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Archive 2020 · HDD: what and where to get?

AmbientMike
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · HDD: what and where to get?

rscheffler wrote:
The retailer will probably receive HDDs packed in bulk in a larger, properly packed box. Bare HDDs are usually securely packed roughly 20 or 24 on a foam 'skid' that is then in a box.

Just a note that SSD/flash memory has its own set of concerns related to longterm storage. If it is left unpowered for long periods, the electrical charge that resides in each 'memory cell' (not sure if that is the correct term) can degrade. I would suggest reading this post on StackExchange.

That's not to say you will lose data, just that it could happen sooner than...Show more →

Yeah that's what I was wondering about on the SSD, and I have read the same on the thumb drives. If you don't power them up , they apparently lose the data. So I had thought about SSD, but if that is still true, and not just true of the early models, they probably won't be good for me. Heard 6mo. on SSD.

Not sure if the same is true of SD cards and cf? Or to what degree? Emptied one from 2016 several months ago. It is pretty easy to plug stuff in now and then, though, I suppose.

I have just been using the inexpensive drives, not sure if they have SMR tech or not. Need to read that page last drive I bought about 2 years ago. Any tips on how to tell? I mostly just empty cards to the drives (card speed the bottleneck?) open in DPP, and pp a single photo at a time.

Refurbished drives? Now you are scaring me lol. Yikes. I suppose I use them pretty irregularly though.

I need to learn how to do the enclosures but man it sounds miserable. I'm not a construction /car repair hobbiest, for sure. Although I suppose I could rig something up.

Seems like I read tape lasted 10 years about the same as USB sticks.

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:07 PM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · HDD: what and where to get?

EB-1 wrote:
Most retail products are packaged fairly well. Even if the box is damaged a little the drive is usually fine.
Specifically, the WD Easystore drives are suspended with two soft plastic parts within the box and then inside the enclosure the drive is isolated with 4 rubber mounts. I think the box should withstand about 2m, but haven't dropped them that far.

EBH

Wow. Over 6ft? Those are similar to what I have been buying, too. Interested in any other info you have, too

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:12 PM

CanNik
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · HDD: what and where to get?

If it's an ext HDD for backups, I'd go with a conventional (magnetic) HDD as opposed to USB flash drives. FYI I replaced my internal conventional HDD to Samsung EVO SSD in March 2016. It's still working today (knock on wood). SSD is becoming affordable and more reliable.

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:20 PM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · HDD: what and where to get?

rscheffler wrote:
I have also read, but unsure how reliable the info is, that HDD brands put refurbed HDDs into the enclosures and sell them cheap as consumer drives that will see irregular and less stressful use scenarios.

It turns out, I misunderstood the review. I don't think they actually used a refurbished drive, in the review I read , after all. I need to re-read it, though

Edited on Jan 08, 2020 at 01:45 AM · View previous versions

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:27 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · HDD: what and where to get?

AmbientMike wrote:
Yeah that's what I was wondering about on the SSD, and I have read the same on the thumb drives. If you don't power them up , they apparently lose the data. So I had thought about SSD, but if that is still true, and not just true of the early models, they probably won't be good for me. Heard 6mo. on SSD.

Not sure if the same is true of SD cards and cf? Or to what degree? Emptied one from 2016 several months ago. It is pretty easy to plug stuff in now and then, though, I suppose.

I have...Show more →

Enclosures are very easy.

Something like this https://www.newegg.com/vantec-nst-366s3-bk-office-products/p/N82E16817392075
look at the photos and you'll see that all you have to do is slide the case open, add hard drive of your choosing and then plug it into your computer.
This will address both scenarios...buying hard drive of your own choice and adding it to the enclosure to make it external hard drive.

Jan 06, 2020 at 01:34 PM

JohanEickmeyer
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · HDD: what and where to get?

rscheffler wrote:
Just a note that SSD/flash memory has its own set of concerns related to longterm storage. If it is left unpowered for long periods, the electrical charge that resides in each 'memory cell' (not sure if that is the correct term) can degrade. I would suggest reading this post on StackExchange.

