How many harddrives have died on you in your lifetime?

[Dennis]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with harddrives
going bad or burning out on you. I've had about 15 HD's over the years
and I'd say I only remember maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is
that par for the course?

Specifically... I've currently got about 6 HD's in use, some have been
in use for up to 8 years now... never had a problem yet (knock on
wood)... How long can I expect this to last? IE: what are the chances
of a HD lasting 10 years? 20? 50?

What's the average lifespan for modern HD w/ moderate usage?

 

[Phisherman]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with harddrives
going bad or burning out on you. I've had about 15 HD's over the years
and I'd say I only remember maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is
that par for the course?

Specifically... I've currently got about 6 HD's in use, some have been
in use for up to 8 years now... never had a problem yet (knock on
wood)... How long can I expect this to last? IE: what are the chances
of a HD lasting 10 years? 20? 50?

What's the average lifespan for modern HD w/ moderate usage?

I've had about three die and I've used PCs way back before hard drives
were included in a PC. Today many hard drives have a mean time
between failure rate of 1 million hours. Today's drives are much
better than yesteryear's drive. I'd expect a drive to last 5 years,
maybe 10 if you're lucky.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have
been with harddrives going bad or burning out on you.

Just the one personally, and I had to kill it quite literally to get a
warranty replacement. Surprisingly hard to kill too. I ended up
blowing the side right out of the ram chip when I nothing I did with
a big power supply on the ribbon cable pins made it even blink.

I do have a few others that are now dead that didnt die while I owned them myself,
including one from that operation from India that sank beneath the waves.

I've had about 15 HD's over the years and I'd say I only remember
maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is that par for the course?
Yep.

Specifically... I've currently got about 6 HD's in use, some have
been in use for up to 8 years now... never had a problem yet
(knock on wood)... How long can I expect this to last?
IE: what are the chances of a HD lasting 10 years? 20? 50?

All of mine with the exception of the one at the top got replaced
because they were too small to be useful anymore.

What's the average lifespan for modern HD w/ moderate usage?

Basically the absolute vast bulk of them get replaced because
they are too small, not because they stopped working.

I've got a 60G WD that I dont use anymore, just because its
rather noiser than the current Samsungs and I prefer quiet systems.

 

[John Doe]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with
harddrives going bad or burning out on you.

Probably from carelessly scratching the protective tape on a Western
Digital hard drive. I didn't know better but that easily kills a
drive. I tried spraying WD-40 in there to free any sticky mechanisms
but no go. So I sprayed a whole bunch of WD-40 in there and it just
kept clicking. Oh well.

 

[Agent_C]

I've had about 15 HD's over the years
and I'd say I only remember maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is
that par for the course?

I've only had 1 go bad; and I frankly think it was my fault. It was a
first generation 10K RPM IBM SCSI that fried from no active cooling.

A_C

 

[Jack F. Twist]

I've only had 1 go bad; and I frankly think it was my fault. It was a
first generation 10K RPM IBM SCSI that fried from no active cooling.

I worked in a drive qualification lab for several years, and our
h/w engineers said most drives that prematurely die are the
result of just four things:

1. Inadequate cooling (40C is an upper max for most drives,
35C or less is better, 30C or less is ideal)

2. Improper mounting (e.g. overtightened mounting screws,
which can cause case flexing if a drive bay is even slightly out
of square)

3. Exposure to shock or vibration.

4. Flakey power.

 

[Greg Berchin]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with harddrives
going bad or burning out on you.

There was the 170 MB Conner that got noisier and noisier (sounded like
it was screaming), and then got very quiet.

There was a 540 MB Seagate that wiped itself clean. It was amazing. I
would hit "refresh" in Windows Explorer and each time there were fewer
files on the disk, until it was empty. Just for fun I reformatted the
disk, copied more files to it, and watched it happen again.

There was another 540 MB; I don't remember the brand, off-hand. It
actually still works, but it screams like the Conner mentioned earlier.
It's packed away somewhere. I don't know why I haven't just gotten rid
of it.

There was a 2 GB; I don't remember the brand on that, either. It
completely lost the FAT. One day I got the "Insert system disk" message
while attempting to boot. I reformatted and reinstalled the OS, and it
happened again.

There were two 10 GB Quantums, bought at the same time, that died within
a few weeks of each other. They spun-up just fine, but the electronics
failed and the system didn't even recognize them as drives any more.

 

[Larry Roberts]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with harddrives
going bad or burning out on you. I've had about 15 HD's over the years
and I'd say I only remember maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is
that par for the course?

Specifically... I've currently got about 6 HD's in use, some have been
in use for up to 8 years now... never had a problem yet (knock on
wood)... How long can I expect this to last? IE: what are the chances
of a HD lasting 10 years? 20? 50?

What's the average lifespan for modern HD w/ moderate usage?

Had a 20GB WD die on me several years ago. Still have a 3GB in
a DOS box along side an 8GB. Both are still running with no bad
clusters yet.

 

[Geoff]

I had 2 seagate cheetahs, 10,000 rpm drives for 8 years with no problems
except that they got very noisy, so, I replaced them.

