Have you ever had a corrupt file?

[msmth928]

In all my years of using a modern computer (with hard drives) I've never once had a corrupt file. For most of that time I have used PCs.

One thing that struck me when posting here, is how many people advises me on keeping an back up (as opposed to a raid mirror). I know back-ups make good sense anyway (and I do for my most important files) but it just made me wonder... how many of you have encountered a corrupt file whilst using a Mac/OS X?

 

[redwarrior]

I never have, but a friend of mine did (he unplugged the device without ejecting it). I took a chance and downloaded DiskWarrior which fixed it, a very good thing cause it was an external drive with about 80GB of personally recorded music that meant a lot! I don't think he'll do that again.

 

[xraydoc]

Maybe half a dozen times in the last 10 years I've had a file become corrupt.

But the point is that while a RAID 1 will protect against a drive malfunction, it wont protect against you or a rouge program from deleting your data. For example, about 2-3 years ago, an error in the iTunes installer deleted hundreds (or more) users' entire iTunes library. In this situation, your RAID 1 would have faithfully mirrored the deletion of your iTunes library. And you'd have had no backup.

RAID 1 helps prevent against data loss due to a drive failure. It is not a backup. You do not have to have a drive malfunction to end up with a corrupt file.

 

[bozz2006]

I've had this situation twice in the last week. Purchased album from itunes, one song failed to download because the file was corrupt. Makes me want to start buying CDs at Walmart. Does that count?

 

[Tesselator]

Same here just missed downloads. After it's been tested once I never have had a file go corrupt - ever - in 25 years of home computing. Unless we count CF Cards. If we count those then I get about one file in 1000 going bad just by inserting removing or by overheating. That's over approximately 90,000 files. But I assume you're only asking about HHDs right?

Also I have had at work but it's always been a multi-user environment so who knows what others may have done to splat the sucker.


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