My Seagate Freeagent 500 GB external Hard Disk failed to start, taking with it data that I had stored as critical for my work and important for my personal requirements. Let me introduce you to this hardware. The hard disk I am talking about is rarely used, bought from Dell US a year ago and rested comfortably, most unused through the year in my electronics wardrobe filled with gadgets of all shapes and sizes. Last week I tried to turned it on but it just refused to amuse me. No woosh, no flicker. It just won’t boot up. I had bought up a few external hard drives for variety of purposes last year. One to transfer data, other to store my downloaded data. But I am left very confused after this harrowing experience and very pissed with Seagate’s hardware. But the larger question looms, where do I backup my data easily, securely and confidently.
I used DVD’s and CD’s to store backups. Up To 30% of CD-Rs Fail Within a Few Years. TechARP found a failure rate near 10% for CD-Rs recorded 7 to 9 years ago, after storage in ideal conditions. Well actuallt the rate is much higher. The few that work, on some, one or more individual files could not be recovered; others were not reliably readable on two separate drives.
With external hard-disc’s becoming unreliable I am left with pain in my head and sadness in my eyes over the information that seems to have been lost forever.
