Are there any external storage drives that don;t die within a year???

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LucyLux

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Aug 25, 2014
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Desperately need storage. HELP!!!
What is the best and most inexpensive solution if you need storage?
Without my data I will be in DEEP TROUBLE. But External drives keep dying. What can I do?
 
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Hawkeye22
You appear to be against SSD's. Here is a link to Tom's review in case you change your mind.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with any online storage/backup solutions. I don't trust my personal information in the hands of others, but that's just me. As an aside, as ex_bubblehead stated, Any storage device can fail at any time without warning, regardless of age, even drives that get great reviews. If you decide to go with online storage, then read up on their backup strategy, assuming they have one in place.

For a home brew no frills external drive, just pick up an enclosure that can handle a 3.5" internal sata drive. It doesn't matter if it's sata I, II...
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Hi Alex: I guess it doesn't need to be external.
Hi Hawkeye22: Today, after only 3 months of use, the iO Safe did not appear on the desktop. I don't know if it's fried or what. I do digital painting, so these files are irreplaceable, and HUGE.
Reviews for all drives say they are DOA or fail within months, even weeks.

Hawkeye: I know nothing about computers, I merely use them, and connect stuff to USB ports. So even if I decided to buy enclosures, I would not have a clue what to buy. The guy in the Newegg video said this are for SATA (I don't know what SATA means), and also appeared to put in the enclosure a drive he took out of a computer. The only drive I have comes from a MAC that is about 16 years old, so I imagine that if I bought an enclosure, I would have to buy a drive as well. So what would I need t buy? Installation looks fairly simple.

ON the other hand, I am thinking of simply buying a second MAC mini, transferring the info with cables, and put the computer away, simply use it as storage, I am TRULY DESPERATE...
 
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1-8 GB Flashdrives are SO wonderful that I looked into 32 and 64 GB. Everybody is having troubles with all brands: SanDisk, Kingston, yo name it. Pity. The next best thing would have been a Passport, but this get pretty bad reviews also. I really need something RELIABLE. These are media files, so if they're lost, literally thousands of hours of something that cannot be recreated would go into limbo,
 
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If your files are that important then you absolutely should not be relying on a single point of failure on which to store them. You should have multiple backups (one of which should be off site) on multiple storage media types. Any storage device can fail at any time without warning, regardless of age.
 
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Yes. I guess I am like many people. I thought, OK I will buy this. It will last a few years, and by then there will be another solution.

So here's the deal. I need recommendations. What should I do? Do You recommend DROPBOX? Some other Cloud service?
And drives: which one?
Guys, I really need help and you're the gurus. Enlighten me.
 
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Unfortunately, EVO from Samsung apparently has a huge failure rate.

Has anybody tried DROPBOX or any other service? I have ably 100 files of about 50 GB each, or more.
I am leaning toward NO external drives, I am on a tight budget and I can't keep wasting money on garbage that fails in three months.
 
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Yes SSDs prices are dropping. I think people will probably abandon them altogether due to high failure rate and poor quality control. NO matter how cheap, if it fails, it's pricey.
 
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100x50GB=5TB

Check out this pricing chart that compares the various cloud storage services. Will your "tight budget" handle that? http://www.drivehq.com/help/solution/PriceComparisonWithOtherServices.aspx

You're looking at multiple spinning drives in a RAID configuration (think NAS) for that much storage. And additional media to effect backups.
 
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You appear to be against SSD's. Here is a link to Tom's review in case you change your mind.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with any online storage/backup solutions. I don't trust my personal information in the hands of others, but that's just me. As an aside, as ex_bubblehead stated, Any storage device can fail at any time without warning, regardless of age, even drives that get great reviews. If you decide to go with online storage, then read up on their backup strategy, assuming they have one in place.

For a home brew no frills external drive, just pick up an enclosure that can handle a 3.5" internal sata drive. It doesn't matter if it's sata I, II, or III. The enlocsure should have as a minimum, USB as the external port. Putting the drive inside the enclosure is a simple procedure. Any non-techie can do it in under 5 minutes. It takes longer to get the screws in and out than it does to connect the drive. Just be sure it can handle large drives. It will list this in the specifications.
 
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OK. Thanks! It sound simple enough.
What kind of drive should I get and where do I get it?

 
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I prefer Western Digital and Seagate drives. The WD blue drives have a 2 year warranty and the WD blacks have a 5 year warranty and cost more. Most of the seagate's are 2 year warranty. You can get the bare drive instead of the retail drive which comes in a box. The bare drive (OEM) will cost slighlty less.

You can get the drive and enclosure most anywhere, Newegg, Amazon, TigerDirect,... whichever has it cheapest. I've had good luck with Vantec enclosures. IcyDock also makes some good ones.

You may want to get a second external to keep backups of your files. You mentioned you have a Mac.You may want to look into time machine or some other backup software.
 
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What makes you say that SSDs have a high failure rate? Especially Samsung??

I have a 128 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD which hasn't skipped a beat in the one year that I've owned it. Additionally, I'm on Tom's every day and have been for the past year. I can recall the Samsung SSD problems on one hand!

Are you confusing SSDs with USB pen drives? The pen drives are prolly the most unreliable piece of computer hardware on the market today. SSD storage drives on the other hand are some of the most reliable!

Yogi
 
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