Growing pile of dead external drives. Help!
I've got several drives that have died over the last year or so. I've got six or seven drives hooked up to my iMac that I use for storage, backing up etc, and it seems like one just dies every six months or so. Maybe one a year. What happens is it suddenly doesn't show up on the desktop anymore, and it never stops churning. I try connecting any of these dead drives to another one of our macs, macbook pro, etc, but it behaves the same way.
Is there anything to be done about this? I'm thinking of getting a Drobo system, rather than buying new drives so often.
Is there any special software for dealing with drives in a state like this? Or a place you can take them to to see if they can be fixed? (I have all the data backed up, so that's not an issue. I've called the manufacturer (lacie) but I think they're all out of warrantee, though they're only a couple of years old.
Help! And thanks.
Is there anything to be done about this? I'm thinking of getting a Drobo system, rather than buying new drives so often.
Is there any special software for dealing with drives in a state like this? Or a place you can take them to to see if they can be fixed? (I have all the data backed up, so that's not an issue. I've called the manufacturer (lacie) but I think they're all out of warrantee, though they're only a couple of years old.
Help! And thanks.
Comments
It sounds like you need a proper NAS.
I'm not at all impressed with the longevity of individual external hard drives. It seems like the cheap power brick fails and fries the thing, or the controller board in the enclosure fails, or the little fan dies and it overheats. Or it gets dropped or shaken, which is very very bad for a hard drive.
You might be able to save some or most of the drives. If the power adapters or USB controller boards are failing, you can crack the enclosures, take the drives out, and put them in new enclosures. In the long run, however, something like a Drobo or a personal storage server might make your life easier.
Yes, sorry. NAS is Net Attached Storage, which preferably runs some sort of RAID on 2-4+ hard drives and shares their storage to all computers on the network. For the technically illiterate (no offense) a Drobo is probably a good substitute.
I'm not at all impressed with the longevity of individual external hard drives. It seems like the cheap power brick fails and fries the thing, or the controller board in the enclosure fails, or the little fan dies and it overheats. Or it gets dropped or shaken, which is very very bad for a hard drive.
You might be able to save some or most of the drives. If the power adapters or USB controller boards are failing, you can crack the enclosures, take the drives out, and put them in new enclosures. In the long run, however, something like a Drobo or a personal storage server might make your life easier.