Life Expectancy of a Hard Drive

rbrb · « **on:** 18 Nov 2005, 03:56 pm »

Does anyone know what the life expectancy of a large hardrive like a 250GB is? Can I safely store a music collection without the fear of all my music files one day not being accessible?

skrivis · « **Reply #1 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 04:14 pm »

Quote from: rbrb

Does anyone know what the like expectancy of a large hardrive like a 250GB is? Can I safely store a music collection without the fear of all my music files one day not being accessible?

It depends upon the drive. They'll usually specify the MTBF n hours and you can get a rough estimate from that.

I would suggest 2 hard drives in a mirror if you want to be sure your files will be safe. (There are other schemes for RAID, but this is simplest.)

JohnnyLightOn · « **Reply #2 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 04:15 pm »

Hard drives can last a long, long time, or they can crap out in the first month. If they make it through the first month, chances are they'll last longer than you need them. But you can't gamble with those odds - you must have a backup. The risk is too great to chance it, and the cost of a backup is not so great that you shouldn't have one. I've never lost a hard drive to a crash, and I've had about 10. But many people here have had hard drives go bad on them.

If your 250GB drive is internal, you could get a second internal drive for a little over $100, and simply copy the files over periodically (or mirror them as was suggested). Or, you could get a "one touch"-type external backup drive for, say, $150, then you could store your backup offsite in a safe place (friend's house, etc.). An external drive stored offsite is a more secure backup strategy than a mirror drive. Either way, it's worth every penny for this peace of mind after all your work ripping your CDs.

As far as your music collection one day not being accessible, as technology changes you'll find yourself moving your data from your 250GB hard drive to much larger hard drive before your main drive and your backup wear out. Or, you'll move them to some future technology that hasn't been developed yet. As long as you have adequate backup(s), your data will survive until then.

ScottMayo · « **Reply #3 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 04:33 pm »

Quote from: rbrb

Does anyone know what the like expectancy of a large hardrive like a 250GB is? Can I safely store a music collection without the fear of all my music files one day not being accessible?

The life expectancy of a disk is forever, unless you put anything you care about on it. Then it's a random value, coming up somewhere between 1 second from now, and the time you planned to start a backup.

Seriously, a disk that isn't banged around will last a good few years, but they do fail and they rarely give much warning. Buy two disks and make a point of keeping them in sync. Ripping music takes time; ripping a lot of music takes a lot of time. Spending a few hundred for an extra disk WILL make you happy some day. And keep your original music media.

ctviggen · « **Reply #4 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 06:21 pm »

They fail all the time. I've had at least three fail on me. Now, I use a program to back up my entire hard drive to another drive.

bubba966 · « **Reply #5 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 06:42 pm »

I've never had a drive fail on me in the last 15 or so years. I've always bought quality drives. Not sure that I ever used a drive for over 4 or maybe 5 years though. I'd upgrade them before they ever had a chance to fail.

HD's seem to be less prone to failure now than they used to be. I can't even recall the last time I heard about someone I knew having one crap out on them...

John151 · « **Reply #6 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 06:45 pm »

There are a few factors that shorten the lives of drives:

1) Long intervals w/o use. This causes problems for the bearings.
2) Frequent power ups. The drives, and the PC, will actually live longer if you leave your PC on 24/7.
3) Heat - if they don't get enough cooling, they will not last very long. This actually applies to all electronics.

I have never had a HDD fail in 20 years of computing (at home or at work. My last home PC, which was recently retired, had 3 SCSI Hard drives, all of which were over 6 yoa - and never a problem. My current PC has 2 HDD drives, and so far, so good.

It also helps run SpinRite on occasion. This will refresh the magnetic data on the drive as it does decay over time. It also checks for tracks going bad before they actually go bad. Money will spent, IMHO.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #7 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 06:51 pm »

Quote from: rbrb

Does anyone know what the like expectancy of a large hardrive like a 250GB is? Can I safely store a music collection without the fear of all my music files one day not being accessible?

I've owned 3 Maxtor external firewire drives in the last 4-5 years, and all of them have had problems (1 completely died, the other two have had intermittent problems with access). I've gone to another brand (OWC for my Mac), and its been perfect since I got it 4 months ago...

John151 · « **Reply #8 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 07:00 pm »

I had an IBM SCSI drive that gave me fits with various errors, which often caused windows to crash hard, requiring a re-install of windows (NT 4.0). This was very frustrating! As a last ditch effort, I did a low level format on the HDD, and I never had a single problem with that drive again.

ScottMayo · « **Reply #9 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 07:32 pm »

Quote from: John151

I had an IBM SCSI drive that gave me fits with various errors, which often caused windows to crash hard, requiring a re-install of windows (NT 4.0). This was very frustrating! As a last ditch effort, I did a low level format on the HDD, and I never had a single problem with that drive again.

IBM disks aren't always IBM disks:
http://users.net1plus.com/scottm/hyper.htm

That said, my Seagates seem to run forever. Other brands I'm less sure about. I don't buy IBM anymore.

