Wow, these manufacturers' warranties are precise

[fivemack]

I bought an external hard drive on 8 November 2004.

Trying to do a backup to it this evening, I find that it has stopped working.

Looking at the place I got it from, I discover that its warranty was for two years.

Hard discs cost so much more than hamsters that you would hope they would live longer, but it is not to be.

Comments

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I dunno, over the whole hamster lifecycle they do get through a lot of sunflower seeds and sawdust... Vet bills too if you're unlucky (and so is your hamster).

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

But that is a sweet, sweet metaphor :-)

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

And not a bad icon, either.

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Open it up, replace the hard drive, often cheaper than a whole new box. That usually works. Or buy a 2 drive external box and mirror the drives for safety's sake.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Using mirrored drives for backup media feels grotesquely wasteful, even if the declining price of drives means it's affordable. I've vaguely contemplated using two mirrored external drives as my main extra-storage, after outgrowing my Mac Mini - drives die on me at enough of a rate that mirroring would save a metric multitude of faff - but mirror and backup are clearly different goals

[whl.livejournal.com]

Where are you getting 10,000 RPM hamsters?

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

It makes you just want to rip out the die-after-datetime chip in the drive when you buy it, doesn't it? The way my Li-ion battery died made me think there's one in them too.