unlike consumer drives which statistically are never replaced under guarantee
They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?
They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?
There is another paradox as well. Some people won't ask for replacement because assuming you have to send in the bricked drive there is the chance that someone might get at your data somehow.
What about that? (It's why I would never send in a drive that has failed.) [1]
[1] My assumption is that I would have to send in the bad drive (and there is no way to reformat or for me to easily destroy what might be on there). Anyone have experience with what happens here?
So for example you might want to encrypt something super sensitive (which I do) but decide to not encrypt something less sensitive (say photos or perhaps a wiki with notes or letters to your grandma or wife or sig other).
Point being that if the drive isn't encrypted you might be able to get at some of that data. (If you need to). If you've encrypted the drive then can you still do that?
I strongly recommend Tarsnap[1] for that. All your data is encrypted before it leaves your machine, it is run by our very own 'cperciva, and the key used for encryption (which you need to store securely somewhere, like your parents' house or a bank) can even be printed so hard to destroy accidentally.
The key itself can be encrypted, too. You can use the same password you use to encrypt the drive and now you safely and securely store all your data in such a way that only you can ever access it by remembering a single, longer phrase.
(Although to be fair, another backup would probably be a good idea if the data is really important. Maybe another encrypted hard drive kept at work.)
I'd like to see on sites like that some kind of continuity plan.
Unless you are suggestion that this is just another "redundant array of backups that you have to assume can fail".
But even in that case it would be a good idea if cperciva had something posted on the site which showed there was someone else who had access and kept on top of the system.
At a business that is probably some MBA metric and has been budgeted for and is salaried anyway, and you need to prove I'm not just taking drives home to put in my basement server, so they have to be destroyed or sent back, and there may or may not be PCI / CPNI type concerns, so yeah, they get sent back.
drives with longer warranties generally cost more in the consumer segment, and data like this could help people identify the "sweet spot" balancing cost with risk of failure, warranty length, and depreciation curves for storage. my "ancedata" suggests somewhere between 2 and 3 year warranties seems about right for consumer drives these days...