Run All Day, Run All Night?

[Roscoroo]

my seagate scsi's are still running  '98 vintage ...
my 1st 6 gig maxtor lasted just shy of 5 years .

All of my WD hd's have died just after a year or so .. and ive seen lots of bad slim seagates that were 1-2 yrs old




 just my 2 1/2 cents worth.

[DAVENRINO]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Ahhh shoot, I have had two of those drives die within 2 years.  One died in 17 months.

I didn't even look at the warranty time period on them.  Didn't really matter.  The warranty does no good to make up for the lost time of the failure.

The glass-filled bushing (might be ceramic) on the end of the spindle motor wore to excess on those two failures.

Was there any warning such as noise before they failed or is it just going to be a surprise?

[Skuzzy]

In these cases, noise levels increased, much like metal on metal screeching/whine.  Not loud, but it was there.  One of them just stopped one day, the other one started getting severe read/write failures and failed in a few hours after that.
Not much notice in either case.

[Schutt]

Hard drives definetly wear out with time.
On the other side i have had lots of computers working fine day and night but when switched off would not start again.

My guess is that switching off overnight or eaven for longer makes the comp last longer. Especially with cheap motherboard/powersupply/hd. On motherboards i have seen parts blown, suspecting the cheap brand motherboards are not made to run 24 hours.

BUT when you know the hard drive is bad because it makes noises i would try to save the data before switching off, eaven if that makes for running 3 days or so.
Also i have seen hard drives no longer running but when turning them upside down i was able to get the data of them, because they ran ok upside down. Something with the bearings.

[Roscoroo]

Ive had some make noises (usually on start up they kinda rattle or screech/scrape) or they start corrupting and losing data .

or they just quit no warning, no luv rattles nothing.

one trick to help tell if a hard drive is going thru hell is to lay a finger on top of it and feel if its getting overly hot .(this can be a indicator to pre failure)


I myself use a second hard drive for my backups and disconnect it when not in use . along with cd burns of stuff also .

[DAVENRINO]

Thanks for the replies.  I will be listening.  It should be fairly easy for me since my PC is virtually silent.  The tower is inside a bay in my desk with an external radiator cooled by 2 slow turning SilnX 120 fans.

[llama]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
LLama, next time you get a dead WD or Maxtor IDE drive, open them up.  You will be in for a surprise.
.....

I'd like the model numbers of those Seagates you are referring to, as I have not seen anything like that at Best Buy, CompUSA, or any other retail store, which is where many people are going to be buying them.

I am sure there are better quality drives, but most people will end up with the el cheapo line, especially if they buy an OEM computer.

Skuzzy,

These days I've been specifying Barracuda 7200.7 drives,  which have the alternate designation of ST3200822AS. These are SATA drives, but are mechanically identical to the PATA Barracuda drives. I find these at Fry's, Newegg, CDW, and CompUSA. They aren't really any more expensive than other brands.

Regarding warranties - well, you're in for a surprise: check out http://info.seagate.com/mk/get/AMER_WARRANTY_0704_JUMP where you'll find:

"...Now every Seagate internal hard drive for PCs, notebook computers and entry-level servers purchased from an authorized Seagate Distributor and Reseller will be covered under our unprecedented 5-Year Warranty...." This even applies retroactively to drives that have documentation stating a one-year warranty, if the drive was purchased after July 26, 2004.

External storage units have a different warranty.

And finally, what REALLY concerns me about hard drives is not the mechanical issues, but the thermal issues.

The PCBs on these drives deal with more thermal cycling issues than almost any other PCB-based component in the PC (this therefore excludes the CPU itself or the power supply, as these aren't PCBs.) Hard drive PCBs go from room temp (20C) to hot (45C) and back every time you turn it off, while the mainboard itself generally deals with a far smaller temperature differential. Given all the teeny tiny components and teeny tiny traces on a hard drive PCB, personally, I'd rather keep the PCB at operating temperature for as long as possible, and let fluid bearings just do their job.

But finally, I think you and I both agree that hard drives should be viewed as disposable commodies, like brake pads and tires on a car, and data backup precautions should be paramount on everyone's mind. I think our opinions only differ on the best way to keep these parts in service for the longest amount of time, and maybe what that in-service interval is.

As always, I'd love to hear more info on this...

-Llama