Best (most dependable) external harddrive for archiving?

[Picture North Carolina]

Now that seagate assimilated maxtor, I'm looking for a new brand of external USB harddrive to use for archiving. I don't really want to use standard consumer stuff like seagate or western digital. I'm looking for something a step above normal Office Depot consumer-grade stuff.

Any suggestions?

[MaxxuM]

How much you thinking about spending? A step up from consumer grade stuff can get pretty expensive.

[Palladium]

Only keep your eternal HD "on" when your actually using it - I only use ones that have a dedicated ON/OFF switch.

I never use the ones that automatically turn on when the CPU turns on - YMMV.

[Picture North Carolina]

How much you thinking about spending? A step up from consumer grade stuff can get pretty expensive.

Well, considering the importance of the documents we photographers archive, I think the investment is mandatory. Losing your favorite MP3 is survivable, the loss of important picture archives are not.

I do not know if harddrives are still measured with MTBF specs as they used to be, but if they are, I would want one with good specs and a very good reputation.

Only keep your eternal HD "on" when your actually using it - I only use ones that have a dedicated ON/OFF switch.

I never use the ones that automatically turn on when the CPU turns on - YMMV.

I do. The drive is not only not on, but not even cabled to the system when not used.

This whole question derived because of Seagate. I used to trust Maxtor. Went to the store, found they were no longer available. Saw the FreeAgents. Went home, did research, looked good, bought one.

Total, complete, unquestionable typical seagate crap. First time I used it I got the unable to write cashed data error. Did research. Reports of freeagent problems are everywhere.

I've always had problems with and hated seagate equipment, and this adventure with freeagent reminded me why. I'm not about to entrust important images to a low-quality piece of garbage, so the investment into a good drive or two is worth it.

[MaxxuM]

Well, considering the importance of the documents we photographers archive, I think the investment is mandatory. Losing your favorite MP3 is survivable, the loss of important picture archives are not.

I do not know if harddrives are still measured with MTBF specs as they used to be, but if they are, I would want one with good specs and a very good reputation.

A cost effective method (one that I use) is not to depend on any one system. I backup on HDD then to tape or DVD and then store those in a vault (only 45$/yr for a large box - first year was free with new checking account).

I would have an external array with two containers (2-3TB each), one mirroring the other, a tape drive that makes a full backup once a month and a differential every day and then store the tapes in the safe deposit box. One box could store more than 200 tapes. We use Xsan/Apple and Dell Array/PowerEdge solutions and between the two the Apple servers have lost less drives, but the Dell's get twice the data moved across them. IME drives fail and they'll do it at the worst of times. Tape is the way to go unless you can afford a data jukeboxes which can run into the hundreds of thousands, but you'd still need off site backup.

And most do have MBTF for professional lines, you just have to find them. Consumer grade stuff stopped caring after 50,000 hours because it was beyond the scope or need of the average user. If you can find the white papers, most companies still test their drive failure rates, they may call it something different too.

[tim]

I don't believe there's anything significantly more reliable that consumer drives. You can buy enterprise drives, but they're essentially the same thing.

Multiple levels of backup are mandatory for professionals. If you want to be paranoid keep hard disk and dvd onsite and offsite, and keep a copy on S3 or similar.

[ocabj]

Get a Thermaltake dock:

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1346

Then just use standard 3.5" internal SATA drives. Cheaper than constantly buying external drives, especially if all you're doing is archiving.

Just copy to the drive and when done, put the drive on a shelf.

[Picture North Carolina]

Thanks, all for the replies. Very helpful. Yes, I presently do redundant on/off site backups to DVD. However, I still depend upon the harddrive as the main backup. If a pic is needed, it's much easier to pull a harddrive off a shelf than dealing with DVDs. Plus, even tho a harddrive is rebuildable, it's a royal PITA to build a 500GB drive from 4.3GB DVDs. Thanks.