Why I Use TWO USB Backup Drives

[Bigaldoc]

Why You Should Wear A Belt And Suspenders

Or another subtitle: Why I Keep TWO USB Drives For Backup!

I've used external hard drives to make computer backups for quite some time. It got to the point that I needed larger drives on which to store my backups. My "policy" has been to use TWO drives which I alternate each week for safety sake.

In October 2008 I bought TWO USB Seagate 500 gig external drives on which to store my daily backup files. You may know that MOST of these kinds of products come with a ONE YEAR warranty and to buy additional warranty (in my opinion) is not financially practical. But based on what I'm about to tell you, maybe it IS practical and I've just been too blind to see it!

In March 2010 one of those drives failed and when a USB drive fails your computer becomes almost unusable until you unplug the bad drive. This failed drive occured at FIFTEEN months, beyond the warranty of course... Murphy's Law, right? Before I write the next paragraph I'll tell ya that it wasn't too long after the first failure, that the second of the two drives also gave up the ghost. So, my decision in the next statement was a wise one.

I ordered TWO Cavalry 500 gig drives in March 2010 and, after the second Seagate failure, I've been running these two Cavalry drives daily ever since. Until TODAY that is!

This morning, FIFTEEN months after purchase, one of the two Cavalry drives failed, locking up my computer tighter than a drum until I unplugged it. You guessed it - the warranty was 12 months! I got a message popup in the system tray that the drive was "unwriteable" or some such and the computer wouldn't do anything until I unplugged the offending drive. At least the message told me which drive letter the problem was so I knew what to unplug!

I can't help but come to the conclusion the 15 months is about the useful life of a USB external drive, so I do believe I'll put an entry on my calender 15 months from now to order two more. I am still resolved to do my backups to USB drives because they have bailed me out numerous times. If only the "technology" was a little longer lasting...

[viking33]

Al,
Do you have enough room to install two internal HDs?
I don't have any experience with USB drives but my INTERNAL drives sure do last longer than 15 months. Plus you don't have the "hassle" of plugging and unplugging and not taking up any desk space.
Just a thought.

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks for the comments, Bob. My motherboard is SATA and I've already got two drives (the max) installed. I haven't investigated the EIDE capabilites simply because I've preferred the USB externals.

The desk space doesn't bother me and I don't plug or unplug them - they stay active all the time.

But, at this rate I may have to consider other alternatives such as you suggest.

[John Gray]

ONLY two?!

[PaulB]

Sounds like the perfect opportunity to upgrade to USB 3 external HDDs. Seems like these are about the only external USB drives that the local Costco is now flogging. Still (almost) as cheap and much faster transfer rates than USB 2. If your computer doesn't support USB 3, there are a lot of add-in PCIe USB 3 cards available.

Thought I had the perfect opportunity to upgrade this morning when I saw that my full image ShadowProtect backups failed last night but, dang it, it was only because I forgot to edit the backup job!

[BobArch2]

Or another subtitle: Why I Keep TWO USB Drives For Backup!... If only the "technology" was a little longer lasting...

Hi Al,

I know we all have our favorite pieces of hardware... Seagates appears to be yours. I also have two external USB drives. The difference is I elected to buy the enclosure and hard drive separately and assemble them myself. The enclosures are Vantec NexStars while my hard drive of choice is Western Digital. WD comes in three flavours... Black, Blue and Green. The Blue and Green have three year warranties while the Blacks have 5 years. I use the Black version and have never been disappointed. As I said, we each have our own favourites... not trying to switch ya to WDC!!!

P.S. Of my two externals, one is USB 3.0 and the other is USB 2.0 As Paul mentioned, perhaps time to try USB 3.0? My new system has USB 3.0 ports and the backups fly compared to USB 2.0. USB 3.0 add-on cards are available.

[PaulB]

Bob, could you give us your impression of the speed of USB 3 relative to USB 2?

[BobH]

Dittos on the WD drives. I've had so many Seagate drives fail that I can't even remember how many. My WD's (top of the line, always) haven't let me down.

I wonder, too, if the constant attachment of external USB drives didn't have something to do with their shortened life. Do the have any cooling device? Many external drives do not. I have several external drives attached via USB but they are all in cases with fans. They run when the computer runs, but that is not constantly.

FWIW

[ChrisGreaves]

I wonder, too, if the constant attachment of external USB drives didn't have something to do with their shortened life.

I figure plugging in/out each day can't do much good for my drives, two different makes (THAT's what belt-AND-suspenders means!).
Each evening 6pm-ish I grab them from the fire-proof box in the other room, plug them in (power and USB cable each) flick the switches, run the DOS backup job, flick the switches, Yank the cords, and drop them back into the fire-proof box.
Been doing that daily (7/365) for two or more years now ...

