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Hard Drive Dying - new drive on the way

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Basil

Basil

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The hard drive (3 TB Seagate Flexdrive) that I use to store all my movies, iTunes media and pictures has been throwing errors of late and sometimes going stupid (just ceasing to be visible by my computer unless I unplug and re-plug to the computer). I've had this thing for several years, but I decided I'd better replace it before it goes completely *its-up.

Just ordered:
[h=1]LaCie 2big Thunderbolt 2 6TB 2-Bay RAID Hard Drive, 7200 RPM, 360MBps Read/Write Transfer Rate[/h]
Even though my mid-2011 iMac has two Thunderbolt ports, I've never had anything faster than USB 3 connected. This will be the first Thunderbolt Drive I've ever had and I plan to configure it as a 3TB RAID 1 to have redundant data on two drives.
 
JPSmit

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I think I understood 4 words in that post. :rolleyes:

so will this be you assembling it?

thunderbird.jpg


edit; Oh wait you said Thunderbolt drive. :wink:
 
JPSmit

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Not wanting to hijack this thread - those, as mentioned, I don't even understand it, but, this does raise a question I have been meaning to ask for some time.

1. I have a 1TB NAS where I will eventually store all my media - DVDs and Music - slowly I am ripping my CDs and Dvds onto this drive. So, what do I do with the CDs and DVDs once I am done? For now I have them in the basement but would love to get rid of them. OTOH I don't want to ever be accused of them being there illegally (so do I need them as proof?) AND do I need a backup for the drive itself?

2. I know I have asked this before but, I can't seem to be able to backup my computer (Windows 10) to said NAS with the included software. Is there something else (preferably free) that I can use?
 
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Basil

Basil

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JPSmit said:
Not wanting to hijack this thread - those, as mentioned, I don't even understand it, but, this does raise a question I have been meaning to ask for some time.

1. I have a 1TB NAS where I will eventually store all my media - DVDs and Music - slowly I am ripping my CDs and Dvds onto this drive. So, what do I do with the CDs and DVDs once I am done? For now I have them in the basement but would love to get rid of them. OTOH I don't want to ever be accused of them being there illegally (so do I need them as proof?) AND do I need a backup for the drive itself?

2. I know I have asked this before but, I can't seem to be able to backup my computer (Windows 10) to said NAS with the included software. Is there something else (preferably free) that I can use?
Click to expand...

I keep my CDs and DVDs boxed up and stored away not because I feel I need proof but in case something happens to any of the ripped files. I've had files become corrupted and I had to re-rip them (this has happened to both movie and music files. Therefore, I keep the DVDs and CDs I've ripped.

As for the NAS backup issue. I have a NAS also (It's a Western Digital MyCloud Mirror Drive) and it is attached to the network via my router. I can't use it for regular scheduled backups because the backup software doesn't "see" the drive unless I go into Finder (the Mac version of Windows Explorer) and select the drive so that it "connects" to the computer. Then and only then can I see the drive with my backup software. Once the backup is done the NAS doesn't stay connected to my computer - it eventually disconnects. Try going into Windows Explorer and selecting the NAS, then select a particular folder that you'd want to back up to. Then see if your backup software will work.
 
PAUL161

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When they die, it's pretty much over. I have a docking station that will except just about every HD out there. I had two go bad over a time and the docking station will not read either one of them. Only because I still have Picasa installed I was able to retrieve all my photos that was on one of the drives. Nice that Picasa will grab any photo as soon as it is filed in the computer and file it, it even picked up all my Photobucket files and saved them. because of this, I don't have to pay Pbucket a high fee to get them back! Nice. :encouragement: I think you can still download Picasa even though it's not supported anymore.
 
