So, What Hard Drive Should I Buy?
Storage technology for digital files is changing as fast as capture and processing technology. When researching storage devices for your digital files, you have three considerations to take into account:
1. Reliability
2. Capacity
3. Speed
Reliability is the primary consideration since loss of data can be catastrophic, especially since hard drive capacity is pushing the 500 GB and 1 TB (terabyte [1000 GB]) range. Losing that much data could put a photographer out of business. Speed and capacity are more or less just conveniences.
So, how do you find out what hard drives are the most reliable or how they are put together? Many 500 GB and larger hard drives are actually a series of internally networked individual drives (4 125 GB drives, for example) rather than a single set of platters. These drives are set up in a non-mirrored RAID which spreads the data across all drives. This increases the speed of reading and writing data, but if one of the drives in the array fails all the data is lost. In some of the forums I participate in, there are several stories of these 500 GB drives failing (Lacie is one brand that seems to get a lot of attention in this regard). For larger capacity drives, even though prices keep coming down, it's a good idea to stay away from the bargain basement prices. If it seems too good to be true....
One website that provides excellent resources for hard drive and other storage information is StorageReview.com. At this site you can get news of upcoming products, search reliability reports, and participate in discussion forums.
As a digital photographer, the learning curve never seems to flatten out much. Keeping up with the times is hard, and selecting the resources to help you do that is just as difficult since there is so much good and bad information out there -- who do you trust?
It's your irreplaceable data, your family photos, your vacations, your business. Unfortunately, digital photography has placed most of the burden of protecting those assets squarely on your shoulders. Hopefully this resource will help make it easier for you.
Mike Shipman
1. Reliability
2. Capacity
3. Speed
Reliability is the primary consideration since loss of data can be catastrophic, especially since hard drive capacity is pushing the 500 GB and 1 TB (terabyte [1000 GB]) range. Losing that much data could put a photographer out of business. Speed and capacity are more or less just conveniences.
So, how do you find out what hard drives are the most reliable or how they are put together? Many 500 GB and larger hard drives are actually a series of internally networked individual drives (4 125 GB drives, for example) rather than a single set of platters. These drives are set up in a non-mirrored RAID which spreads the data across all drives. This increases the speed of reading and writing data, but if one of the drives in the array fails all the data is lost. In some of the forums I participate in, there are several stories of these 500 GB drives failing (Lacie is one brand that seems to get a lot of attention in this regard). For larger capacity drives, even though prices keep coming down, it's a good idea to stay away from the bargain basement prices. If it seems too good to be true....
One website that provides excellent resources for hard drive and other storage information is StorageReview.com. At this site you can get news of upcoming products, search reliability reports, and participate in discussion forums.
As a digital photographer, the learning curve never seems to flatten out much. Keeping up with the times is hard, and selecting the resources to help you do that is just as difficult since there is so much good and bad information out there -- who do you trust?
It's your irreplaceable data, your family photos, your vacations, your business. Unfortunately, digital photography has placed most of the burden of protecting those assets squarely on your shoulders. Hopefully this resource will help make it easier for you.
Mike Shipman
posted by Mike Shipman | 11:50:00 AM
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