That's not to say you will lose data, just that it could happen sooner than you might expect. On the other hand, I've run ancient CF cards through data recovery, ones that were likely unused for 5+ years, and pulled very old images off them.

Like any storage media, there...Show more →

I do still use multiple backups, but I do also think the concern of long-term storage with flash is a bit overblown. I have flash-based media that's over 10 years old which I have put into a computer and all the data is fine.

My photo files get completely rewritten to the USB drives every so often, just to make sure.

Jan 06, 2020 at 04:00 PM

chez
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p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · HDD: what and where to get?

CanNik wrote:
I don't understand the concern with shipping. They get to the brick and mortar stores the same way they get to your house... shipped and the container is likely abused too. As for what is good... that depends on what you're asking, internal or external? If it's internal, go with Samsung EVO SSD (or an NVMe HDD if your motherboard supports it). Your original post says USB drive so you're talking about external drive. WD and Seagate are still my choice for ext HDD.

Shipping to the store is most likely 100's of hard drive boxes shrink wrapped onto a pallet which is much more stable and less likely to be bounced around. Shipping one drive to your door is in a small box that can get kicked, dropped or thrown around. Big difference.

Jan 06, 2020 at 04:33 PM

RottenTheCat
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p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · HDD: what and where to get?

Dunno if this has been said in this thread... but raw drives - not retail package drives - are packed in amazingly resilient crates. They come all ganged up, sometimes with each section of the crate being individually separated for shipping with each machine.

You can "usually" do better on a raw drive than retail, but, I understand the reluctance to do so.

My employer has bought quite a few "raw drives" all in palatalized form, and I can't recall one issue.

Jan 06, 2020 at 07:10 PM

EB-1
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p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · HDD: what and where to get?

RottenTheCat wrote:
Dunno if this has been said in this thread... but raw drives - not retail package drives - are packed in amazingly resilient crates. They come all ganged up, sometimes with each section of the crate being individually separated for shipping with each machine.

You can "usually" do better on a raw drive than retail, but, I understand the reluctance to do so.

My employer has bought quite a few "raw drives" all in palatalized form, and I can't recall one issue.

The issue is when some clueless workers break down a 20-pack, handle and repack singles poorly, and ship them to an unsuspecting customer. Of course it doesn't happen everywhere, but I've seen damaged and used drives, so be careful to buy from reliable sources that repack properly.

EBH

Jan 06, 2020 at 07:18 PM

yetiman
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p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · HDD: what and where to get?

I pulled a Kingston 2gb CF card I found in an old Rebel (the grey one, maybe 8mpix) in the back of my safe last week. The card had pictures from a Mexico trip I took in 2005. I bought the rebel used for that trip as I didn't want to take my 1DsII to Mexico, and never used it again. I forgot I even had it.

The pictures were all there and just fine.

Jan 06, 2020 at 09:09 PM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · HDD: what and where to get?

chez wrote:
Some reliability stats on hard drives from Backblaze.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q3-2019/

Thanks for posting I was hoping someone'd post this. Had seen this before but didn't know where to find it.

Jan 06, 2020 at 10:14 PM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · HDD: what and where to get?

yetiman wrote:
I pulled a Kingston 2gb CF card I found in an old Rebel (the grey one, maybe 8mpix) in the back of my safe last week. The card had pictures from a Mexico trip I took in 2005. I bought the rebel used for that trip as I didn't want to take my 1DsII to Mexico, and never used it again. I forgot I even had it.

The pictures were all there and just fine.

Wow! That's pretty cool. And great timing, as far as this thread

Jan 06, 2020 at 10:16 PM

yetiman
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p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · HDD: what and where to get?

At the time I never really thought about it till I read here about the idea of flash memory losing data over time.

Jan 06, 2020 at 10:24 PM

rscheffler
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p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · HDD: what and where to get?

rscheffler wrote:
I have also read, but unsure how reliable the info is, that HDD brands put refurbed HDDs into the enclosures and sell them cheap as consumer drives that will see irregular and less stressful use scenarios.

