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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Heres a question!

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I was putting together my set for friday and saturday night. I started thinking about the amount of usage the external gets. How long does an average HD last for a fulltime DJ. I know at work computers go out all the time. So is there a ruff estimate of time when you should think about investing in a new External.

I have had mine for about 3 years now and it's just about full. So I'm going to go buy a new one this weakend. Last night I finally got around to analyzing my HDD as a back up and have it hidden for that just in case with the external.
 
Posted Thu 25 Sep 08 @ 10:28 pm
think mine went at just over two years, then the new one went after three month, mind i fried that one.... lol, still sorting the mess out now.
 
I bought a Maxtor One Touch 500Gb several months ago mainly because it has a 5 year warranty. :-)
 
yeah maxtor/seagate don't like being fried... lol
 
Who knows how long they'll last. One thing you can count on, they crap out on you when you need them the most. Just buy two of whatever you chose and back everything up... often!
 
HAVE A BACKUP DRIVE (and laptop to boot)....you never know.

HDDs usually last quite a while under normal uses, though as DJs we tend to use our equipment un "abnormal" circumstances. Considering the drive isn't faulty, you can get quite a few years out our your externals. I have a Maxtor 250GB that I have been using since the fall of 2004, though now it is a backup. It still runs without a glitch. I actually dropped a Seagate drive down two flights of concrete steps, then sliding accross a subway platform and onto the tracks! I jumped down and retrieved it (no train was in sight, but still not a reccomended activity). That drive still works to this day, no problems.

Take care of your stuff, and it will take care of you. After all, it's how we make our money.
 
depends on how often you just yank the power cord or dont shut down properly (when you dont shut down proply or the power cuts the heads that read the disk just smash into the disk and damage the heads and disk also the Cash data waiting to be put on the disk can really muck it up as it gets confused!) nearly all HDD's have a SMART chip on them that records vital data like how good the hard drive is, condition, spin up time, read/write errors etc. all you need the the software, google SMART HDD software and you should find some (Active HDD moniter is good) it will give you a rough idea of what state your HDD's in so youl know if its gonna go on u anytime soon. (it is a rough guide and it could happen anytime but its better than nothing!) My HDD went after 3 years signs of it goin are random Blue screen crashes (normally NTFS.sys error) or data is corrupt, files are missing etc.
 
also in addition! if ur using a external HDD then write cashing will be disabled so this helps protect the disk in case of power cuts etc, but is slower (not that ive noticed tho! what windows says tho!) so a external in theroy is more reliable!
 
I spent 4 years using a 80 gb external hd. now im up to 4 hds. (80,40, 250 and 120). I have dj friends ho'v ben switching hd's more often than me, and ihardly turn them off, even when my pc is off. it's amzing how thermal exchange between the floor and your hard drive and the floor can reduce risks of data loss lol.
 
Also be very aware of how you are handling the drives when you move from gig to gig. Hard drives don't like being dropped, jiggled, or knocked around a lot, that will decrease the life of your drive significantly. Make sure your drive has as much protection when being transported as your laptop or your brand new baby boy or girl!
 


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