Using an external drive for Time Machine.....when should the drive be replaced? 3, or 5,yrs...or when a new computer is purchased? Would you replace the entire external drive or just the drive inside?...do you keep the old/exchanged drive? or erase and use for storage?
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how long does a back-up drive last?
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Dave Braine
macrumors 601
How long a drive will last is a topic with many answers. I've probably purchased 50 drives over the years. Some are doing well at 7+ years, some give failure signs in as little as a year. I try to purchase drives with more than a 1-year warranty, but don't have any evidence to say that's a good idea. I've replaced the drive in a Time Capsule after 5 years, increasing the capacity. More recently, I purchased an 8TB Seagate external drive from Costco for $120. That's somewhat less expensive than an bare drive. @Dave Braine is right - why worry? Drives are pretty inexpensive.
Well...it's just that I ordered a new 27" iMac to replace a 2009 iMac which was still using the original external OWC Drive for time machine.....I realize it's not more $ but...I was wondering if I could still be safe with the OWC as the back-up for the new computer. Overthinking it i guess....
A good backup rule is 3 different backups in 3 different media types in 3 different locations. One off-site such as a safe deposit box.
Backblaze collects a lot of statistics of drive failure rates. It turns out that of the drives that failed 76.7% of them had one or more of 5 specific SMART stats > 0. The article is from 2016.
www.backblaze.com
What S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drive Errors Actually Tell Us About Failures
Have you ever wondered what your hard drive SMART errors actually mean? Find out what we look at to determine if a drive is about to fail.
www.backblaze.com