Torrents Unsafe?

[Ringfinger]

I dowload a lot of bit torrents, therefore my hard NAS is constantly on the go 24/7, should I be concerned with doing this with my NAS?  I have it set ip as one mirrors the other drive FYI.

 

Please let me know.

 

 

[davo]

Once you keep a backup (second copy) of the data you will be fine. Regarding torrents themselves, they are very unsafe and easy to track.

[Ringfinger]

Maybe I asked the question incorrectly.  I am talking about wear and tear since the drives are constantly going, is that an issue here?

[SunnyJim]

your device should last 2-3 maybe 4 years on constant. If it breaks down within 3 years you are covered for repair/replacement of device.

[Ringfinger]

Gotcha. Thanks! So I should be okay?

[Ringfinger]

Does anyone else do this?

[BuffaloBrian]

I work for Buffalo, and would add the additional information.

 

First, to the post above that mentions the three year warranty, please understand that 3 year warranties are for the TeraStation class products; LinkStation class products feature a one year warranty.  Both LinkStation and TeraStation have the BitTorrent download feature.

 

All Buffalo NAS devices are designed to run 24/7.  ?As far as BitTorrent in general.  BitTorrent as a protocol writes data in very small chunks and if it is running 24/7 will be writing (and reading) more actively than a traditional user.  There is no scientific proof either way about how this affects hard drives.  Many hard drives have premature failures without much disk activity, and many drives last forever in high disk load states.  Google has done some analysis on SATA hard drive life expectency.  The electronics themselves (the LinkStation parts without the hard drive) will not have any additional wear or concern.

 

There are studies that link hard drive life expectency with heat.  Buffalo monitors the heat of various components and uses fans to cool drives.  Users can take additional measures to lower heat by ensuring the NAS device is in a well ventilated area away from other heat-generating sources.  TeraStation class products have larger cooling systems.

 

I'm sorry there is no conclusive answer to this, but it is something that would affect any consumer/small business device with BitTorrent.?

 

As mentioned, it's always important to backup any data you can't afford to lose (or don't wish to lose).  Should hard drives fail, they can be replaced (in warranty for free, or out of warranty at your expense).

[Ringfinger]

I hear this back up, back up.  I have a duo drive, RAID 1 set-up.  Aere you saying that I need to back up to something else even though both drives are mirroring?  That confuses me, at what point do I have enough copies?  So, you are saying I need to buy a USB connected drive to back-up the NAS?  Seriously, I am confused on this.  Please help.

 

 

[dach]

I don't think it will reduce your HDD life by that much, other than by being on all the time... never going to sleep.  But it ought to still be lasting the 100,000 hours or whatever MTBF (that's 12 years).

 

The situation I've heard where HDD could get destroyed by too much disk activity was if the same HDD data blocks where repeated written over, until the media material just "wore" out.  I don't think that will happen with your torrents, as most of the time torrenting is only reading data.  Also newer file systems and operating systems shouldn't be reuse the same HDD blocks over and over when saving new files, as they are smart enough to even out usage over the entire HDD platters.

[Ringfinger]

Cool, now can anyone suggest if I need an external drive to cakup my RAID 1 structure?