A little cartoon I commissioned from a local artist years ago:-

BackUp004.JPG

See also Back All and
Backups

There's a good joke in there somewhere about a well-known North American parcel-delivery service being put into reverse and crushing a hard-drive ...

[Bigaldoc]

I love the story about Bernie and the thousand bucks!

[ChrisGreaves]

I love the story about Bernie and the thousand bucks!

I use that line often.
No-one has ever taken me up on it.
The funny part is that usually I don't have $1,000 on hand, unless I've not paid my rent yet ...

[Bigaldoc]

Funny thing about it is that TWICE in the past couple of months when I was "counseling" someone about backup importance, I got the same response from both people. It was something like "...all I have of importance on the computer is my pictures and I have all those stored on CDs..."

I wish I'd thought to offer them mebbe $500 bucks (not $1,000) to see if they'd be willing to part with the PC.

[ChrisGreaves]

mebbe $500 bucks (not $1,000) to see if they'd be willing to part with the PC.

Trust me, Al, One Thousand has the impact you need, plus you'll easily recoup it when you charge them for ferreting out the stuff they wish they'd backedup.

[BobH]

. . . plus you'll easily recoup it when you charge them for ferreting out the stuff they wish they'd backedup.

You are a SLY old fox, Chris! (It's REALLY hard to type when you've got one hand on your wallet )

There is much wisdom and darned good advice in what you've posted. I wonder, though, what you think of USB powered external drives that are always attached? In my experience, these devices have no fans or other means of cooling. Heat is the eventual destroyer of things electronic. Wouldn't it make sense to invest a few more bucks in a powered housing to get a fan - or other cooling capability - for USB drives that are 'always' on? I agree entirely that fans are not needed for drives that are only attached for the duration of a back up.

[BobArch2]

Bob, could you give us your impression of the speed of USB 3 relative to USB 2?

Hi Paul... and other interested parties...

Here are some snapshots that tell the story.

This first lot shows timings related to using the Copy and Paste commands. There are 97 "movie" files totaling 15,971,876,864 bytes.

Copy_USB2.gif

Total time to copy: 55 minutes 46 seconds / Relative speed: 4,773,424 bytes/second

Copy_USB3.gif

Total time to copy: 5 minutes 6 seconds / Relative speed: 52,195,676 bytes/second

Copy_IntHD.gif

Total time to copy: 3 minutes 37 seconds / Relative speed: 73,603,119 bytes/second

Second message to follow regarding backup timings, since only three attachments are allowed.

[BobArch2]

Bob, could you give us your impression of the speed of USB 3 relative to USB 2?

Part II... timings related to using ShadowProtect to backup my System drive.

System drive specs:

SSD.gif

Note that SP bypasses the hibernation file when backups are created. Timings shown in Part III of this message.

[BobArch2]

Bob, could you give us your impression of the speed of USB 3 relative to USB 2?

Part III ShadowProtect backup timings:

SSD_USB2.gif

SSD_USB3.gif

SSD_IntHD.gif

Hope this provides what you are looking for... if you want more let me know.

All timings were run today with identical input datasets.

[Bigaldoc]

Bob: Wow! That's impressive stuff! Thanks for doing all this work! I hope it will be of help to MANY others besides me.

You've created a dilemma for me, mostly about the USB 3 cards. I don't know if they would perform as well as your "native" USB 3 computer, so I've got some digging to do.

BTW, you did misunderstand my my original post in that I HATE Seagate and would NEVER buy another such labeled drive. They were much more trouble than they were worth and support from Seagate was absolutely useless!

The times you show in your material are REALLY impressive although I have to admit I've not been concerned about times since I let my Saturday full backup run while I fix supper and my nightly incrementals take only seconds.

The "thing" for me is the short life of the USB externals and now I'm inclined to believe it MAY very well be a heat problem and I've got some thinking to do along those lines. I don't know whether I need to buy a couple of fan cooled enclosures and "build my own" or see what happens if I shut the two drives down in the morning and turn one back on for incremental when I go to bed at night.

This is turning out to be a very informative thread and I thank you very much for your WORK and contributions!

[PaulB]

Thanks for the information you provided, Bob. It certainly answered my query. Those are very impressive timings. The next sound you hear will be my front door slamming behind me on my way to the computer store.

It's not quite clear to me what you mean by your comment in one of your graphics:

USB3.JPG

I don't understand the relationship between USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s and why the throughput is ratcheted back to 3 Gb/s.

[ChrisGreaves]

You are a SLY old fox, Chris!

You flatterer, You!

external drives that are always attached?

Bingo.
Mine are attached ONLY during the backup session, say 6pm to 6:15pm.
When the master computer wraps up, it dismounts (TrueCrypt) the two encrypted external drives and the batch file disappears.
As I walk past the office i see "no dos batch file window open on the screen", power off the drives, unplug 'em and pop them back in their box.