[SOLVED] how long will seldom used hard drives be reliable for?

[Pc6777]

Im doing backups on 2 8 terabyte hard drives, one will be powered on every few months-year or so and sit in a box, and one will be hooked up to my computer, both will have the same or similar data on them so if one dies im ok, could I use them as backups for 10 plus years if they don't get used much? or should I replace after 5-8 years? my most important data will be on m discs in case they both die.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

there is no reliable way to predict a drive's lifespan.
even the best manufactured, highest rated, and best reviewed drives can suffer from any number of possible defects at any moment either when in actual use or just being plugged\unplugged.
though you will have a better life expectancy from high quality drives.

i've had high-end Toshibas, Seagates, and Western Digitals die within a year or two with very minimal use.
but I also still have an external Western Digital 2TB USB that i've used constantly with very large data transfers for 5 years,
and an internal Seagate 4TB SATA3, i removed from an external enclosure that failed ~6 years ago, that still works fine.

i would really just suggest to keep the backup and the backup's backup data up to date in case one does die.
then replace the affected drive and keep going this way until something better comes along for our storage needs.

 

[Pc6777]

there is no reliable way to predict a drive's lifespan.
even the best manufactured, highest rated, and best reviewed drives can suffer from any number of possible defects at any moment either when in actual use or just being plugged\unplugged.
though you will have a better life expectancy from high quality drives.

i've had high-end Toshibas, Seagates, and Western Digitals die within a year or two with very minimal use.
but I also still have an external Western Digital 2TB USB that i've used constantly with very large data transfers for 5 years,
and an internal Seagate 4TB SATA3, i removed from an external enclosure that failed ~6 years ago, that still works fine.

i would really just suggest to keep the backup and the backup's backup data up to date in case one does die.
then replace the affected drive and keep going this way until something better comes along for our storage needs.

the drive on my pc will just me used to access said data i wont be adding any or a lot without updating the other drive. plus I have my m discs if they both fail at the same time, idk i could have a third backup and use a few old 1 and 2 terbyte drives combined.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i just added an 8TB Seagate USB to use as a backup of my backup drives.
1x 3TB for digital game installers, drivers, & application install packages
1x 3TB for my converted digital audio(1000+ CDs), photos, and videos
and 1x 1TB for system images

i figure the 8TB keeps the data safe enough.
if either of the smaller backups fails i can just easily replace them and transfer the data back.
keeping them all up to date is my only issue, usually never feel like taking the time.

 

[Pc6777]

i just added an 8TB Seagate USB to use as a backup of my backup drives.
1x 3TB for digital game installers, drivers, & application install packages
1x 3TB for my converted digital audio(1000+ CDs), photos, and videos
and 1x 1TB for system images

i figure the 8TB keeps the data safe enough.
if either of the smaller backups fails i can just easily replace them and transfer the data back.
keeping them all up to date is my only issue, usually never feel like taking the time.

you backed up cds, so im guessing you didnt compress them and they are flac, that's got to take up a TON of space, I have a few hundred mp3s that take up like 5 something gigs, thats nothing compared to my other data. I have like 2 terabytes of data right now, but I want room to grow and 8 terabyte drives are only 130 on Newegg with the external casing that works with usb which is convenient for portability, so I will never outgrow them no matter what, i couldn't see myself needing more than a another 2 terabytes.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

1x 3TB for my converted digital audio(1000+ CDs)

you backed up cds, so im guessing you didnt compress them and they are flac

those are just the size of the disks(3TB) they are located on, not the actual size of the files themselves.
the majority are mp3, only certain live albums have i left lossless FLAC files. plus some giant audio book collections.
i think all together i've only got ~4TB of actual backup data. all 3 disks worth currently fit on the 8TB Seagate Desktop with over 3TB left.

since i've just started collecting 4K HDR movies though, i'm sure i'll fill up my current storage soon. will probably eventually just get another 8-12TB to keep attached to the TV and maybe another separate backup drive for those.

never imagined it would be common for users to have 20+ TBs of drives sitting around.
hopefully SSD prices start to drop even further soon so I can continue using those alone.

 

[Pc6777]

those are just the size of the disks(3TB) they are located on, not the actual size of the files themselves.
the majority are mp3, only certain live albums have i left lossless FLAC files. plus some giant audio book collections.
i think all together i've only got ~4TB of actual backup data. all 3 disks worth currently fit on the 8TB Seagate Desktop with over 3TB left.

since i've just started collecting 4K HDR movies though, i'm sure i'll fill up my current storage soon. will probably eventually just get another 8-12TB to keep attached to the TV and maybe another separate backup drive for those.

never imagined it would be common for users to have 20+ TBs of drives sitting around.
hopefully SSD prices start to drop even further soon so I can continue using those alone.

I have all my movies in low quality, like 720p/1080p some in dvd quality, maybe I will get a program to upscale them to 1440p. you could compress 4k movies to around 25 gigs with some quality loss to save space, if you don't compress the movies are very large, they take up entire dual layer blu rays and sometimes even bdxls I think.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

yeah, i've got a couple programs that can make surprisingly small sizes out of regular 4K. usually around 20-30% of the actual size with almost identical quality converted to MKV.
but, i haven't found anything cheap yet that can also reproduce 10bit HDR colors with any decent compression.