Tweaker · « **Reply #10 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 07:56 pm »

There are some programs that monitor the status of your hard drives health. One I've been using is HDDlife. I have never had a hard drive problem but I figure this is a fairly inexpensive bit of insurance (assuming that it actually works).

http://www.hddlife.com/eng/

ctviggen · « **Reply #11 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 08:46 pm »

Bubba,

I'd be knocking on wood, if I were you!

Although buying a "better" hard drive might help, it's still a matter of statistics: a certain percentage of drives are going to fail. And all it takes is one failure of a drive in order for one to learn a valuable lesson. I learned mine and now back up everything (and always did, but didn't have a backup for the time I needed it).

shokunin · « **Reply #12 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 08:57 pm »

Hard drives are relatively inexpensive these days. Better yet, the capacity you're looking at 250gb is in the sweet spot of best $$ per GB. You could probably get a deal on Black Friday on a 250gb hard drive. Copying to another drive is probably one of the more cost effective solutions. Still not as reliable as tape, but far cheaper...

I'd simply create backup to that drive and keep it offline. Periodically re-sync the files using xxcopy or robocopy or even windows backup.

Raid 1 is meant for uptime, to support 24x7 support should a drive fail, but offers no protection from malware, or a new virus that attacks mp3's, wav, fla, ape, files etc. If you accidentally delete the folder or file, they are gone from both drives. In addition if you use your motherboard's Raid controller, you are bound to that motherboard/chipset. Change to a different motherboard and you will not be able to just move your drives to that new motherboard and have it read the old mirror.

JohnnyLightOn · « **Reply #13 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 09:00 pm »

Quote from: shokunin

Raid 1 is meant for uptime, to support 24x7 support should a drive fail, but offers no protection from malware, or a new virus that attacks mp3's, wav, fla, ape, files etc. If you accidentally delete the folder or file, they are gone from both drives. In addition if you use your motherboard's Raid controller, you are bound to that motherboard/chipset. Change to a different motherboard and you will not be able to just move your drives to that new motherboard and have it read the old mirror.

Thank God someone else on this site understands that mirrored drives are not meant for backup!

Additionally, if you mirror then you cannot store a backup offsite. Do you really want to gamble your music collection on the hope you'll never have a fire, flood, or theft?

rbrb · « **Reply #14 on:** 18 Nov 2005, 09:24 pm »

Thanks folks. Backing up to another hard drive sounds like an inexpensive enough option for the added insurance it brings.

jakepunk · « **Reply #15 on:** 19 Nov 2005, 12:07 am »

Heat dissipation is important for modern large capacity IDE drives. Make sure you have case fans blowing over the drives to cool them. I have cooked many drives in my Tivo. I now run my Tivo with the cover off and the internal fan blowing across the motherboard instead of the default factory configuration.

And don't use drive enclosures like the Silent Drive with large capacity IDE drives or you will cook them. I have done it.

My Maxtor drive in my desktop machine lasted 2.5 years before kicking the bucket. I had a backup.

rbrb · « **Reply #16 on:** 19 Nov 2005, 04:29 am »

How much heat dissipation or airflow do I need. The case is going to be loaded. Two 250 GB and one 200GB hard drives. Here's the case...
http://www.a1-electronics.net/Cases/2005/2nd/ThermalRock_Mystic_Aug.shtml

jakepunk · « **Reply #17 on:** 19 Nov 2005, 06:09 am »

The answer to your question is really, "as much cooling as it takes so that the maximum operating temperature of the drive is not exceeded." The cooler the drive, the longer it will last. Your fans are 60mm, which are kind of small. Mine are 80mm. Some cases use gigantic 120mm fans to move the air with less rotations per minute, yielding less noise.

I have a Lian Li PC-61 case. I like it because the hard drives are mounted behind the intake fans so that incoming air passes directly over the drives before continuing into the rest of the case. It looks like your case doesn't have ventilation such that outside air is passed directly over the drives.

You might be fine with that case. If it were me, though, I would feel more comfortable putting all those drives in a case with better airflow.

John151 · « **Reply #18 on:** 19 Nov 2005, 03:25 pm »

Your case has 3 fans, not including the fan in the power supply. There are also vents on the top of the case. I would not expect you to have a cooling problem. You can monitor the temp of the drives in you have it up and running. If the drives are running hot, then you can add another fan inside.

You don't need too move an extreme amount of air, you just need to have air movement. If the case is designed properly, then the air movement will extract the heat.

Here is a pic of my case (Antec P180):

This case is designed to be cool and silent (it is very, very quiet). As you can see, I have no fans directly over my drives (in the middle box in the front).

This case is designed to have the heat exhuast out the top of the case (there is a fan in that fairing on the top).

While the fans in this case are large, they are slow moving (quiet). The case does not put out a lot of air.

Here is a great forum for discussing these kind of topics: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/

Good luck with your new computer!

Oh, and what CPU are you getting?

rbrb · « **Reply #19 on:** 19 Nov 2005, 04:32 pm »

I'll be using a AMD Athlon x2 3800 W/2 x 512K cache.