See
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/qual/specMTBF.html
Deep subject and this is one of many web sites addressing this issue. I am sure others will contribute.
Bill
.
Is there any life time/span of an HDD? if yes what is it?
![]() | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
Is there any life time/span of an HDD? if yes what is it?
Discussion is locked
See
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/qual/specMTBF.html
Deep subject and this is one of many web sites addressing this issue. I am sure others will contribute.
Bill
.
which is based on a statisical data for a large quantity of drives made in a production run.
The useful life is usually stated as 48,000 operating hours. That's about 5 years of operation. That number is the point where wearout begins to occur. There are three time periods for reliability. [again for a production quantity, maybe 10,000 drives], the Infant mortality period where some drives fail with the first 150 hours or so, the constant failure rate period where the remaining drives that survived the infant mortality suffer a loss of a drive very infrequently, and then the wearout period where the failure rate increases with time until all of the drives have failed.
THUS when will YOUR drive fail? WHO KNOWS, simply start doing backups from day one. It's purely the statisical luck of the draw. I have two with four years of periodic use. The 48,000 hrs is Operating Hours. I'm not close to that.
When you buy the drive pay a few extra bucks for the 3 year warranty. Name brand drive mfr's make good on the warranty with no hassle.
that failed within the 3 year warranty period. LOL
Ray gave a good fact about HDD. You can never really tell when a HDD will wear-out, it depends upon how you frequently use it, but brands do play a great deal in reliability. Some brands like Seagate, Maxtor, Toshiba and Fujitsu had made an impact in reliability and quality. As advancement in HDD manufacturing is continuously on the roll due to competition, the effect on its cost is put into consideration, hence, the price sometimes play a key role in quality and reliabilty.
Do consider the following though to lengthen the lifespan of the HDD, but as a general rule, always perform regular back-up procedures.
1. Regularly defragment your HDD
2. Run scandisk once in a while
3. Do not install a lot of games. Ifyou had finished a game, un-install it. Games keep the HDD spinning.
4. Minimize full installation of some softwares and games. Let your CDROM do the work. CDROMs are cheaper than HDD and you keep important data/files in the HDD.
5. Partition your HDD if you haven't done so.
6. Listen as your HDD spins, an irregular clinking sound means wear.
7. Clean your recycle bin or use file wiping programs when erasing files. Remember that when you erase files, it can still be recovered, that means, the HDD still reserves space for the file name, registry, data links, etc. Make sure though that you really do not want to recover the files when you wipe it out.
8. If possible, use two HDDs.
I still have my old HDD from my former PC, it is 6 years old now but is still in good working condition, I can not measure though if it had reached the 48,000 hours Ray is referring to. I have two HDDs though, one HDD keeps the softwares and operating systems, the other one is for files and games. One is partitioned, the other is not since it has a low capacity, they are both Seagate brands, one is 5400 rpm, the other is 7200 rpm.
I never run defrag. Tried it years ago and didn't see one iota of difference. [but that's me]
Item 3. As far as I know the drive is ALWAYS spinning when it is on [not in standby]. Seems that starting and stopping the platter would lead to more wear due to constant temperature changes.
I rely on SMART Drive to let me know about possible incipient failures. Scan Disk doesn't do that.
I use partitions coming out the ears, BUT I see no way that it can affect the wear on the drive to more than a possible infintesimal amount. Seems more possible that a partition that has something used frequently that is on a far segment of the drive away from the Op Sys and virtual memory location may actually cause more and longer accesses.
What do you save by not installing the entire program?? If you don't use some sections the drive won't waste any effort trying to access it,EXCEPT by running defrag. LOL
For a technology that can allow the drive to be mounted in ANY orientation, it seems hard to believe that some of the little items can really have an effect.
I had one mounted in a removable rack with an LCD temp readout. It hit 40C many times, hit 50C once, the drive failed. Didn't use the rack for the replacement. It was under warranty. It now has a small fan blowing air directly on it. Put a remote reading sensor on it and never over 35C. Seems that temperature is the key parameter.