Disc storage

[John L]

Yahoo carried the following news story today. I am trying to understand better the comments about the problems of hard drive storage, which relate to the wearing out of "disc bearing." What exactly does that refer to? Does worn out disc bearing actually damage the MP3 files that are stored, or does it just affect the functioning of the hard drive, thus increasing the probability of a crash and implying the need for a replacement? My plan is to back up my hard drive with another hard drive. What risks do I run in doing that?

John Blau, IDG News Service

Tue Jan 10, 8:00 AM ET

Opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs. Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, has his own view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime.

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"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.

Similar Limitations

Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and, consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan to new storage technologies.

"Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."

[neveronfriday]

Just keep your CD-Rs warm and you won't have to worry about disk bearings.

I've so far experienced the death of 5 drives in my PC life (which has been a long one). As far as I understand it, bearings effect the harddisk lifespan but not the accuracy of saved files.

************************

It's always a good idea to backup your HD to another one. I've started using 200 or 300 GB USB HDs which are cheaper for me in the longrun. I don't need to spend hours burning stuff and I don't have to use tons of valuable shelf space for CD-Rs.

So, I've set up a chain of three disks for my HD backup. If one of the USB drives fail, I've got two more.

The initial investment is a bit stiff, but once you got it setup, you just have to dish out a relatively small amount when a USB drive fails. So far, all three have been without error.

These three disks are for my important and main production files.

I have more for my music. I was lucky enough to get some Samsung Spinpoints (250GB) at totally discounted prices and had money in the bank.

Since I've started using USB HDs I haven't looked back and haven't got a worry in the world anymore whereas before I always (!) had some backup CDRs that failed when needed.

[John L]

Thanks for that reply. That sounds a bit like the system that I want to set up.

John

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD. There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more.

Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years. Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years.

This is simply not true. I have many CD-Rs that are well over 10 years old. I have been using a PC burner since late 1994. I have several music CD-Rs and many system back up CD-Rs from then. I have never had one fail over time.

I have had a couple of CD-Rs that failed right away, but both of those were backups done by someone else on cheapo, no-name blanks from CompUSA. One had the metal peel off when I left it in the PC's drive overnight.

If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one.

This is probably true. However, there are something like 6 hardrive makers left in the world and I have never heard of one using better bearings than the other. All of them seem to making their drives cheaper and cheaper. I see no way to know in advance which drive has better logevity than another. Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba... they all seem to have failures in the field.

Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media.

Magnetic media is pretty safe. I wouldn't rely on it exclsuively. It is slow as heck to pull the data off of it though. I wouldn't call it superior.

My biggest concern these days is DVD+R media life. I switched my data back-ups to DVD+R a little over a year ago. Recently, I tried playing a DVD video that I had backed up to DVD+R. It kept stopping. It was burned a few months ago. Now I am worrying about my data back-ups.

Kevin

[John L]

Yes. Come to think of it, a lot of my CDRs are well over 5 years old, and I have had very few problems. Now I am ripping them up to my external hard drive for what I hope will be permanent digital storage in one form or another.

Another questions: Bearing wear would presumably be more a function of how much a hard drive is used than of the age of the hard drive itself. Right? Would this mean that a back-up hard drive that is never used should not experience bearing wear?

Edited January 11, 2006 by John L

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Another questions: Bearing wear would presumably be more a function of how much a hard drive is used than of the age of the hard drive itself. Right? Would this mean that a back-up hard drive that is never used should not experience bearing wear?

Makes sense to me, John. If you were to buy an external HD and dumped a ton of important data to it and then shut it off and tossed it into a closet, ten years from now the bearing isn't going to fail.

I have had great luck with my home PC hardrive. I never shut off the CPU. I only shut off the monitor. I have read that the most wear & tear on a hardrive is during the boot procedure. I has to grab thousands of files from all over the drive as fast as possible. It's this rapid jumping around that causes failures.

[John L]

Interesting. Thanks, Kevin.

[Peter]

For you folks that have your music on hard drives, is it possible to hook-up the hard drive to a conventional stereo? Can you play music directly off the HD to something other than a computer?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

For you folks that have your music on hard drives, is it possible to hook-up the hard drive to a conventional stereo? Can you play music directly off the HD to something other than a computer?

Yes. That is what I do. I am physically located across the ocean from my CD collection these days. But I already have a good part of it ripped to my hard drive. I just hook a one-pronged to two-pronged chord up from my computer to my stereo and presto! You can do the same thing with an iPod.

John, what does "one-pronged to two-pronged chord" mean?? Are you talking about hooking up your mp3 music player?

I think what Peter is asking is if you can hook up an external PC's hardrive directly to a stereo. I know of no way to do this. Most external hardrives hook up to the PC using USB, firewire or eSATA. I don't have a stereo that accepts any of these inputs and if it did, how would it "play" the files?

[John L]

For you folks that have your music on hard drives, is it possible to hook-up the hard drive to a conventional stereo? Can you play music directly off the HD to something other than a computer?

Yes. That is what I do. I am physically located across the ocean from my CD collection these days. But I already have a good part of it ripped to my hard drive. I just hook a one-pronged to two-pronged chord up from my computer to my stereo and presto! You can do the same thing with an iPod.

John, what does "one-pronged to two-pronged chord" mean?? Are you talking about hooking up your mp3 music player?

I think what Peter is asking is if you can hook up an external PC's hardrive directly to a stereo. I know of no way to do this. Most external hardrives hook up to the PC using USB, firewire or eSATA. I don't have a stereo that accepts any of these inputs and if it did, how would it "play" the files?

Oops, I realized that fact and deleted my post just as you were posting. iPods and other MP3 players can be hooked up directly to a stereo. I imagine that it is certainly possible to manufacture a large hard drive that is also an MP3 player. Yet I know of none.

"one-pronged to two-pronged chord" - can hook up either your computer or an MP3 player to a stereo.

Edited January 12, 2006 by John L

[spinlps]

I think the closes approximation to Peter's request would be a small form factor PC with a sound card providing audio outputs. You'll still need KB, mouse, monitor though.

Another option is to stream the music from your PC to your stereo wirelessly. You'll need a wireless card for the PC and one of the many wireless media components for the stereo. Most of these components have small LCD screens which allow browsing through your media library.

Last, switch to a laptop with the aforementioned portable USB drives. As long as the laptop has audio outputs, you should be able to hook it up to your stereo.

And if you're going the external USB drive route, it should be fairly affordable if you DYI. External hard drive cases run in the $20 - $40 range and high capacity 3.5" drives are steadily decreasing in price. The one touch backup feature is nice on the pre-built models, but nothing you can't schedule in Windows or I assume the Mac.

[mgraham333]

I haven't seen one in action yet, but the ROKU Soundbridge is an option if you have a wireless network.

[Peter]

Yes, I was hoping it was possible to hook-up a HD right to a stereo. I gotta believe it'll be possible in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

[mgraham333]

Yes, I was hoping it was possible to hook-up a HD right to a stereo. I gotta believe it'll be possible in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

This has a harddrive in it.