Tape isn't that all reliable. Very prone to moisture, fungus, tape wear and degradation over time. Anyone who used those VHS tapes before knows what I meant. The DAT tapes aren't that much different from video tape recording technology. As for DVD and BD media, those pretty much depends on the quality of the disc itself (usually based on manufacturer). Have used certain CD and DVD media that already lasts very long (e.g. the original real Kodak Gold Utima, not the later batch with greenish dye). Also have encountered those CD and DVD media that degrades over time (plenty of them, mostly el-cheapo brands).

Besides this...@Kr0ll3R, do you use any 3rd party copy utilities? You may want to check your cables as well. Also some old chipsets (on ancient machines) such as the VIA 686B southbridge have data corruption issues with UDMA enabled (also becomes more significant if a SoundBlaster Live! soundcard is present). Certain NVIDIA chipsets also have this issue (with SoundBlaster Live! also)...

Not sure about Seagate's externals. For Seagate internal ones, mine took surprisingly less than a week. And that was very recently. Just submit the online RMA order, print the RMA order and then pass together with the HDDs directly to their RMA center (somewhere in Shah Alam, refer to Hardware Dsitributor / RMA Claim Addressess, if u don't know where to claim warranty). No need to pack nor post to them...

Plenty, there's the performance ones like Western Caviar Black or Enterprise level drives such as the Raid Editions. Of course, most people (including myself) would recommend the Caviar Black model (if you can afford). Do state your budget...

This post has been edited by lex: Jun 21 2012, 06:59 AM

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).

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...

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

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.

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..

You could try putting a heavy weight on it (e.g. a thick heavy book, stone brick, etc), and see if the vibration is still there. Is that PSU touching the bottom plate of that casing?

Vibrations are not good for the HDD generally.

There should be another 1 or 2 screws on the other side as well, to properly secure the HDD. Try putting some padding on the unsecured side (e.g. a strip of thick cardboard between the HDD and the HDD cage). Is that HDD cage removeable?

Actually, nowadays you cannot really "LLF" (low level format) the HDD anymore. The HDD internal controller simply remaps the bad/weak sector to a an available spare sector. Very often this happens automatically (whenever the sector is being accessed or verified, usually the controller will try to "recover" the sector first and if fails then remaps that sector to a spare one). True low level format is actually done in the factory itself where the platters are evaluated and defects mapped out.

Try HDTune...

Its not a rare case actually, in fact its very common. Other sources of HDD problems are power supply issues and heat.

Actually vibrations do matter to the HDD. That's because the read/write head is actually floating on a cushion of air, and the armature are not 100% rigid. If ever the vibrations (or knocks) is strong enough to cause the head to touch, scrape and/or crash onto the delicate platter surface spinning at high speeds (nowadays 7200rpm is pretty normal for majority of desktop HDDs), then that could create many problems including bad sectors and drive failure (due to read/write head damage).

Its a common fallacy for many to think that external HDDs and/or HDDs as a backup device. As HDDs can fail anytime and suddenly (without warning), the practice of redundancy is required to keep the data safe (the likelihood of two drives failing at the same time is far less). Another backup method would be to burn them to high quality CDR and/or DVDR (as mentioned earlier).

This post has been edited by lex: Jun 29 2012, 11:39 PM

Nope, most HDDs do not simply park the head in case of vibrations. Otherwise the HDD would be parking the head so often that it slows down the HDD totally. Do you realize that without that cushion of air, the read/write head would simply touch/scrape/crash into the platter surface? That cushion of air is created by the platter spinning at high speeds. The air cushion gap between the read/write head and the platter surface is microscopic. If ever the spin speed slows down (due to bad/failing motor, insufficient/inconsistent power supply, etc) and could not maintain that cushion of air then a head crash can occur (scraping the delicate platter surface as a result). Anyway, any additional vibrations are not good for the HDD especially when the HDD is running.

You could try Poslaju. Should be cheaper than other courier services...

