Hitachi HD failed?

Soldato
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One of my external USB Hitachi Touro 4TB drives has suddenly failed it seems...

First signs was the drive corrupting files upon transfer to it. (i.e. couldn't unzip previously ok archives).

Then it began hanging on file transfer, where it would start transferring and after 5 seconds or so go down to zero transfer speed and hang.

SMART tests indicate an error on read element.

I tried swapping the USB port / PC / and the lead to no avail. Oddly after swapping the USB lead it did pass SMART, but was still not allowing any files to be copied from it.

I've managed to transfer off most of the smaller files (<100MB) but the majority of the larger files hang the drive. Oddly though it seems to be only affecting certain files and not others.

Chkdsk reports no errors, so not sure in what way it's failed and whether it's a put in the bin job or format and it'll get better?

Any ideas how I can possibly transfer the existing files off of it without the drive hanging?

Hitachi-HD-failed1531560478.png


Not sure why the temp is reading as such as an identical drive next to it is fine. The retailer won't touch it as it was purchased in 2014 but wondering if I have any comeback with it not being fit for purpose.
 
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Associate
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10 Apr 2008
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1,010
I'd make it read only to stop it getting broken any further. find the disk number in computer management, then run "diskpart" and
select disk X
attribute disk set readonly
I've had broken drives before and windows keeps updating access times and makes it worse.
E.g.
Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.17134.1
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: BENCH
DISKPART> select disk 11
Disk 11 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> attribute disk set readonly
Disk attributes set successfully.
DISKPART> attribute disk clear readonly
Disk attributes cleared successfully.
DISKPART>
 
Associate
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I would smash it up and bin it. I have seen many in the past showing "bad" in the health status and they all died within a few months. Change to just SSD's like me!
 
Soldato
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but wondering if I have any comeback with it not being fit for purpose.

Really? You've had nearly 20k hours of power on time, i would say that's certainly passed expectations.

Drives are wear and tear components, so do eventually get worn out with prolonged use.
 
Soldato
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Really? You've had nearly 20k hours of power on time, i would say that's certainly passed expectations.

Drives are wear and tear components, so do eventually get worn out with prolonged use.
That's pretty low in my own experience. With a little over 2 years power on time, I'd even consider it as only just being broken in. ;)

My Toshiba DT01ACA200 (2TB) has 35,538 of Power On Hours and no warnings in CrystalDiskInfo.
 
Soldato
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That's pretty low in my own experience. With a little over 2 years power on time, I'd even consider it as only just being broken in. ;)

My Toshiba DT01ACA200 (2TB) has 35,538 of Power On Hours and no warnings in CrystalDiskInfo.

Hitachi aren't best known for their reliability/failure rates. We went through a phase at work after the Thailand floods where we had to resort to Hitachi drives in our storage arrays, and the failure rates observed went through the roof.

Here's the drive i'm currently running on my work machine. I believe it's a Seagate (which also doesn't have the best rep). It's been stuck at 4 reallocated sectors for a long time, so i know not to keep anything on there that may get lost/corrupt.

L0CNPLS.png
 
Soldato
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Re people saying change to SSD, these can fail also, and when they fail they do without warning, I've lost data on 5 SSD's.

The most reliable HDD's are the Western Digital RE/Gold drives, and there fine to use as non-raid desktop/workstation drives, I use them. These WD Gold HDD's are probably some of the best HDD's ever made.

To increase HDD reliability you want at least some air-flow over them, this has been confirmed by WD.
 
Soldato
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Hitachi aren't best known for their reliability/failure rates. We went through a phase at work after the Thailand floods where we had to resort to Hitachi drives in our storage arrays, and the failure rates observed went through the roof.

Here's the drive i'm currently running on my work machine. I believe it's a Seagate (which also doesn't have the best rep). It's been stuck at 4 reallocated sectors for a long time, so i know not to keep anything on there that may get lost/corrupt.

L0CNPLS.png
Drive has now clocked up 61,410 hours - a little over 7 years of spinup time. :eek:

250o8i9.png
Although I posted this in 2015, this Hitachi drive is still in use as a backup drive. So it is only powered up a couple times a year for a few hours, before being disconnected and stored away again. Pretty decent going in my books. :cool:
 
Soldato
OP
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Well this drive is officially toast. Despite only having 0.3% bad blocks according to Hdtune, it can’t be formatted (just crawls along and after a day was stuck on 13%).

Unless anyone has any miracle solutions, I think it’s time for the bin :(
 
Soldato
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Well this drive is officially toast. Despite only having 0.3% bad blocks according to Hdtune, it can’t be formatted (just crawls along and after a day was stuck on 13%).

Unless anyone has any miracle solutions, I think it’s time for the bin

Did you do the quick scan or long, scan. Quick scan skips most of the drive.

I'm not surprise it failed hitting 61c, basicly you cooked it. :O

If your going to use an external make sure it's in a cool place and doesn't get too hot particularly if it's a permanent drive since most don't have good cooling or airflow.
You don't want it going over 45c for long periods of time IMO. In the 30s is ideal.

It may be the actuator assembly or the spindle motor, that has failed rather than the platters.
 
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