Disaster Prevention

Hard drives rely on precision, high-speed mechanics and complex electronics. Any failure - however minor - can spell disaster.

Hard drive failure is rated in terms of Mean Time Before Failure, or MTBF. Drive manufacturers typically claim MTBFs in the order of hundreds of thousands of hours. Usually this is extrapolated data (i.e. calculated or estimated). Drives sometimes have manufacturing defects that cause them to fail well before the mean time estimate.

For those who are interesteed, a landmark study was conducted by Google®, Inc., entitled, "Failure Trends in Large Disk Drive Population". The study examined failure patterns of drives that were installed in Google's own servers. Their findings are quite revealing and often unexpected.

The fact is that ALL hard drives will fail eventually. Some will give an early warning but most do not.

Lately, we have been both alarmed and disappointed by "premature" failures of single, large-capacity drives of 750 GB or more. We think that it is risky to rely upon a single large drive to store your important data. People often ask us, "What brand of large capacity drive should I buy?" We usually answer: "We don't think there is much difference . . . just buy TWO of them, and back up to both!"

The key is to back up your data regularly or automatically. Various software packages will back up a drive to an external device on a preset schedule. Please read the section entitled, Back-Up Tips for more suggestions.

Don't be caught off guard! Back up your data regularly, and don't forget to check the back-up copy often. Nothing is more disappointing than thinking that you have a viable back-up, only to discover (after-the-fact) that you don't.

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