Backup drives

[JHAG]

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I use a Sonnet 4 Tb as a backup.

The drives are not in an array, just independent, I prefer it that way for reasons I won't develop here.

Just a question : should the drives be kept just 75 % full or is 90-95 % full-full not an issue ?

I usually leave the HD of my Mac always at 75 % max.

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[wparsonsgisnet]

Johan, I don't believe there is any problem with mostly filling a drive. If you're worried about access speeds, you can always defragment them (do it overnight ). I have a number of drives that I'm using for backup, and I fill them as much as possible.

 

I use external, single drives, as well. They're cheap and don't rely on a single power source, for example.

 

I find that when drives fail, it's the stuff around the drive that goes. With a single exception (over the past 10 years), only one hard drive has actually failed in all my external drives. I have replaced the housing and controllers for three others that "failed" and the data was all accessible.

 

Regards,

[JHAG]

Hi, professor Parsons,

 

Thank you for the insight.

Does it mean the system disk only are better off not full up ?

Or is it one of those IT myths ?

 

So far, I had enough luck to never have even a single disk failing,

but I certainly torture them less than you do.

[whorg]

Keep drives at the most = 75% to capacity, this allows faster I/O and longer head life.

 

Defrag once per month, and run the process 3 times back-to-back for best results - this alone will speed up I/O a great deal. Run your disc check too for surface errors and bad sectors, it will tag them accordingly to avoid lost/damaged files.

 

~jk

[JHAG]

Inspector Whorg, thanks,

 

What do you use for defrag ?

I have Drive Genius, but for Tiger only, so I should upgrade to Leopard.

Is there a better alternative ?