reliability is most importance as i mainly used my hard disk for storage only, not so much for gaming
well, budget is...hm..let say around 300?

RAID is the only "reliable" solution, means you must have at least 2 HDD that mirror each other, otherwise there's no HDD that can last for an interval of time, you won't know how long till the parts start breaking apart, same goes to the very high-end enterprise HDD, it's just enterprise HDD has low failure rate (low, pre-mature failure still exist).
It's either you put on cloud for non-sensitive but can't afford to lose or cut your meals to buy at least 2-bay RAID capable NAS, with the hard disk of course.

Yea...go for RAID. the safest way for important data.

Just don't accidentally knock or tip over the casing that housed the HDDs. RAID with only two HDDs only protects you from hardware failure in one HDD. If both HDDs are damaged at the same time...

That budget can only afford Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB. If reliability is your concern then either use RAID1 setup (ie. mirroring) with two HDDs, and or simply get two HDDs can make duplicate the files on both drives (for redundancy). Another recommended solution is to burn the data into reliable DVDR media (ie. do not use el-cheapo DVDR).

plus, maybe he can put some rubber screws for anti vibration

LOL, now that's human natural disaster, just be sure the component is put inside a solid chassis and put on proper solid place (floor is the best) and away from your naughty leg, strong subwoofer, and those curiosity children.
And lastly, input power, uses a good quality PSU and protect it using a good UPS+AVR.
There's just so much to spend to protect your important data, now if you don't mind making backup everyday, invest on external HDD to backup is the cheaper solution and keep them at cold and dry place.

There's always theft and fire! Nothing beats off-site backup.

Just to share, for backups I run a weekly sync/backup of my important files to a WD Elements 1.5 TB. So I have duplicates in another ext disk.

IMO any hdd will go kaput...just a matter of when only.

Off-site backup weakness: Cannot access when internet connection is down, and backup host server is down (or gone out of business)...

Just for your information, certain CDRs and DVDRs can outlast HDDs...

Not sure whether normal or not, my HDD vibration is kinda annoying. How to reduce it lol

Your chassis is a bit hard to reduce the vibration unless you goes for CM 4-in-3 module of which has the rubber on sides to reduce vibration to the chassis, but you'll still able to listen to the vibration from your HDD if your chassis is very silent.
CM 4-in-3 however uses 3 of your removable drive space, if you don't have any DVD/CD drive then it's fine, but if you do have this idea is not usable.

If you want to total isolate, it's best to start with the chassis itself, invest on something like Silverstone or Lian-Li, they cost more but some of their models are really silent and has good noise reduction for all the components.
I myself hooked on the Thermaltake Element G, the overall noise is great, almost noise-less even when all fans on full-swing, but the HDD is not that cooling, filter is thick and reduced airflow.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Jun 26 2012, 07:24 AM

Off-site doesn't mean it is on the cloud. It means that the backup copy is not located in the same building or site. It may be stored offline (not powered) or online (powered and accessible to a computer), but doesn't say if the backup may be accessible over the internet or not.

At least that was what I had learned back then. Maybe the meaning of the terms have changed.

Rare. Expensive. Too troublesome to use, except on things that you intend to burn and forget, emphasis on forget. And they are mostly claims, unless you can verify for yourself about twenty years or forty years down the line, which you probably won't bother because it would be a lot of work or CD/DVD readers no longer exist (hah!) or you have forgotten about it.

Please describe in detail. Is it the surrounding HDD mounting and/or casing vibrating? Or just the HDD itself making a lot of noise?

When I mentioned "backup host server", I didn't add the "online" word. Thus, it could mean both online (e.g. internet connection) and offline as well.

Yes, those certain CDRs are rare and "expensive" (when compared to other el-cheapo media). I've used numerous brands of CDRs before and I can verify that most of those "certain" CDRs have survived (some already more than a decade old and counting). The best ones (top grade) are the original Kodak Gold Ultima (this one is from the days of 4X and 8X CDRs!), Mitsubishi Blue Platinum Super AZO and Mitsubishi Sonic AZO. As for DVDR media, seems the original Mitsubishi DynAZO is pretty stable. The second grade ones are mostly made by Prodisc, sold under various brand names (including Verbatim/Mitsubishi). The ones that didn't made the grade (inconsistent quality and/or have some levels of degradation) are Mitsubishi Metal AZO (surprise surprise!), Mitsui, Imation, TDK, Sony, Ritek, Daxon, etc. Of course there are also the worst ones like Sony (the ones from Sony's own factory), Maxell (the ones from Maxell's own factory), GigaStorage (sold under various brands like "Melody") and most of the el-cheapo media (quite a long list). As for 20 to 40 years later, can always move/copy all the data to new technology storage medium or device.

This post has been edited by lex: Jun 26 2012, 05:26 PM

Don't encounter any bluescreen lately, but will keep that in mind. Thanks~

Not sure if I run it right ot not, I installed HDDScan and click on "SMART". Results were all green.


No, I didn't use any software. It was like a normal C&P.

Don't think anything to do with my specs, I guess.


Whenever I wanna do a clean format of my drive, I move out all files (movies, music, etc) to secondary internal HDD.
And when I copy back and watch some movie files, certain scenes will have random colored line bar (I can confirm that, cause my fren who copy from me, watched it perfectly fine) or that scene can't be played.

At least I know now, copying files over times won't cause any data loss.
Thx for the helps!

This post has been edited by Kr0ll3R: Jun 26 2012, 05:30 PM

Does the same thing occur when playing the file directly from the secondary internal HDD?

Copying files shouldn't affect the data. There could be other sources of data corruption. Anyway, I usually use a MD5/SFV checksum generator and checking utility to verify my files.

Erm, that I not sure, cause I only realised when I cut/move back from the secondary HDD.
Eh sorry, should be Cut, not copy. But it's the same terms I guess, where I don't keep copies in my secondary HDD.

Other files in the 2nd HDD, doin good.

Is that a software to check a file error? That could come in handy. Thanks!

This post has been edited by Kr0ll3R: Jun 26 2012, 05:55 PM

Then the data corruption could have occurred when transferring files (ie. that's why I've mentioned about checking the cables), and/or in the destination HDD itself. If you had overclocked your machine then try setting it back to stock speeds (e.g. possible increased bus speeds could cause data corruption).

Plenty of them. Just use Google with the search phrase "sfv md5 checksum checker", "md5 checksum checker", etc..

Got it, thanks!
Will check it out. Plenty of infos~

This post has been edited by Kr0ll3R: Jun 26 2012, 06:22 PM

HDD including the HDD cage, the empty floor of the casing between the HDD cage and the PSU

Is this normal?

p/s: I did remove off the fan, but it's still vibrating The most severe part is between the HDD cage and the space between hdd and psu)



This post has been edited by -kytz-: Jun 26 2012, 06:53 PM