AmbientMike wrote:
Read a review that just said this. Soooo, about those enclosures.........?

If that prevents a refurb I might have to do it

Until recently most of my drives were pulled out of USB enclosures because it was the most cost effective solution. I have had one or two fail after a while, but I've also had a few 4TB drives fail (out of about 25) that I'm pretty sure I didn't pull from enclosures. Those were also low-end consumer drives. As I think I mentioned earlier, I stopped doing that because of the uncertainty whether those drives are now all SMR types.

Now I buy NAS optimized drives because those aren't SMR. For example, WD Red drives. I don't recall the Seagate equivalent. These usually cost around $25-30 more than the base consumer models (4TB). That said, I've read that these NAS optimized drives are less fault tolerant. If enough errors build up, they'll brick themselves sooner than a comparable consumer-level drive. Reasoning for this was that they're designed to be deployed as part of RAID arrays which typically have redundancy. If one drive in the array fails, it can be replaced without data loss.

My current workflow is to offload memory cards to an SSD which I use as the working drive from which the computer accesses all images currently in progress. Once images have been completed, projects are moved to HDDs for longterm storage. While working on projects I regularly clone the in-progress work to HDDs so that there are multiple copies of that work in case something should happen to the SSD.

Regarding enclosures: you don't even need to go that far. You can get docks into which you 'drop' the HDD. For example, something like this. You can get HDD storage boxes for a few dollars, if you prefer to have the drive in something while not in use.

Jan 07, 2020 at 12:24 AM

CanNik
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p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · HDD: what and where to get?

chez wrote:
Shipping to the store is most likely 100's of hard drive boxes shrink wrapped onto a pallet which is much more stable and less likely to be bounced around. Shipping one drive to your door is in a small box that can get kicked, dropped or thrown around. Big difference.

Sure but approximately 99.99% of hard disks that I have used (and I work as a network administrator) are shipped to me. I have not found 1 that is dead on arrival due to excessive abuse during shipment.

Jan 07, 2020 at 11:25 AM

CanNik
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p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · HDD: what and where to get?

JohanEickmeyer wrote:
I do still use multiple backups, but I do also think the concern of long-term storage with flash is a bit overblown. I have flash-based media that's over 10 years old which I have put into a computer and all the data is fine.

It's just like the concern with CD/DVD rot back in late 90s or early 2000 when CD/DVD media gained popularity as backup media. I have 20 year old CDs and DVDs. I can read them just fine.

Jan 07, 2020 at 11:32 AM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · HDD: what and where to get?

CanNik wrote:
It's just like the concern with CD/DVD rot back in late 90s or early 2000 when CD/DVD media gained popularity as backup media. I have 20 year old CDs and DVDs. I can read them just fine.

I need to try my old ones, I think quality has gone down the drain on the newer ones. At least, it seemed difficult to find quality dvd's

Jan 07, 2020 at 11:55 AM

dmcphoto
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p.2 #18 · p.2 #18 · HDD: what and where to get?

yetiman wrote:
At the time I never really thought about it till I read here about the idea of flash memory losing data over time.

I've helped design some industrial products that use flash memory. The only reason it is anything close to reliable is due to error correction algorithms that are either embedded in the controller hardware or in software of the device using the memory. Without such algorithms it wouldn't even be usable.

The higher in density the flash cells become the less reliable they become and the more sophisticated the error correction must be. Statistically, after the algorithms do their work, the error rates remain about the same in successive generations of products even though error rates from the physical cells typically increase.

With that said the quality and reliability of flash memory varies tremendously, based mostly on the way the devices are made. The cheapest and least reliable memory goes into things like USB "thumb drives" while the most expensive and reliable memory goes into things like workstation SSDs and M.2 drives.

Jan 07, 2020 at 11:59 AM

AmbientMike
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p.2 #19 · p.2 #19 · HDD: what and where to get?

Jan 08, 2020 at 01:48 AM

Herb
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p.2 #20 · p.2 #20 · HDD: what and where to get?

SSD is the only way to go.....

Jan 09, 2020 at 08:55 PM

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