After doing some GOOGLE research I found out that these drives last 3 years on average. If this is correct I fail to understand why I do any BACK-UP if I can loose all info after 3 years?
I assumed that info would be safe for a long time.
Have now installed another INTERNAL drive and back up with WINDOWS BACK-UP
Any suggestions ? Ideas? What am I getting wrong? Should I back-up the Back-Up…?
I also have a WD TV Live Hub , 1TB, Will I loose a1000+ pictures after 3 years?
Bruno
Not sure why you find that hard to believe? With any hard drive, not just WD, failure rates start to go up a lot after the third year. Do you leave yours plugged in and running all the time? Or do you only plug it in to use it? How long do you expect a hard drive to last? And you said yours has ‘failed’, but didn’t explain how? Are you sure the hard drive failed? What happens when you plug it in? If you provide some details, we may be able to help you.
If all your data is only available in one location (Even if it is an external hard drive) then by definition you do not have a backup. A backup is a secondary copy available at once in a separate location. This means the moment you erase data from your internal hard drive to make space you are effectively transforming a backup into a primary copy that needs a backup.
1-The drive was no longer recognized by windows
2- After some connect/reconnects it stated that it needs to be formatted ( erase all) then it again did not recognize it and noted an I/o defect
3- Checking the web this is a more or less clearly an internal failure.
4- I opened it but the USB connection is part of the PASSPORT drive ,so I cannot test the drive itself.
The new WD passport drives have a 3 year warrantee and probably only last 3-4 years.
I have several computers that have been running for 20+ years with original SATA MAXTOR harddrives. with XP and now Win 7.
A Back-up drive does not always run…only when backing up!
WD is on the bottom of the list for lifespan on the web, not very comforting
PS: Windows-BACK-UP will back -up on external and internal drives. Internal ( 2nd or 3rd drives) will back-up at specific times and do not need to run continuously and are safe if the main drive fails.
