[Leica] Hard drives

[Spencer Cheng]

I will add that some lines of HDDs has very bad failure record. For example, Seagate’s run-of-the-mill 3.5” HDD from the last couple of years had abnormally high failure rate but their 2.5” drive are pretty good by comparison. I also had WD HDDs fail on me. Assume it’s going to happen to you and plan accordingly.

I’ve had 2 disk failures in my laptop while I am on the road. One was a WD HDD and the other was a SSD. Neither was used “hard”. I now carry a backup disk with me whenever I travel.

One last detail for those who are interested, SSDs are more temperature sensitive than HDDs. If you use them in very hot environments or in poorly ventilated settings, they will suffer much greater error (and failure) rates. This I know from frying several SSDs during product prototyping and has been confirmed by Crucial/Micron.

Backup. Backup. Backup! Your photographs will thank you.

Regards,
Spencer

> On Dec 23, 2015, at 13:11, Frank Filippone <red735i at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> SSD's wear out over time.  They wear each time data is stored.  There is a
> special on-board driver that moderates this action, and basically load
> manages where data is written to,  to try to mitigate the problem.
> Different brands of SSD have different load managing SW, so buy one with a
> good rating.....
> 
> It is unlikely you will wear one out if you are careful in what is installed
> on the SSD, but it is possible.  If used hard, it will happen more
> frequently.....
> 
> HDD have a place in this world.  SSDs do too.  
> 
> HDD rarely go bad from a disc motor failure...  it is usually a problem with
> the head actuator or associated electronics.  The terminology is head CRASH,
> for a reason.
> 
> Brian has written several times about backup strategies.... it might be
> worthwhile to review his advice.....
> 
> Frank Filippone
> Red735i at verizon.net
> 
> Solid state has much shorter longevity.
> 
> Dante
> 
>> On Dec 23, 2015, at 10:22 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
>> 
>> Hard drives have a limited life span. Compared to floppy discs they hold a
> phenomenal amount of information but because they contain moving parts they
> wear out. For me drives last about two years of reasonably hard use. I have
> had about five drive failures in assorted equipment in the last ten years.
> Surprisingly constant use does not appreciably alter the failure rate. The
> lubricants dry up in a stored drive almost as fast as they do in a spinning
> one. According to my friends in the computer industry, solid state storage
> is the way to go, The other day I bought a 120 GB high speed thumb drive for
> about $50 at a computer store. If Edward Snowdon could store years of CIA
> and diplomatic messages on a cheap thumb drive I guess it is good enough for
> my pictures.
>> Larry Z
> 
> 
> 
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