Terzo 333

I have just bought a Phillips 500gb external hard drive and put all my music and photos on to it.

What is the chances of it ever failing and me loosing everything ? Does it happen very often or are they fairly bulletproof ?

I hope I'm not tempting fate !

Ta

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Depends on the make of the HDD inside. Tend to find Seagate drives arn't up to much, but then again that may have changed. I tend to find Western Digital drives last a while (Circa. A Few years continously being used). I tend to use External Hard Drives for backup work only, and not as the main workhorse. I wouldn't worry too much.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

You would assume it would last longer than an internal (obviously depending on make) based on the fact that its kept much cooler being outside the PC.

However I have the same worries and have backed up my photos to two drives.

Photos even 10,000 only take up a small amount of space and its worth throwing them on an old drive too or even DVD just to double up on protection.

IMO

Pete The Biker

Don't do what my friend has just done......

He (or his partner!) plugged in his laptop power supply instead of the hard drive power supply and fried it. He is in major panic mode now because it has his daughter's wedding video on it etc etc etc (before you say, it he knows about the need for backups!).


Pete The Biker

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

My Western Digital 500Gb MyBook lasted less than 6 months and it was only switiched on for backing up, then turned off They replaced it, but I don't entirely trust it now. I have a Freecom 500Gb too which has been faultless.

They are both purely used as backup mirror drives though so as long as the main drives don't go at the same time, the data is safe.