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New hard drives?
- Thread starter wesk702
- Start date
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Are you experiencing any problems?
Do you hear any clicking or clanking noises going on with the platters? Have you run disk testing to make sure the smart is reporting properly? Also, if you have or are starting to have bad sectors then yes, I would get new drives and back up your stuff immediately..
Hard drives usually last a long time, but you never know.
I would get seagate.. don't buy hitachi.
Do you hear any clicking or clanking noises going on with the platters? Have you run disk testing to make sure the smart is reporting properly? Also, if you have or are starting to have bad sectors then yes, I would get new drives and back up your stuff immediately..
Hard drives usually last a long time, but you never know.
I would get seagate.. don't buy hitachi.
Western Digital is a good company. But if you are looking for the cheapest drives, Hitachi will probably be your best bet.
jav6454
macrumors Core
If the drives are still in working order - no clicking, etc. Then they should be fine for a few more years yet. (The longer a drive lasts, the less chance of failure - according to Google, anyway).
But you might be able to benefit from newer HDD's with a 16MB cache, although depending on what you do with your system, you may or may not notice a difference.
No idea what brand you should go for. Obvious names are Seagate and WD, but that's always a mixed field regarding those two - just read up on specific models I guess to see which has a bad failure rate.
But you might be able to benefit from newer HDD's with a 16MB cache, although depending on what you do with your system, you may or may not notice a difference.
No idea what brand you should go for. Obvious names are Seagate and WD, but that's always a mixed field regarding those two - just read up on specific models I guess to see which has a bad failure rate.
JesterJJZ
macrumors 68030
Seems like everyone has their preference. I only use Hitachi Enterprise drives for my critical data. I use consumer Hitachis and Seagates for Backups and offline storage...redundant of course.
Many drives last for a long time. Preemptively replacing them is unnecessary. New drives fail, too.
Getting a good backup plan is a much better idea. We see a lot of data recovery customers who assumed that, since their hard drive was new, it would last.
Unless your drives are noisy, slow, or failing diagnostics, stick with 'em!
And remember, buying a backup drive is more economical than paying for data recovery.
Getting a good backup plan is a much better idea. We see a lot of data recovery customers who assumed that, since their hard drive was new, it would last.
Unless your drives are noisy, slow, or failing diagnostics, stick with 'em!
And remember, buying a backup drive is more economical than paying for data recovery.
HDD failures are random. I've had drives that have worked for decades, and I've had some that went to the great bitbucket in the sky after a couple years.
My recommendation is two fold:
First, get a backup drive (or a Drobo if you have a lot of data.) Then enable Time Machine or get Retrospect X if you want more advanced features (auto mirroring of critical documents, encryption, copying of backups to other media, etc.) This way, if your drives do decide to retire and take your data with them, you have a recent backup of your work.
Second, consider another HDD and RAID. Either software RAID in OS X, or a hardware RAID card. This will definitely mitigate a single hard disk failure.
Regardless, I highly recommend enabling Time Machine and getting an external drive if at all possible.
My recommendation is two fold:
First, get a backup drive (or a Drobo if you have a lot of data.) Then enable Time Machine or get Retrospect X if you want more advanced features (auto mirroring of critical documents, encryption, copying of backups to other media, etc.) This way, if your drives do decide to retire and take your data with them, you have a recent backup of your work.
Second, consider another HDD and RAID. Either software RAID in OS X, or a hardware RAID card. This will definitely mitigate a single hard disk failure.
Regardless, I highly recommend enabling Time Machine and getting an external drive if at all possible.
If you're gonna do Time Machine, you might want to consider a green drive. They generally are cheaper and take up less power so you save more money. The Western Digital Caviar Green is only $60 for 1TB and $120 for 2TB. I'm pretty sure some other companies have green drives but I'm not sure of their prices...