From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 5 08:01:24 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4265216A41F for ; Wed, 5 Oct 2005 08:01:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sandy@krvarr.bc.ca) Received: from szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca [142.179.111.232]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C537343D46 for ; Wed, 5 Oct 2005 08:01:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sandy@krvarr.bc.ca) Received: from szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (8.13.1/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j95811gM001408; Wed, 5 Oct 2005 01:01:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sandy@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca) Received: (from sandy@localhost) by szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (8.13.1/8.12.11/Submit) id j95811ll001405; Wed, 5 Oct 2005 01:01:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sandy) From: Sandy Rutherford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17219.34877.306826.523289@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca> Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 01:01:01 -0700 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <001f01c5c980$a3030c50$0c64a8c0@opteron> References: <000301c5c97c$5b735560$0c64a8c0@opteron> <2926BCC8-0AF2-483E-BDB1-CF2E30EC4558@shire.net> <001f01c5c980$a3030c50$0c64a8c0@opteron> X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under Emacs 21.3.1 X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@krvarr.bc.ca for more information. X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner: Not scanned: please contact postmaster@krvarr.bc.ca for details. X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner-From: sandy@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca Cc: Subject: Re: Stored hard drive failure? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:01:24 -0000 >>>>> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 00:44:36 -0700, >>>>> "K Anderson" said: > Not sure how long I'm storing them (See above question where I asked -- How > long can the HD sit on the shelf... and the other questions seemed to be > editted out). But you're right the info could become out-of-date unless when > I did patch management then I would pull the stored HD off the shelf and > hope that it didn't fail because of non-use and re-mirror the main drive > then stored the secondary back on the shelf. But then that really doens't > hit the other two questions that were editted out. > Perhaps if somebody had experience with doing the very scenario I thought > of. I know HDs can be touchy but how touchy can they get if they are just > sitting on the shelf waiting for resuse and me going, darn that HD is bad > now that it sat on the shelf for X number of [days|weeks|months|years]. See the thread: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=642921+0+/usr/local/www/db/text/2005/freebsd-questions/20050911.freebsd-questions I have definitely noticed a higher failure rate among drives that have been stored for a number of months. I can't give you any hard numbers, nor should you really believe them even if I did, because this depends on age of the drive, model, design, etc. If you are serious about data redundancy, why not simply set up RAID 1 volumes? They will provide much better redundancy, at a minimal extra cost, and with less work required on your part to maintain the mirrors. Sandy