Does restoring backup images degrade/damage the HDD?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by WSFfan, May 5, 2014.

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  1. J_L

    J_L Registered Member

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    Why just re-install Windows and you'll find out correct answer. See how your backups fare... Like do they cover essential programs, settings, etc.?
     
  2. Myna

    Myna Registered Member

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    I wanna know the reasons of HDD failure.

    Why does HDD fail or develop unreadable sectors ??

    Isn't it the side effect of repeated writings to the same sector ?? When restoring an image, aren't we unnecessarily writing the same sectors again and again ?? (I'm not talking about restoring once or twice a year. I'm taking about doing it 4-5 times a month or so..... And like some people do here.... 15-30 times a month) Doesn't that have any side effect on the HDD ?? Will my HDD fail only because it tends to get bored and not because of repeated writings ??
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2014
  3. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    HDs are an electro-mechanical device and they don't live forever. The Google study of 100,000 HDs indicated roughly 8% fail per year. Heat doesn't seem to be a factor, at least in the first three years. The cooler drives have a slightly higher mortality in the first three years. SMART is a poor predictor of impending mortality. High utilization was not a factor associated with shortened life.

    http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf
     
  4. gbhall

    gbhall Registered Member

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    As you have been told, there are in fact many ways in which you could suddenly and unexpectedly lose your entire PC. Whilst you may be sure of having your data backed up, in fact it can easily take two weeks or more to reinstall the OS and all your applications, and reconnect them to your data. Having an OS backup (drive image), means that your OS can be up and running again in just minutes (provided the hardware is ok). You protect yourself against the failure of your own memory of what you had installed, where the install media is, what the install serial numbers are and where the data is stored. Once you have had to do that once, you wont ever want to do it again !!

    You probably think that a drive image is both the OS and all the data, which can total the size of your entire HDD (or drive C: ). In most naive users case, that is true. The more informed of us use at least two 'drives' (or partitions). We do this so as to keep the actual OS separate from most or all of the user data. Then we take separate backups of each. This minimises the amount of time taken to backup or restore, and indeed the OS may be backed up less often than the data.
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2014
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I would take exception to the "more informed". It is a choice,not a matter of being informed. I've never partitioned my hard drive. Everything is in C: My current state of the drive is 66gb in use out of 1tb. I do this so it keeps all the data out near the fastest part of the drive. Also my images have everything, so not only is my OS protected, but it also is another layer of protection to my data.

    Pete
     
  6. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Not to belittle any of the discussion so far (I do the same as most of you), BUT... if the OP has done nothing but go to the store and buy a reasonably modern, not too old PC, and has done nothing but use the available applications in that PC's build to create what he considers his IMPORTANT data, then he really has no use for saving any other data than what he has created.

    If he loses his BOOT partition (and most likely all his data due to single partitioning by OEMs) due to virus, malware, or disk failure... he easily uses his OEM's RECOVERY F-key and returns his system to "out of the box" (that's all he's using at the moment). If his HDD goes belly up, he has some computer shop (or OEM if under warranty) replace it and he (or the shop or OEM) runs the RECOVERY disk set to return the new hardware to "out of the box." Believe it or not, this is the situation for most individual owners out there.

    If the OP is swift enough to partition his single OEM monster disk, and or install lots of new and neat applications... yes, he probably needs imaging.
     
  7. WSFfan

    WSFfan Registered Member

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    I am using Image for Windows for imaging. :thumb:
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2014
  8. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Myna... a much more common type of failure is usually SOFT in nature and caused by a slight change in magnetics of the disk sector being read. Almost all of the so-called HDD recovery tools read the entire disk and when soft errors are found, that block is read until the data is finally right then re-written to re-establish good magnetics. In this case the more writes, the better.

    Another common mechanical failure is the magnetic reading head will take a small nosedive and "ding" the magnetic surface. This very often generates an anomaly on the surface, causing a read error when this surface part is read. Also, those nosedives can kick up undesirable debris that can cause the aerodynamics of other magnetic read heads to fluctuate or fail... also causing additional errors.

    If I were to speculate, I would believe that in the case of HDDs, more writing rather than less writing would be a better thing (refreshing those disk sectors). The drive mechanics involved (heads flying, surface rotating) are always going on whether being read or written, except when positioning to a new part of the surface... that involves an actuator arm. In modern Windows systems, even that is kept busy when you're doing nothing on the system (Windows housecleaning).
     
  9. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Pete,

    I agree. The user's choice.

    Windows usually puts the pagefile in the middle of the OS partition rather than at the start of the partition. Is that the case with your pagefile in the 1 TB partition?
     
  10. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I believe so. I use Perfect Disk Defragger, and the off line defrag moves the page file about a third of the way out. Restores with Macrium don't move it, but restoring with AX64 moves it back in just behind the data. Thats where a leave it unless there is need for a thorough defrag.

    Pete
     
  11. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Thanks for the info. I didn't know AX64 did that.
     
  12. Keatah

    Keatah Registered Member

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    Really bad quality disc platters have around 1.6 million flips per bit. In practice on good quality drives it is much much more. Every disk has weak spots here and there and they automatically get remapped out. You never know it happens.

    Mechanical disks develop failures simply because the mechanism falls out of tolerance as parts wear or become damaged through mis-handling. Broadly speaking.

    I wouldn't worry about wearing out a magnetic surface. Maybe if you do it non-stop 24/7 on a non-enterprise drive you'll develop heat related fails. I have a few disks that are re-set via imaging on a daily basis. Been doin' it fer years.

    Re-writing the magnetic surface is a good thing, too, for keeping the strength of the magnetic domains in high contrast to each other.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2014
  13. Keatah

    Keatah Registered Member

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    Windows' housecleaning has gotta be an oxymoron.
     
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