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should i backup/replace my HDs?

F

frankyk

Gawd
Joined
Jan 30, 2004
Messages
891
i have 3 80 GB all WD hard drives.

the main one is the oldest one, i've had it probably for 1.5-2 years, i had it at near max capacity (65-70 of the 74.5 GB) for about 1 year then I moved mostly everything to my other 2 HDs and external HDs, so it's sitting around 50 GB free.

my other 2 HDs are 90% full, like they have 5 GBs left or so free, been like this for about a year (both are about 1 year old maybe 1.25)

should i be worried about getting a new hard disk or is it too soon?

i used to leave the computer on all the time, but now i turn it off after a couple hours of use or maybe even 20 minutes to 1 hour.
 
Um...if you want more space you can wait until they're all pretty full. I don't think leaving your computer on all the time will hurt it...not really sure what you're asking?
 
I wouldn't be concerned about running drives near capacity. Rather, I'd be more concerned about what you're going to do when one, two, or three of those drives fails. You have no redundancy in your current setup. You could pick up a 250GB drive to backup all your data. This would also allow you to cut some fat from your 80s, stuff you don't regularly use but don't want to delete 'just in case'. While we're in 'Might As Well Land', you could then use one 80 as your System drive and create a 160GB stripe with the other two drives for performance. You'll still need to backup these drives regularly as this does not provide real-time redundancy (like a mirror or RAID5). Once you decide what you 'need' you can decide where to go from there.
 
how long do HDs last for is my question? i'm just afraid that they're going to die soon or something. i transfer a lot of 700 mb files between the few drives so i use them a bit.
 
Sometimes the HD will state on the casing the expected date of failure - generally it's about 4-6 years after you buy it, however, I've had them last MUCH longer than that (8-10yrs)
 
what sith is talking about is MTBF or mean time before failure. but if you use that as a guide you'll be helping out the data recovery industry endlessly.
 
Hard Drives are mechanical devices. Their failure is merely a question of when. Generally, a HD that makes it through the first three months will last at least three years. Anything over five years is a gift. However, hard drives should never be trusted, and they can fail at any time. Pick up a DVD burner - they're less than $50 - and backup your important stuff to DVD. A 4.7 DVD-R will hold a lot of irreplacabale data. Couple that backup with a well planned installation routine, and you'll be back in action from a failure in no time.
 
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