Losing data on external HDs

Im just wondering what has to happen for the hard drive you to completely lose the data stored on your external hard drive. After a few months will it just die and you cannot recover what was stored on it?

 

It's the same as the hard drive in your computer. It can't just lose data, something has to actually happen to the drive for the data to be corrupted. The only way you could lose all of your data is if reformatted the drive.

 

Yes, that's it exactly. A hard drive is a mechanical device with moving parts. After time, they simply wear out. Some times there are manufacturing defects or other things that cause it to fail prematurely. Heat is one of them. Shock is another.

Usually, it fails with little or no notice. Just -clunk- it's dead and now you just lost all your data.

That's what backups are for. If you're not making regular backups of youre data, your a sitting duck just waiting for this to happen.

I have hard drives that lasted 6 weeks before dying. RMA'd it back to Seagate and they sent me a new one, but no way to recover the data. (Fortunately for me, that drive was a member of a RAID1 mirror so I lost nothing). I also have drives that are 10 years old and still working just fine.

Bottom line is that you don't know how long it will run before it dies, taking all your data with it. Back up your data regularly.

I learned my lesson already, and now I only use RAID1 mirrors for everything, plus I backup to an external 750GB firewire disk once per week.

 

I heard that the data from mechanical hard drives is almost always recoverable whatever the failure was, but of course not by users themselves. (unfortunately - or fortunately? this is something we would have to forget about with SSDs..)

 

Of course, it is recoverable. There are entire businesses whose sole purpose is data recovery. So yes, you can recover the data if you are determined to. But have you ever asked for the price of those services? It's big $$$. Businesses use those services to recover critical business data. A home user is not going to do that to recover some games, emails, and mp3's.

It's far far cheaper to buy a 750GB disk, put it in an external enclosure, and use it to make regular backups.

 

My old business partners (I am no longer involved with the company) charge a $200 consult for assessment/estimate. Then a recovery attempt is made(no fee if not able to recover). Recovery can be prohibitively expensive for an individual.

If something does happen however and you really really need the data then take time to shop around. Prices (and skill level) vary greatly.

Thought I would add this for software recovery. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1139