Possible HDD Failure?

Twiggo151 · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:22

Hi

I've had this HDD for quite a number of years now. Everything was fine until the other day I noticed games from the drive were running very badly and taking time to load. The PC itself is also taking much much longer to boot. From about 10-15 seconds into the minutes now. I ran CrystalDiskInfo and its giving me a caution with the relocated and current pending sectors count very high. I also ran speedfan and it gave it a 0% on the fitness scale. Is this disk on the verge of dying? Thanks for the help

Pyr0m@nI@]{ · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:28

I would replace that drive ASAP

Twiggo151 · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:32

OK Thanks. Who are the best quality bands in HDD's at the minute? Always seem to be changing

ED209 · 10 Nov 2015 at 13:53

i would change it, i had a WD my passport have the same issues.

check on the WD website and see if there is any warranty left on it as you might be able to RMA the drive.

to be honest i don't have a set band i stick too as i have had issues with a samsung HDD and WD as i normally get the drive that fits my budget at the time.

WD are normally quite good drives, failing that if its a OS Drive replace it with a SSD!

Twiggo151 · 10 Nov 2015 at 14:42

I'm looking at the WD Blue 3TB but compared to the likes of seagate and some other WD models its only 5400RPM Why is that?

Pyr0m@nI@]{ · 10 Nov 2015 at 15:53

After a 3TB seagate went bad after a few months use, I picked up a couple of Hitachi 4tb drives instead.

I'd personally go with either Western Digital, Hitachi or Toshiba

KIA · 10 Nov 2015 at 18:35

If I'm interpreting the information correctly, 3 reallocated sectors is nothing to worry about.

You will have to zero the drive if you want to remap the pending sectors.

Always keep a backup.

bimbleuk · 10 Nov 2015 at 19:12

If you hover over the caution button you should get a number which is a bit more indicative of the failed sectors.

I just replaced a Seagate 1.5 TB this week as it was showing some SMART errors and was red in CDI. That has several thousand redirects. I've got another system drive that is showing caution and again a few thousand failed sectors and will replace as a precaution.

I have a lot of server drives like these and most of them are ranging from 35-50K hours now and we have had very few drive failures even though they are used daily for downloading and replicating. Just about all of them are Seagate Barracuda 1.5-3.0TB HDDs.

KIA · 11 Nov 2015 at 20:33

Hard Disk Sentinel is able to monitor drive health in real-time and send notifications.

darael · 12 Nov 2015 at 00:19

You shouldn't have to constantly monitor a dodgy harddrive just in case it decides to start deteriorating to the point of data loss or failure. All you need is a reliable harddrive with zero bad sectors or pending to be reallocated sectors and you can stop worrying.

I go for Toshiba harddrives now, since they've taken over Hitachi. I'm confident my data is safe, but that doesn't stop me regularly backing up to another Toshiba harddrive which I treat as external but mount it directly to the SATA interface using my Corsair 650D's harddrive dock.

KIA · 12 Nov 2015 at 18:45

darael said:
You shouldn't have to constantly monitor a dodgy harddrive just in case it decides to start deteriorating to the point of data loss or failure. All you need is a reliable harddrive with zero bad sectors or pending to be reallocated sectors and you can stop worrying.

All drives should be monitored in real-time. The OP would have been made aware of potential issues much sooner if he had done so. The built-in Windows drive monitoring just isn't good enough.

Bad sectors and pending sectors are a fact of life, which is why hard drives have thousands of spares.

Chucking in a brand new drive just isn't good enough.

darael · 13 Nov 2015 at 11:05

KIA said:
All drives should be monitored in real-time. The OP would have been made aware of potential issues much sooner if he had done so. The built-in Windows drive monitoring just isn't good enough.

Bad sectors and pending sectors are a fact of life, which is why hard drives have thousands of spares.

Chucking in a brand new drive just isn't good enough.

Bad and pending sectors aren't a fact of my life, which is why I don't run monitoring software because I can trust the drives I buy.

I currently have a 17 month old 2TB Toshiba, which has only been powered down when performing machine maintenance. One of my previous Hitachi drives was powered on for nearly 8 years before I retired it as a backup drive. Neither of these drives have bad or pending sectors. So to say they are a fact of life just suggests to me that you are accustomed to low quality drives.

KIA · 13 Nov 2015 at 18:11

darael said:
Bad and pending sectors aren't a fact of my life, which is why I don't run monitoring software because I can trust the drives I buy.

I currently have a 17 month old 2TB Toshiba, which has only been powered down when performing machine maintenance. One of my previous Hitachi drives was powered on for nearly 8 years before I retired it as a backup drive. Neither of these drives have bad or pending sectors. So to say they are a fact of life just suggests to me that you are accustomed to low quality drives.

Blind faith may lead to data loss.

A 2 drive sample size is meaningless.

darael · 14 Nov 2015 at 00:03

The reason I have such a small sample is because my harddrives don't have a habit of dying or developing bad sectors. I am fully aware of the signs of a dying harddrive but have yet to experience it myself.

The closest I've come to data loss was when an ageing harddrive wasn't recognised when powered up. A few more tries and I was able to retrieve every single file with success. That was a lesson for me to start backing up, which I continue to do.

KIA · 14 Nov 2015 at 11:51

In other words, you have been lucky. Assumptions based on such a small sample size may lead someone into a false sense of security.

How can you be fully aware of the signs of a dying hard drive if you don't monitor it in real time?

Real time monitoring might have given you an early warning before your hard drive developed issues.

darael · 14 Nov 2015 at 12:28

KIA said:
In other words, you have been lucky. Assumptions based on such a small sample size may lead someone into a false sense of security.

How can you be fully aware of the signs of a dying hard drive if you don't monitor it in real time?

Real time monitoring might have given you an early warning before your hard drive developed issues.

It's not luck, it's being able to buy with confidence.

You don't need to monitor a harddrive to know if it's ready to die or not. I use my instinct and so far it's not led to any data lass on my part.