Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

[Larommi]

I rarely have problems with hard drives. I have never had a drive go bad in any of my personal machines. (must be because I back up...we all know that if you dont...it crashes. Like every customer that loses vital information and has 101 excuses for not having a back up and needs their machine right now because they had to have something done yesturday...ie... they lost their porn)

And too answer someones question, I was one of the first to buy a WD 20 gig 7200 rpm. That has to be getting close to 3 years.

[WebHead]

1) I'm still using my old 20gb WD drive. It works fine. Had it for a long time too.

2) It's a consumers choice to make a purchase. Why make a purchase if it's something that you know won't suit your needs?

3) RAID=SAFE. Great solution to lowering the risk of data-loss, etc. Or maybe tape backups or CD or DVD backups.

4) I've been using computers since the late 70's when I was just a young lad, but one of the first and most important things I've learned is to ALWAYS ALWAYS backup your data. I don't care if it's a floppy, 173mb hdd or 200gb hdd,... When it comes to data loss, the ONLY prevention is backup, backup, backup.

* Let's say that this letter went through and let's say hypothetically that the 0.00000001% chance of them reading and listening to the letter happened,... And let's say that they responded by improving engineering and manufacturing thus improving their yields of defective equipment,... There STILL is going to be plenty of defective equipment floating around out there to create significant issues.

** PS: Btw, I don't think it's a good analogy to compare a harddrive to a car as I saw mentioned in this thread. That's like comparing a tree house to the Empire State Building. A car is a far more complex peice of machinery than a harddrive. Plus, peoples lives are at risk with a car.

[confus-ed]

Originally posted by WebHawg
3) RAID=SAFE. Great solution to lowering the risk of data-loss, etc. Or maybe tape backups or CD or DVD backups.

4) I've been using computers since the late 70's when I was just a young lad, but one of the first and most important things I've learned is to ALWAYS ALWAYS backup your data. I don't care if it's a floppy, 173mb hdd or 200gb hdd,... When it comes to data loss, the ONLY prevention is backup, backup, backup.

To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg

[Matridom]

Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg

raid 1, 3, and 5 are a safer form of backup then a single hard disk, however, these only protect from hard disk failure... NOTHING ELSE. Viruses, Wrong clicks and power surges will not be protected. The advantages of raid 1, 3, and 5 are more in the disk access speeds for servers then they are for backup.

A proper backup solution has an EXTERNAL system to backup the data and if posible, offsite. I've seen a few setups where servers are tunneled together across the internet, and use each other for backup..

I currently use multiple methods of backup.

The critical stuff sits on my raid 1 array and is copied on my laptop also, my data storage drive is in a hard disk caddy in my system and is easy to take out.

Sure, if my place burns to the ground, (and my laptop was left there) i'd loose my data, but i think if that happened, i'd have bigger concerns then my e-mail from several weeks ago. Each person has to decide HOW important the data is, the more important, the more steps one needs to make in order to protect it.

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg

Maybe you need to reread Mac's post. RAID is safer than a single disk. RAID 0 is the only RAID that is less safe than a single disk, because you rely on the availability of 2 disks to maintain the volume.

Backups complete the safety, which the Hawg made very clear in his post.

[kato2274]

we just lost a disk in our SAN the day before yesterday. the only way I knew we had lost a disk was because it was blinking. . . . . access to the files stored on that raid 5 volume were still avaliable and the volume was functioning. the disk was removed, another was popped in and the raid rebuilt itself all the while the volume was still available. . . . not one second of down time.

if you can't see that as being safer than a single disk which in this case would have caused HOURS and HOURS of down time getting a new disk in then initializing it and restoring files from backup tapes . . .then you really are confus-ed!

[Kineda]

coming in a little late but hands down western digital is my favorite....ive never had one die on me yet *hope i didnt just jinx myself* and they are definately abused running 24-7for the last 5 years adding extras as time went on. long live WD and i hope maxtor burns in hell.......

but on a side note when i worked for gateway we had brand new systems at least 3-5 times a month at 1 store having hard drives die within 1 month. and it wasnt uncommon for 1 pc to have had 5+ hard drives while it was still under warranty. my personal opinion is the difference between OEM v.s. RETAIL.... cheaper parts = more money for manufacturers...

[Radical Dreamer]

Originally posted by Kineda
cheaper parts = more money for manufacturers...

Well, duh, no wonder they wont make a reliable drive.

Oh and response to the comment "there are lives at stake with a car" well, what if financial, or medical records are on those drives that go bad? May not mean loss of life, but it sure as hell wastes money (if theres no backup) or lots of time (if the tape has to restore the drive)

[WebHead]

Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg

Ok you got me,.. well sorta. What I meant by that is that RAID (depending on which type or how many disks, etc.) is safer then just relying on one single harddrive without RAID to store your data on. If you have 2 drives, and all your data is mirrored to both drives and one drive craps out, then at least all that data isn't gone. But anyway...

Now that I've explained that, you can now feel free to walk away with your tail between you legs confus-ed.

[WebHead]

Originally posted by Radical Dreamer
Oh and response to the comment "there are lives at stake with a car" well, what if financial, or medical records are on those drives that go bad? May not mean loss of life, but it sure as hell wastes money (if theres no backup) or lots of time (if the tape has to restore the drive)

True RD. I can't argue the fact that data loss for those types of institutions would be extremely critical. My main point of posting that was to point out that cars and computers can't be compared as far as equipment failure goes. For example, a hospitals server goes out. More than likely they have the records backed up somewhere and can restore the lost data. But when you're driving in your car and the brakes go out and you go tumbling off a cliff and end up getting killed,... there is no backup that will restore your life. So quality assurance of automotive standards needs to much more intensive than the quality assurance of harddrive manufacture.

[Radical Dreamer]

Originally posted by WebHawg
True RD. I can't argue the fact that data loss for those types of institutions would be extremely critical. My main point of posting that was to point out that cars and computers can't be compared as far as equipment failure goes. For example, a hospitals server goes out. More than likely they have the records backed up somewhere and can restore the lost data. But when you're driving in your car and the brakes go out and you go tumbling off a cliff and end up getting killed,... there is no backup that will restore your life. So quality assurance of automotive standards needs to much more intensive than the quality assurance of harddrive manufacture.

So what happens when the hard disk fails along with a tape? I know that tapes have relatively low failure rates, but what if?

If the hard drives lasted longer, they would probably be replaced before they died. Hence the tapes failing wouldnt be much of an issue

[MacGyver]

Sure, if my place burns to the ground, (and my laptop was left there) i'd loose my data, but i think if that happened, i'd have bigger concerns then my e-mail from several weeks ago. Each person has to decide HOW important the data is, the more important, the more steps one needs to make in order to protect it. [/B]

With my digital camera, all my photos are now stored on my computer. If I could, for say $100, back those photos up, why wouldn't I?