How long will the data last uncorrupted? I want to back up some data in a vault.
316045
5 years, It is just as any other hard drives. If it's stored at a stable temperature and humidity it could last for 20-50 years. I've had floppy disks still read after 20 years. keep it away from magnetic fields of any sort.
316046
Strange question, not often asked. I assume you're talking about a concept called "bit rot" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot where the bits on the drive will very loose or even flip their value, which causes progressive corruption in the data on the disk. To the best of my knowledge, I've never heard of any particular drive having a better or worse rate of bit rot than any others. The idea of burning data on to a disk, and letting it sit in a box for 10 years and remain perfect is kind of far fetched. If you want to "vault" data successfully, I would suggest refreshing the data every couple years. Write it all to a different drive, full format the vault drive, and then write it all back. That said, this drive, just like others, will suffer Bit Rot. If you do still want to "vault it" like I described, I would suggest a 3.5in (large) external drive, as they have much larger, heavier housings which might shield the physical storage disk better.
316047
For flash memory 5 to 10 years max. If you want permanent storage I would look at: m-disc.
1667133
I've looked into that and without the original sales receipt it would be reckoned from the date burned into the ROM. You would have 5 years from that date. I found this out by having a drive without a receipt and needing service. WD is so much better than Seagate. I've only had one that I needed service and almost all Seagate drives died within a couple of months for the warranty expiring. 5 years is forever in terms of drives. I got the 2GB version and on a 6Gb channel it's almost as fast as a USB3 flash drive. maybe faster. In short-it screams!
691901
Unfortunately, there probably are those occasions where items just malfunction. I have not had that experience to date (fingers crossed), but these external hard drives all seem to eventually die. The best back-up is to have two and to also use some type of internet or Cloud back up for important files and documents.
893937
Depends on what youre trying to store. Typically, for normal/average use, then it should be fine for quite some time. A full computer backup, without any files, is about 13GB of space.I purchased the 2TB...the bigger the better. But, I store a lot of movies, TV shows, and music.
2113347
you will not lose the saved data..it has an memory feature that has an internal recharge battery sealed in unit.
1363109
As far as I am aware, there shouldn't be an issue. While we use it for back-ups on our Macs, we do not use it specifically on the time machine.
2156759
Using 5 drives without redundancy is just asking for problems... I would venture to say that one of those drives is going to fail within a year. I have a 2x 2GB RAID1 system for the past 4 years, and had to re-sync them once. In the last 15 years I've had ~5 drives crash or get corrupted. Never again will I leave valuable data in only one drive.
402921
At this moment I am pulling data off an external USB drive that appeared to be totally dead. Clack, click, whiirrrrrrrr and never came online. I froze it. Not kidding: http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/put-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer-to-recover-data/ Mine works for about 1/2hr until the drive warms up again, then back into the freezer. Given this scenario it makes sense to know what is critical, get it first, and get the non-essential stuff later. All my important stuff is already recovered and now I'm copying over 40GB of "nice to have" stuff. As soon as this process is over I'm going to improve my backup scenario!
1200823
No it should be fine backing up cloud saves, and new saves as well as copy over the saves from your 4gig internal flash drive.. Downside, unless you have your saved games in the cloud or are not corrupt, they are gone forever unfortunately.
476794
I would never argue that a single drive of any type will be reliable for storing important data over a long period of time. If that is your requirement you should consider a RAID 1 or 5 disk array, or at least buy two drives of similar speed and capacity and then use a program like FreeFileSync to keep them synchronized. Alternatively, the drive could be completely or partially mirrored to some type of cloud storage, which will be much slower to access but can still provide backup critical data.
2241977
They should last until you delete them. SP also has a warranty against disk failures. Im confident that I made the right choice.
500367
Donna, the Password Vault is the first version of the password storage device. It is no longer manufactured, at least I don't think it is. You imply that they can still be purchased so there might be some still out on the market or people who upgraded to the Password Safe, as I did, might be selling their old device. I paid the same price for the Vault years ago as I paid for the Safe earlier this year. The Password Safe is much easier to use. It's not perfect but it, as you might have read in other reviews, but it is still good once you get use to its few idiosyncratic operations. With the old Vault model data was entered similar to entering text on an old cell phone. For example, a "c" would be entered by pressing the #2 key three time, a letter "e" by pressing the #3 key twice. Data entry is much easier with the Safe's QWERTY keyboard. The Safe also has a search function, not available with the Vault, that is helpful when you have a lot of passwords and/or PINs. An idiosyncrasy with the search, however, is that it is case sensitive. Having worked many years in cyber security (now retired), I really like the security these devices offer. They are completely independent devices with no I/O ports. They not only store my user IDs and passwords but also ATM PINs, challenge code words, etc. Also, unlike software programs that store this information as encrypted data on your computer or multiple computers, the Safe holds the info on only one device that can easily be taken to wherever you happen to be computing. I hope this answered your question and was helpful.
869415
If your looking for an opinion, I have been using 2 -- 256GBs for over 6 months to carry encrypted data and software installs to multiple computers and multiple sites. And these work great. Most people want to argue about 'speed', etc. That's not real-world, day-to-day, hard knocks use. These are for IT people or people who want to transport stuff regularly.
1296230
Hi, the instructions for it says it will store up to 30 days worth of activity but delete the oldest if the memory becomes full. Sorry that doesn't answer your question properly, but I guess it gives an idea!
1502980
It's hard to say. I've had varied experience with Seagate drives. Some have lasted 7 or 8 years; and one lasted only 2 years. I've only had this one for a few months. I don't take chances. I back up my computers daily to this drive; and I back it up monthly to another large drive that I keep away from the house.I hope this helps.
1433596
I backup at least once a week with time machine. You can backup both macs with time machine or you could make separate folders for each Mac and put the files in the folders accordingly.
832065
If you want to use the drive for automated back-up is has to be plugged in, of course. Any wear items wear faster with constant use, but if the point of the drive is to easily and conveniently back-up your data, so what? I have drives in servers that have been running practically non-stop for years. I've also had brand new drives that lasted only a few months with intermittent use. The bottom line is that drives are commodities and storage is getting cheaper every day. Your data and your time are what is valuable. Connect the drive, configure the automated back-up and forget about it. If the drive fails, pitch it and get another one. If you want to use the drive for automated back-up is has to be plugged in, of course. Any wear items wear faster with constant use, but if the point of the drive is to easily and conveniently back-up your data, so what? I have drives in servers that have been running practically non-stop for years. I've also had brand new drives that lasted only a few months with intermittent use. The bottom line is that drives are commodities and storage is getting cheaper every day. Your data and your time are what is valuable. Connect the drive, configure the automated back-up and forget about it. If... » Read More If you want to use the drive for automated back-up is has to be plugged in, of course. Any wear items wear faster with constant use, but if the point of the drive is to easily and conveniently back-up your data, so what? I have drives in servers that have been running practically non-stop for years. I've also had brand new drives that lasted only a few months with intermittent use. The bottom line is that drives are commodities and storage is getting cheaper every day. Your data and your time are what is valuable. Connect the drive, configure the automated back-up and forget about it. If the drive fails, pitch it and get another one. « Show Less