How long will a hard drive last for an archive?

Question

I have all of my family's history digitized and cataloged on my hard drive. It is taking about 120gigs and I really do not feel like burning a bunch of DVDs. If I just use an external hard drive, park it, wrap it up in the bag it was shipped in, how long would it last in storage?

Robin - Absolutely fascinating and well detailed answer. I would pick yours for best, but think I will wait for other possible responses as you have noted.
Some really great stuff there... where do I begin? You are right about Blue Ray, but as I always do with new technology, I will wait for the prices to come down to a reasonable level. I'm experimenting with HD videotaping now, so will be watching Blue Ray and DVD HD closely.
Yes, I will be storing the hard drive inside my parents safe so it should be a stable environement. Gradually, however, I should back up to DVD-R for redundancy.
Awesome - Thanks!

Answer 1

NEW THOUGHTS ---

I have been thinking about how " I " would do this, and the easiest
way I can think of is to use bootdisk.com to get a win98se boot
disk, and partition the drive using FDISK into two parts - the biggest part would be C:, and a D: just over 1/2 the size of C:
( 2/3rds to 1/3rd roughly... ) This way you could use an older, simpler version of NORTON GHOST - about 2K3, which was given away free with many motherboards, and make your archive on C: in
FAT32. Then, using ghost ( General Hardware Oriented System Transfere ) you use ghost ON A FLOPPY, to create a compressed image on D: -- You can then use the floppy, in any computer ( boot from the Ghost floppy ) to get around NTFS problems, and re-magnetize C: a few times by taking the compressed image and placing it on C:. You could do this 5 times in a row to start with....
Then, you could make an image of C: every 10 or 15 years, and
re-magnetize C: with the Ghost floppy another 5 times to refresh
the magnetic domains on a continual basis... The domains would
magnetize EXACTLY in the same place over and over, making
them very stable ( compared to writing on a platter that is continually over-written with different data on a frequent basis...)
It would be nice to have a harddrive designer comment, but I don't think any would be on this forum...

OLDER POSTING ----
___________________________________________________

WOW... this is a really good question -- one I have not heard asked for about 20 or 30 years ... !

The answer has to do with the saturation of the Magnetic fields on
the harddrive's surface, and with magnetic migration, which takes place slowly on all magnetic mediums.
Believe it or not, the old 5 1/4 inch big, black floppies had such huge tracks with such huge, crude magnetic fields, that the data
written on them in 1980 is readable today - iff the disks were new,
properly formatted, and written just once, and read on the SAME machine...
Since today's harddrives are a thousand times more dense, and the tracks are closer together, there is a real amount of magnetic migration, where the closely packed NORTH/ SOUTH magnetic
regions start to affect each other- not only beside each other on a single ring or track, but on neighbouring tracks.
I can't give you an exact figure without looking at the EXACT specifications listed with your EXACT model number....

The other answer above, states to use the Manufacturer's 5 year
guarantee, but in your case you are not speaking of MTBF ( Mean time between Failure ) which is used as a basis for a RUNNING harddrive, and hence the guarantee period, since your drive will be packaged away... The information YOU WANT is EXTREMELY TECHNICAL, and may not even be listed on the common spec sheets.
In the 1980's when a 10 MEG harddrive ( called a Winchester, since the model number was the same as a Winchester Rifle,
by co-incidence) was " the in- thing ", there was a great deal of concern over the reliability and longevity of the medium and concerns of Corporate data intergrity and security -- just like the
" NEW and Exciting" CD's that came out years later, and the
HUGE controversy over whether or not the data would fade or deteriorate in 5 years or thirty years or 300 years etc....
Even when the 5 1/4 inch black floppy came out, there was a
backlash against its use by the " real" floppy users - those who used the " standard, reliable " 8 inch black floppies... I used these 8 inch floppies in older machines such as the TRS 80's from Radio Shack. There are even larger floppies than 8 inch, with
a few a couple of feet square.... With each reduction in size, and
increase in data density, there always seems to be a flood of criticism that the " new and improved" format will suddenly destroy data randomly... I have yet to see this actually happen.

I have hundreds of computers. ( See my website kidbots.com).
Many ARE, the 10 MEG winchester type, and have untouched
data on them from the 1980's, in perfect condition. Many have been outside in 110 degree heat, and minus 45 degree cold for years in storage. As long as they are slowly brought to room temperature before turning on, they all work.
Today's computers have vastly smaller magnetic domains, so that you would think that the integrity of the data would be less stable, however, the magnetic particles and the quality of the
magnetic elements used to make the platters, is vastly improved.
I would estimate that the 30 years that the "OLD, slow, poor quality" drive data has lasted would be equaled so that regardless
of the "guaranteed" data time, you probably would be ok. You really should follow the suggestion above and go to the TECHNICAL SPECS on the drive's web page. If you are serious,
CONTACT US on the manufacturer's website and ask for more
technical details on the subject. I remember when DOOM sayers
perdicted that CD's, once burned, would fail in 3 years -- I have original CD's, burned at the ORIGINAL " ONE " speed, on a $5000 Original burner, on a $30 blank, on a 286, and these CD's read just fine, and it has been a LONG time over the " 3 year limit" -- a quarter of a CENTURY or so... ,
If you are REALY Serious, I would do a FACTORY ZERO before recording the data, using typically DISK MANAGER ( FUJI ) or
MAXBLAST ( Maxtor ) etc. etc. so that the magnetic medium is all aligned to zero, so that the data will be placed in clear domains
without previous, partial, imprints. You may even do the Factory Zero about 5 times ( this might take a day or two ) or more...

Great question.... I hope a harddrive repair center EXPERT goes on your question and fills in a few obsqure details about newer technologies that I am unaware of...
Another suggestion might be to mirror the drive, and re-copy the entire drive image every 10 years or so, to re-magnetize the domains...

My own guess, would be that you are probably ok for 25 or 30 years, if the medium is new, Zeroed, and written ONCE. The more steady the storage conditions, the better as well, since freezing and over-heating has negative metallurgical affects on " any " metal, including a harddrive platter....

Hope this gives you few ideas to work with...

I am marking your answer on my watch list, since this is interesting...

FINALLY, the new BLUE RAY ( just another name for a DVD with
a BLUE laser instead of a RED laser, since, in a typical rainbow,
the red is on one end ( the LONG, BIG Wavelengths ) and the Blue colour is on the other side of the bands of the rainbow ( the SHORT, Small, wavelengths )... This results in the laser being 10 times smaller, so the holes on the DVD are ten times smaller, so that 10 more data can be burned on the same DVD.
OR, instead of roughly 5 GIG, the BLUE RAY can burn 50 GIG on a single disk. These " BLUE RAY"s are out now, and you can check tigerdirect or fry's or any big computer retailer to see what the current price is. Since the first ONE SPEED CD burners were about $2000 ( extra features such as a MEG or two of ram,
and other proprietary ISA DRIVE Cards and SOFTWARE would bring you up to 4 or 5 thousand !!! ), the hundreds of dollars for a BLUE RAY is peanuts !! Three disks would store all your data...

good luck

robin

Answer 2

get on the hard drive manufacture's website and find its manual to see the min and max temperature it should be stored in and sure you store it in a dry place. typically hard drive has a life span of at least 5 years as least that's what segate's warranty =) but DVD would be more wise as it last at least 10~15 years, but the thing is, who knows what the technology will be there =]