best long-term storage for photos and other documents: i desperately need to back up years' worth of photos and design files but i want to make sure that they are safe forever. i've been reading about the inevitability of hard drive failures, so what's...
977163
Mozy.com I've used them to back up both my external hard drive (where the digital files and essential data backups are stored) as well a number of essential files on my computer hard drive for more than 8 years. I had a hard drive failure in 2003 and lost several years' worth of digital photos. It was devastating. When my desktop crashed last Summer, I was apprehensive, but when I got my new laptop and began restoring from Mozy I was thrilled beyond measure. I restored all my Outlook archive, contacts and calendar as well as my Quicken financial file backup. And there were all my photos, my music and my audiobooks! I have Mozy set to back up automatically every 48 hours and it just does its job and lets me sleep soundly without worry.
2237983
I keep my flash drive in at all times. I've had many digital frames. This is my favorite and has lasted the longest. Hope that helps.
27160
OMG, NO! We had one fail without notice and it was a major problem. We thought the dual drive on ours would be a safe backup system, but the entire drive failed. A service company worked on it and we were fortunate to retrieve most of the data, but it was a very close call and expensive. Now we have TWO separate backup drives on all systems.
1339936
I am looking for an external hard drive to back up my entire lap top hard drive, in case of failure. Is the Passport Essential the unit I am looking for?
1502979
Seagate usually makes quality products. However, in my experience, your best bet for a durable hard drive is a solid state hard drive (SSD). I am sure Seagate makes a good SSD option as do many other companies.
1085868
It all depends whether you need a drive that will last well with repeated use - from my experience, the SATA card which links the hard drive to the power/data transfer port that your USB lead plugs into is poor quality and too flimsy, meaning that it fails reasonably quickly if you're using it on a daily basis like myself. The unit looks great and the case is very robust, but functionality-wise, and as recommended earlier, I'd go for the Buffalo Mini Station Extreme which is proving far more reliable for regular use.
1080261
WD says the component design life of a WD drive is 5 yrs. Does that mean after 5 yrs the hard drive is not going to work?What's the use of keeping 2 copies or more if they are going to die after 5 yrs, or am I misunderstanding what WD is saying about their hard drive design life?
1120023
So is better having DVDs for back up?I have a SimpleTech external HD I use to back up my data maybe once a month, I don't use it that often. I have one year with it, it's never failed. But I wonder if I'm only using the external HD for from time to time back up it will last longer or not.
969338
my longest lasting external is an iomega..i do keep it on its side dont use a stand usually its on the floor..it has had stuff spilled on it..cats vomit on it..dropped ..kicked..its still going..the main thing with an external in my experience is keep it on 24/7..my larger capacity WD external went out this year as and that one i dont keep running day and night..
2241977
They should last until you delete them. SP also has a warranty against disk failures. Im confident that I made the right choice.
1715988
Wow, at 2terrabyte why is that even an issue?? I have no idea.. Just use a huge external hard drive and it should be almost limitless. All I know is that 2tb seems like plenty, at least for me. In four years of many photos, I didn't even fill 250gig on my laptop that was my main computer at the time. I do like this all in one, tho it isn't quite as fast as I had hoped it would be. And I prefer the Windows seven side to the childish eight side. Love the large screen. Overall..I would recommend it..the storage should be plenty especially for a home computer.
1259727
I have this system and it's been working very well for 4 years on the same hard drive. If the hard drive fails, just get another one and the system will automatically configure it. Very easy!
1128742
I bought a Seagate 1tB about two years ago. I've had to have it replaces twice already and I'm looking for a third replacement. I still have a 150Gb WD drive that I bought nearly a decade ago. In my experience, I would go with the WD... I'm about to buy this one.
1819658
I have two, one for the laptop and one for the desktop. I've had both for about 8 months, and not a single problem. These things can take more of a beating than regular HDDs (not like you should be beating them:( )but alas, as with all technology, some do fail. I'm good so far though! Not packing them full of files helps.
2192892
That's a tough one to answer. My drive just crashed a few months after getting it but there's a few reasons why. One reason? Faulty hardware. Another reason? You over worked it or let it get corrupted / broke your OS but that's an easy fix. There are more complex ones like ram causing it to bottleneck and use your hard drive to take the slack. Imagine always running a light bulb non stop for a long time. It's all relative to the amount you use the product. I'd say one of this caliber should last a few years at least, but not always. It's a solid drive, just don't push it too hard, as these things CAN break.
1877803
I'm on a Macbook and use Carbon Copy Cloner to back up my files on one of the Seagate drives, one for an entire system clone and another for photo and documents backup. I also use a couple of the 500 drives to store and edit my photography, saving space on the laptop hard drive. Your copy software will tell you it's done and you can just open the external drive and see that your files are there.
893936
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.