Can't really "low level format" HDDs nowadays, all the software can do is to command the drive to remap bad sectors with spare sectors. However if the drive runs out of spare sectors, then bad sectors will remain. As for Seatools, you'll have to try it out yourself, since Samsung has already been taken under Seagate's wings. Not sure if the latest Seatools supports Samsung drives. Other than that, ye olde DOS-based Seagate Disk Manager is another nice utility.

Some of those software are Microsoft Steady State (EOL'ed), Rollback RX, Faronics DeepFreeze?, Norton GoBack (EOL'ed) and the defunct FirstDefense-Rescue.

This post has been edited by lex: Jul 6 2012, 01:51 AM

What was their (ie. Achieva Tech) response? Will they provide the courier service (ie. send to Singapore) themselves?

Nope, these software doesn't really do byte by byte image copy. Instead they rely on spare hard drive space to record changes made to the hard drive. If any problems (such as serious virus infection where all files are damaged, acccidental mass deletions, etc) then these software can roll back immediately to the original file data. This is different from Windows own "System Restore" method.

Thanks for the insight. Looks like all Western Digital HDD RMAs will be handled by Achieva...

You could check downloadable online price lists. Last time I've checked, its around RM690+...

All of them, or one particular model? By the way that SV35 is not meant for desktop/PC usage. You may get data "errors" (missed data) due to its design. Also for the other HDDs, there could other factors such as heat, vibration, bad PSU (e.g. unstable rails, high ripples, etc), bad connectors (e.g. loose, dust/dirt,oxidation, etc), etc...

Possible internal damage, especially the HDD mechanism internally. What's the brand/model of that external HDD? As for data recovery, try inquiring these professional data recovery services...

- MDR Data Recovery Solution
- Adroit Data Recovery Centre
- Seamax Data Recovery
- Ontrack Data Recovery, Singapore
- Data Recovery Center

Note: These professional data recovery services are rather expensive, expect the pricing to be in the hundreds if not thousands...

I've often stressed before that do not rely on external HDDs as a backup device. IMHO, the best backup is either to use redundancy (have another HDD for duplication of your data), and/or burn your data into high quality CDR/DVDR media. Please note that not all CDR/DVDR media are made equal. If you want to use CDR/DVDR media then ask me on which are the reliable ones.

Could be many sources of damage. If the connectors are internally damaged then there's a chance to retrieve the data yourself. However if you can't find any other physical external damage, then most likely the HDD inside has been damaged (possibly the read/write head). In the latter case (ie. HDD damaged), there's little you can do except to look for (expensive) professional data recovery services...

If your Anime collection is considered "the precious" then next time burn a copy into good DVD+R media for backup (recommended).

Lots of course. Just backup those you think are best kept, the rest which are not so important can slowly backup later. I've had many CDRs and DVDRs survived for years. So far there are only very few brand/models CDRs and DVDRs that can be recommended (able to retain data very well), while the rest is junk.

The problem with HDDs is that they can suddenly fail and all your "precious" goes to the grave with it. Unless you have two HDDs for redundancy (with identical data on both drives).

This post has been edited by lex: Aug 7 2012, 11:41 PM

Try posting your problems at the Computers -> Technical Support section...

Please post your problem at the Computers -> Technical Support section...

This post has been edited by lex: Sep 6 2012, 12:29 AM

Are you using a desktop PC, or notebook/laptop?

Seagate SV35 is a consumer hard drive designed for video recording and playback, not for data storage. Thus not recommended. Using these type of consumer drives may result in data errors and corruption. That's because these drives skips sectors that are slow to read (in other words, missing data). On conventional desktop hard drive, they will re-read slow sectors to ensure data is always correct and complete.

Hard drive longevity is really a lottery draw. Often factors such as PSU stability, heat and vibration can affect the hard drive lifespan. Sometimes even with the best of care, hard drive can suddenly start failing out of the blue. As usual, practice redundancy (have a secondary backup drive duplicating/mirroring the contents) and/or backup data to high quality reliable CD/DVD media to minimize data loss in case of hard drive failure.