[Bradford] Fail

[Paul Colley]

Hi David (and all)
I published your article on hard disk failure last week in the latest issue of Briefing Bradford - see p33http://bit.ly/may15bb#page=33. Many thanks for your contribution.

Since then I've had opportunity to suggest members of the JimiPassItOn listserv (fellow Jimi Hendrix collectors) might check it out - as recent conversations on and around that list had turned to matters of failing drives (internal and external), recovery options, and even to the M-Disc option.
I include below a few responses which may be of interest. They raise further issues to which you and other Bradluggers may wish to reply. I don't want to have to keep copying and pasting between the lists, so I'm cc-ing a few folks in here. Please reply to all if you have anything to put into the mix. If past experience is anything to go by, I'm sure you will :-)
Cheers,
Paul Colley
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My personal thoughts (and I only base this on my usage, nothing scientific).   Any drive can fail at anytime.    I’ve tried most of the manufacturers.  Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, IBM, Samsung and Toshiba.   Over time, I still find Seagate holds up the longest under heavy abuse, writing, reading large files.  Seagate also seems to give you a little more time before total failure.   Warning signs.   Other drives I have used (especially Western Digital and IBM/Samsung) seem to fail very quickly, and you rarely get a chance to rescue your data.   Seagate seems to take a little longer giving you a chance to grab the stuff before total failure.   Hitachi does that as well.
That being said, recent reports show that Seagate isn’t doing too well lately compared to the others….    But those reports can be tough to figure out.    I’m not sure what they are based on.    I’m not talking about email, or word or excel documents here.  I use the drives heavily for video and audio.   I run a recording studio and have about 60 drives in rotation running backups at any given time.  Internal and External.  Onsite and off-site.   Each day we are moving/copying large files at a time (recently 24 TB in one copy).  I have 2 extra computers that are solely dedicated to making those backups and copying all day (or night) long….. about 4 to 5 days a week.   Seagate just seems to continue to work best for me for my situation, but everyone’s is different.   The newer 5400 RPM drives seem more reliable than the 7200 RPM drives.  Your mileage may vary!  : )
Oh, and I agree that Heat is the enemy as someone pointed out below.   In the studio, we have 3 zones for humidity and temperature control and are constantly monitoring same.   Keep those drives well ventilated and cool and they will last a long time (usually).   Don’t be stacking them on each other, or beside each other…..or sitting them over a computer (which is already creating a source of heat).
Joe Davis snowdog212 at aol.com
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Thanks for the article Paul, it was interesting but I still have an unanswered question I have often wondered about.  Is the life span of a Hard-Drive (whatever the type) effected by actual use or just time.  I like to backup my data twice, One drive I use for daily use and the other gets put away on a shelf in case it is needed.  Will the drive on the shelf simply deteriorate over time ?  
Also, are USB Jump Drives what they are calling SSD's ?  It was left unclear to me after reading the article what the actual differences are between HHD (Hard Disk Drives) and the SSD (Solid State Disks).  I've never heard a Jump Drive referred to as a Disk and was lead to believe by a teckie friend that they would essentially last forever.  I spent a lot of time last year converting files from an external hard drive in Flac, Shn & Ape to Wav Files on Jump Drives for this and other reasons.  
Will willjamz1 at comcast.net
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Following on from the very interesting article that Paul C sent about hard disk failures I have to admit that the only hard drive that has ever completely died on me was in fact a Western Digital Caviar Green.  This was several years back now and it was my main OS drive (80 GB capacity) and luckily not an important data drive. Also one of my nephews had a 250 GB Samsung SSD pack up on him at the ripe old age of 10 months towards the end of 2014.
Anyway the main point of my message was to ask if anyone has experience of M-Discs.  It is claimed that unlike standard DVD's  "Once written, your documents, medical records, photos, videos and data will last up to 1,000 years. “Just M-Disc™ and Forget It!”
Here are a couple of links
http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/
http://www.mdisc.com/
A pack of 50 x 25 GB discs is £175 UK and $220 USD @ Amazon.  Expensive but you can't put a price on peace of mind.  
Paul Fitzpatrick paulmfitzpatrick at btinternet.com
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Thanks Paul a very informative piece.
I have also been liaising with Jeff off-line.  I am waiting to hear if Jeff can still see the failed drive within BIOS.  If so there maybe something that can be done to recover some/all of his data as long as the damage isn't physical.  I know how to get data off fixed drives that Windows can not access using EBCD software via the DOS environment but not tried to recover data from an external drive.  However one of my nephews is a qualified IT technician and I have asked him whether there is similar software available to transfer data from an external USB drive onto a second external drive.  Just waiting for him to email me back later today.
Paul Fitzpatrick paulmfitzpatrick at btinternet.com
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