to compress a project with a password and send it to the cloud. And it is better to have your hard drive no more than 4 years old, if it is 3.5 inches, they heat up less, and 2.5 inches even 2 years can be critical if the laptop overheats. When the disc is over 4 years old, you can use it as additional storage for minor things or give it to relatives. All my projects are on the Internet, so I can only lose a collection of examples. But in your case, I will also make a backup. My AutoIt3 scripts remained on the old hard drive, I myself stopped using it so as not to bring it to a breakdown situation. Now I turn it on once a year. I also have two external hard drives, I recently bought 2 TB. I use my sync program, connect the drive and I have 3 presets there, I select and sync. I do not copy everything, only what I made myself, since I can download programs from the Internet. It is my programs that I copy to all hard drives, to flash drives and to the phone, so it’s impossible to lose.

[Marc56us]

Plus:
- RAID 1 is not necessary for a backup server. Duplication to a second backup disk (internal or external) can be carried out asynchronously (robocopying, etc.). RAID 1 (or 5) is only necessary for a server: it enables work to continue in the event of disk failure. It does not protect against viruses or clumsiness.
- If you buy several discs, buy them in different series (I've seen 5-year-old discs of the same brand and model fail 2 days in a row).
- There's no need to clone disks on client machines. A single initial backup is all that's needed (and another from time to time).
- Separate data from programs
- Back up data frequently and automatically
- Perform multiple backups (total, incremental or differential).
- Place backups in several physical locations
- Buy lots of USB flash drives for main data files, they're cheap and much faster than burning DVDs (multiply them because they can also become unreadable and easily lost).
- Compress data that can be compressed (a Database compressed to ~16/1, a text file to ~8/1, etc.) Only files that are already compressed gain nothing (jpg, png).
- If your data is confidential, encrypt them (a password of around 15 characters on archive file will take several decades to find on fast machines, so your data won't be of interest to anyone).
- Use a fast, powerful compressor (WinRar outperforms all others for large archives (Perform speed tests on multi-GB archives, and you'll see). Its license is worth the cost (and its very well-done doc is translated)).

Backup, backup, backup...
Especially if you're a professional, keep track of the time it takes to redo lost work. Much more than taking a day to draw up and test your backup plan.

[NicTheQuick]

I always like to share the video about Backups from Jeff Geerling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KZ5iXTkzg

[Kuron]

- 4TB SSD Samsung = faster copy rate +-1000 MB/s = +- 270 Euro

Research the model. Some Samsung models are having very serious issues.

[RASHAD]

Hi marc_256
I hope that I am not too late
1- Use internal 512 GB SSD for the OS
2- Use two 1 TB 5.25 inch Internal HDD - One for your software and the other for backup
3- Use good Sync software like Good Sync2Go at the end of the day or after any development
4- After any success keep the the current version and save it to a new next one

For the malfunction HDD don't do any process to it But use a good recover software to installed on your computer to fix the corruption
I recommend Active@ or Minitool to do the job
Wish you luck

Use Toshiba for HDD(WD is not that good)

[Bitblazer]

I always like to share the video about Backups from Jeff Geerling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KZ5iXTkzg

That is a nice video, now combine it with the knowledge about the different types of backup (full, differential, incremental), to create your personal backup plan and actually start doing it.

I personally use a system imaging software like Macrium Reflect for the full backups. Clonezilla is a free option. Another free options for home users would be DriveImage XML (check the license!).