I've had some IDE drives that developed bad sectors but I now use spinrite.
That seems to handle most problems.

-g

 

[Rod Speed]

I had 2 seagate cheetahs, 10,000 rpm drives for 8 years with no
problems except that they got very noisy, so, I replaced them.

I've had some IDE drives that developed bad sectors but I now use spinrite. That seems
to handle most problems.

Just a coincidence, few modern IDE drives develop bad sectors now.

 

[Gank]

I've had some IDE drives that developed bad sectors but I now use spinrite.
That seems to handle most problems.

-g

So does chkdsk, it will mark bad sectors as unusable. What dos Spinrite do
that chkdsk can't?

 

[Gank]

1. Inadequate cooling (40C is an upper max for most drives,
35C or less is better, 30C or less is ideal)

Kind of hard to achieve below 40c in todays high end PC's. Or are we all
expected to use watercooling now? Everest shows my drives as always over
40c.

 

[Jack F. Twist]

Kind of hard to achieve below 40c in todays high end PC's. Or are we all
expected to use watercooling now? Everest shows my drives as always over
40c.

Active air cooling should keep drives under 40C, unless you're
doing something dumb like circulating interior case air over
your drives instead of exterior room air. E.g. I'm running three
Seagate 15K.4's (15,000 rpm) with a fan built into the drive
bracket (Antec style case) and they never get over 35C.

 

[Rod Speed]

Jack F. Twist wrote

Kind of hard to achieve below 40c in todays high end PC's.

Nope, nothing has changed with high end PCs, the
drives shouldnt be seeing other than external air and
if anything their power demand has dropped a bit.

Or are we all expected to use watercooling now?

No need with hard drives.

Everest shows my drives as always over 40c.

Then they arent getting external air over them.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Kind of hard to achieve below 40c in todays high end PC's.

My drives are at 29° C at this moment, with a room temperature of
22.7° C. They typically run at 30-31° C. They only heat up with
disk-intensive tasks such as backups or defrags, and even then they
usually only get up to 35° C or so.

The two drives are mounted directly in front of a 12-cm fan in the
front of the case, with incoming air blowing directly past them.

Or are we all expected to use watercooling now? Everest shows
my drives as always over 40c.

All of my drives (server and desktop) show a lifetime maximum of 35°
C. I think your drives are way too warm.

 

[TVeblen]

I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been with harddrives
going bad or burning out on you. I've had about 15 HD's over the years
and I'd say I only remember maybe one or two of them ever dying.. Is
that par for the course?

Specifically... I've currently got about 6 HD's in use, some have been
in use for up to 8 years now... never had a problem yet (knock on
wood)... How long can I expect this to last? IE: what are the chances
of a HD lasting 10 years? 20? 50?

What's the average lifespan for modern HD w/ moderate usage?

None (knock on wood). 12 drives, no failures.
Wanna buy a 1992 vintage 120 MB Western Dig? Works great, wiped clean and
formatted FAT 32!

 

[Gank]

My drives are at 29° C at this moment, with a room temperature of
22.7° C. They typically run at 30-31° C. They only heat up with
disk-intensive tasks such as backups or defrags, and even then they
usually only get up to 35° C or so.

I have a 120mm fan directly in front of the HDD's too, mind you both my
120mm fans are volt modded but I demand a quiet PC so there is nothing
more I can do to lower the temps. Are you using Everest to monitor the
temps or some other app?

 

[Gank]

Then they arent getting external air over them.

Yes they are. I have a 120mm fan directly in front of them which is
drawing in outside air. What video card are you using and are you OC'ing?
If you have a fast video card it generates a lot of heat plus I'm OC'ing
the cpu a bit which generates more heat. I just turned on the PC I was
talking about and the temps on the two HDD's read 25c and 27c but once I
do some 3D gaming I've seen them go just over 40c.

 

[Gank]

Active air cooling should keep drives under 40C, unless you're
doing something dumb like circulating interior case air over
your drives instead of exterior room air. E.g. I'm running three
Seagate 15K.4's (15,000 rpm) with a fan built into the drive
bracket (Antec style case) and they never get over 35C.

See my other post. What are you guys doing with your PC's? Running word
and a web browser isn't going to raise temps, run some graphically
intensive 3D games and you will see all the temps in your PC drastically
rise. Sure, my HDD tmps are under 30c right now but the PC has only been
on for five minutes and I haven't been playing a 3D game for hours. I have
120mm intake and 120mm outtake in an Antec Lanboy case.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Yes they are. I have a 120mm fan directly in
front of them which is drawing in outside air.

Then you likely have the drives mounted adjacent with
no free slot between them so you arent actually getting
a decent flow of external air over the drives.

What video card are you using and are you OC'ing?
If you have a fast video card it generates a lot of heat
plus I'm OC'ing the cpu a bit which generates more heat.

Irrelevant to the drive temp if its getting external air over it.

I just turned on the PC I was talking about and the temps on the two HDD's read
25c and 27c but once I do some 3D gaming I've seen them go just over 40c.

Gaming shouldnt have any real effect on the drive temp either.