On 08/25/14 18:33, Dave Anderson wrote: ... > Yup, time for a new disk. I'm off to do some research on who makes the > most reliable ones these days. [Suggestions from anyone knowledgable > are welcome.]
The problem with researching reliability is you are looking in the rear view mirror -- what happened in the past, what drive you should have purchased several YEARS AGO. What you care about is what will serve you well in the FUTURE, and it won't be possible to know what is the best drive to buy today for a few years. Just about every time it seems Brand X builds The Best Drive, and Brand Y Really Sucks, it seems Brand X gets used to people just assuming they are best, so they cut costs, and Brand Y gets their act together. A story I often tell is one of the worst drives I ever used and one of the best drives I ever used was the exact same drive -- at the beginning of the production, it was a technological marvel, but unreliable. At the end of its production, it was "old tech", but manufacturing had been basically perfected, and they lasted forever. Those of us who have been in the business a while can pretty well spit out a horror story for any brand you wish to name. Even the idea of avoiding cutting edge specs doesn't really work anymore -- sometimes what you assume would be a low-tech 1TB disk is actually just one platter of a 4TB disk -- all the reliability of the cutting edge with several-year old specs. So the answer to the question seems to be "good backups and failure plan" and get on with your life. Nick.
