Are Externals Hard Drives 100% guaranteed not to corrupt data?

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napninjanx

napninjanx

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Jun 29, 2013
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My friend was going on about a person turns the external hard drive on and connects it to the PC the data will go corrupt. Then I started to remember, I remember burning a music disc in 2007 a year later I inserted the disc and it said "Data Corrupted" D:.

Now my friend has put fear into me, I always back up data with DVD-R Discs all the time.

What do you suggest?
Thank You

Should a person have 3 backups? In case worst comes to worse.

External Hard Drives
USB Flash Drives
DVD Discs
 
Solution
ThatVietGuy
There's no computer part that's infallible - hard drives included.

If it's worth backing up, you should have multiple backups in different places.
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there napninjanx,

In case the data is crucial, yeah it would be nice to consider 3 back ups.

The thing is that hard drives, could fail without a warning in some cases. Also, they are vulnerable to hits. Here are some tools in order to keep an eye on the HDD's health status: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
Flash drives and CDs have a certain life span.

Some other things you can consider:
- Cloud storage.
- RAID array(RAID 1 let's say). Keep in mind that this provides redundancy not back up. More on RAIDs: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370235,00.asp

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD
 
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napninjanx

napninjanx

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DVD's have life span?
So your saying if a person burns DVD's and keeps them in a storage case for 10 years the CD's will die out? Or is the life span from extreme usage all the time?
 
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popatim

popatim

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Even Archival quality DVD's have a lifespan, some a 100yrs and some 1000 yrs.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp

The best practice for regular dvd's is to keep them in a cool dry dark storage space. Then remake them every few years. Remember these are backup files and therefor they are not your only copy of the file. I have 5 copies of my irreplaceable data, pics, vids. One is even on DVD's in my sisters basement. Her offsite copy is in my basement.
 
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bjornl

bjornl

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Mar 16, 2016
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You can extend their lifespan my keeping them sealed in the dark (no sunlight) in an oxygen proof container and avoiding extreme fluctuations in temperature. Special archival DVDs last much longer but also benefit from the same handling. However given the constant growth in HD size and the amount of data they contain, DVDs abd CDs as backups are no longer practical.

External HD's don't live long but they live longer than SATA disks put in a RAID. Keeping more than 1 backup of critical files is the way to go .
 
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