HDD life expectancy

adrichardson81 · 23 Feb 2016 at 17:52

Hi all

I've got a 1TB Seagate ST1000DM003 that I bought in July 2012. I use it as a storage drive (documents, photos and downloads), so it's had moderate use.

I've not had any problems with it yet, and it passes the SMART and ShortDST tests in SeaTools, but I'm worried about how long it will last in the long run (given that it's about 3.5 years old now). I keep regularish back ups (external hdd on site and off site).

Any idea how long it's reasonable to expect it to last?

KIA · 23 Feb 2016 at 18:06

Implement a solid backup plan so you have no need to worry.

4-6 years, could be much longer.

Gze · 23 Feb 2016 at 18:08

Depends, most should be able for at least 5 years. Don't be surprised if it fails sooner though.

adrichardson81 · 23 Feb 2016 at 18:12

Thanks - that's reassuring! Are there any reasons to avoid SSDs for photo storage? I was thinking about going all SSD, but I've not been able to find anything that deals with an SSD as the storage medium for photo editing (just as a scratch drive).

Frozennova · 23 Feb 2016 at 21:12

Our last drive failure was a 120gb Seaware IDE drive that had somewhere in the region of 75,000 hours powered on (OS drive in my Dad's system that spends 24/7 running)

melvis · 24 Feb 2016 at 07:09

its all a lottery, i had a WD green fail after 3 months a same model replacement has been running now for 5 years

nutcase · 24 Feb 2016 at 08:42

Depends on so many factors - operating environment, power cycles, activity, and more than a little luck

lsg1r · 24 Feb 2016 at 14:16

As said it's a lottery but you can help the life by things like making sure they're not too hot and the likes.

I've got some sata from 10 year ago still working fine but I've also had drives from the same time fail in a much shorter time frame.

As to ssd, they deteriorate more from writing (well the process of erasing really) than reading there isn't any reason not to use ssd for storage however like other's have said have a good backup policy sorted.

Silicon Si · 25 Feb 2016 at 17:51

As lsg1r said heat is a killer of electronics Lead free solder does not like thermal shock and it cracks over time. That's why the last case i bought i got a big one with great air flow and plenty of space inside it and makes a lot of difference.

Backups are a must I got a cheap HP Microserver from fleebay i use for my backups and i also backup to 2.5 inch hdd's via a hot-swap slot on my pc using Acronis

theMilitant · 25 Feb 2016 at 22:43

I've never actually had a hard drive fail on me. The oldest drive currently in use in my house is actually nearing 10 years old now, but as others have said HDD failure can occur unexpectedly so it's good to keep regular backups. As for SSDs, they can only be written to a limited number of times, but most SSDs have endurance that far exceeds the likely amount of data that will be written to them in their operating lives. And besides that, manufacturers are usually quite conservative when they state the endurance of their drives.

Rroff · 25 Feb 2016 at 22:50

They can last quite a long time but no guarantees - the oldest I've got still (mostly) working is from 1987 IIRC and got some from around 1996 that are OK - while the odd drive has failed much sooner. Anything over 10 years is pushing it though.

adrichardson81 · 27 Feb 2016 at 22:46

Thanks - in that case I'll hold onto it until I start seeing warning signs... (No doubt tomorrow, now that I've mentioned it.)

I make backups to 2 externals with Acronis. Am I right in thinking I'll see error messages if the drive is failing? I'm worried that I might end up with a bad image and not realise until it's too late...

flowrider99 · 27 Feb 2016 at 23:12

adrichardson81 said:
...........Am I right in thinking I'll see error messages if the drive is failing? I'm worried that I might end up with a bad image and not realise until it's too late...

No you are not right thinking that. SMART can provide information that can be interpreted and could identify a failing drive but you wont see any meaningful messages in Windows.

adrichardson81 · 27 Feb 2016 at 23:16

flowrider99 said:
No you are not right thinking that. SMART can provide information that can be interpreted and could identify a failing drive but you wont see any meaningful messages in Windows.

Thanks - in that case I'll build SMART into my pre-backup routine... It'd be disappointing to lose a drive and find out that my backup is also bad!

Simon42 · 2 Mar 2016 at 21:50

adrichardson81 said:
Am I right in thinking I'll see error messages if the drive is failing? I'm worried that I might end up with a bad image and not realise until it's too late...

I use monitoring software (HD Sentinel in my case) to watch for changes in SMART data on every drive on all my machines and notify me of serious changes.

adrichardson81 · 2 Mar 2016 at 23:03

Simon42 said:
I use monitoring software (HD Sentinel in my case) to watch for changes in SMART data on every drive on all my machines and notify me of serious changes.

Thanks - encouragingly it's showing all my drives as perfect. Is there much of a performance hit running it?

Simon42 · 3 Mar 2016 at 19:05

adrichardson81 said:
Is there much of a performance hit running it?

There should be no noticeable performance hit as its just requesting SMART data (by default at 5 minutes intervals) and doing some other monitoring. I've never noticed/measured any difference with and without and I am drives ranging from WD Greens/Reds to fast SSDs.

I do adjust the monitoring frequency on my home servers that have lots of drives to ensure it doesn't keep the drives from sleeping, but HD Sentinel won't wake a drive that is already in sleep mode.

KIA · 3 Mar 2016 at 20:36

adrichardson81 said:
Thanks - encouragingly it's showing all my drives as perfect. Is there much of a performance hit running it?

No. It's incredibly lightweight.

adrichardson81 · 5 Mar 2016 at 23:18

Thanks! Looks worth having for the peace of mind.

bremen1874 · 6 Mar 2016 at 01:43

I've never found SMART to be very useful. Usually when you've got a drive you know is failing even the manufacturer's own diagnostic will report the SMART data as okay. Run a full scan and all the bad sectors are detected.

No harm in monitoring it if you want to, but I wouldn't trust it. I'd rather rely on regular backups of anything important and occasionally running the manufacturer's full diagnostic.