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Basil

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PAUL161 said:
When they die, it's pretty much over. I have a docking station that will except just about every HD out there. I had two go bad over a time and the docking station will not read either one of them. Only because I still have Picasa installed I was able to retrieve all my photos that was on one of the drives. Nice that Picasa will grab any photo as soon as it is filed in the computer and file it, it even picked up all my Photobucket files and saved them. because of this, I don't have to pay Pbucket a high fee to get them back! Nice. :encouragement: I think you can still download Picasa even though it's not supported anymore.
Click to expand...

That's why I ordered this replacement drive - I hope to get this Seagate drive replaced before it completely dies. There are places you can send a dead drive to recover data but it is not cheap to do so.
 
TR3driver

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I don't have the link handy, but there is a website where one of the cloud operators has been reporting their results with various models of hard drive.
Those results mirror my own, which say that Seagate drives just don't last. Especially if your NAS (like mine) doesn't spin the drives down when idle.

Since I've started buying the specific models they report good results with, my only failures have been the last two Seagates I will ever buy. Unless the Seagate results improve, of course.

In Windows, the trick seems to be to permanently map a drive letter to the NAS drive/directory you want to use.
Not totally reliable, it complains every time I reboot because the drive isn't available until the network drivers connect. But works again once I touch the drive with Explorer.

1TB seems small to me, I've currently got 8 in the NAS (4 of which is mirrored) and another 6 (mirrored) in the Windows tower. TV shows are shared from the tower, while movies are on the unmirrored half of the NAS (which is getting full).
 
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Basil

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TR3driver said:
I don't have the link handy, but there is a website where one of the cloud operators has been reporting their results with various models of hard drive.
Those results mirror my own, which say that Seagate drives just don't last. Especially if your NAS (like mine) doesn't spin the drives down when idle.

Since I've started buying the specific models they report good results with, my only failures have been the last two Seagates I will ever buy. Unless the Seagate results improve, of course.

In Windows, the trick seems to be to permanently map a drive letter to the NAS drive/directory you want to use.
Not totally reliable, it complains every time I reboot because the drive isn't available until the network drivers connect. But works again once I touch the drive with Explorer.

1TB seems small to me, I've currently got 8 in the NAS (4 of which is mirrored) and another 6 (mirrored) in the Windows tower. TV shows are shared from the tower, while movies are on the unmirrored half of the NAS (which is getting full).
Click to expand...

I really can't complain about how long this particular Seagate drive has lasted. I bought this 3TB Seagate Flexdrive around May 2008 and it's been running 24/7 ever since as my iTunes media server. I am replacing it with a 6TB NAS that I will run it as a 3TB RAID 1 (2x 3TB drives). Funny thing is the LaCie RAID actually uses Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives made for NAS. At least if one does go bad I can hot-swap the bad drive and keep on chugging. If you can find the link to that comparison site I'd be interested, even though I've already purchased my drive.
 
Bayless

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Basil, do I understand correctly that your automatic backups on your Mac don't work with the NAS? If so then you may have something wrong. Time Machine on SWMBO's iMac backs up to my My Cloud (router attached also) just fine. I know it works because her disk died a couple of months ago and Time Machine restored to the new one from the NAS. If I understood wrong then just ignore me.
 
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Basil

Basil

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Bayless said:
Basil, do I understand correctly that your automatic backups on your Mac don't work with the NAS? If so then you may have something wrong. Time Machine on SWMBO's iMac backs up to my My Cloud (router attached also) just fine. I know it works because her disk died a couple of months ago and Time Machine restored to the new one from the NAS. If I understood wrong then just ignore me.
Click to expand...

It may be how I have it set (Energy Saver Sleep Mode enabled?) Anyway I have an Apple Time Capsule using Time Machine for my normal Computer backups.
 
JPSmit

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TR3driver said:
In Windows, the trick seems to be to permanently map a drive letter to the NAS drive/directory you want to use.
Not totally reliable, it complains every time I reboot because the drive isn't available until the network drivers connect. But works again once I touch the drive with Explorer.
Click to expand...

how do you do this?
 
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