Hard drive lifespan

I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?

Mike wrote:
> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
> maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
> because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
> and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?
>
>

Hard drives last as long as they last. I've got at least one SCSI HD (4.5gB
IIRC) which is 15 years old and still works. But I'm not going to totally
trust my data to any single drive for duration. Frequent backup is the key
to long-term happiness.

As a point of reference, the longest warranty period for a new HD today
seems to be 5 years. This means very little beyond the life expectancy that
the maker has calculated into their cost of doing business. A few drives
will fail within a year. Others may last for decades. The maker is willing
to bear the cost of replacing the early failures and willing to take the
credit for those which long outlive the warranty. Buying a new drive today
will buy you a lot more performance than any of your old drives ever
possessed -- both speed and capacity have come a long way in the mean time.

I think that every manufacturer offers some sort of free diagnostic
software for their drives. Check the maker's websites.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:59:12 -0700, "Mike"
<nospam@email.com> wrote:

>I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
>maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
>because they are so old?

Yes, that would be the prudent thing to do. Any hard drive
over (period depends on your risk:cost analysis) about 3
years old is due to be replaced. Those who have a reliable
raid array in which failure of one drive, and timely
notification of that failure, have a bit of a *luxury* in
that they can continue using a drive until the day it dies.
Only you know, based on info provided, and value of data
contained thereon, and value of time to rebuild or start
fresh, how much of a loss it would be.



>I never been through a hard drive failure before
>and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?
>

Hard drive failure is a fact of computing life. You have
beaten the odds already, in having 3 at 8 years old and no
failures, BUT have you done a surface scan or read all files
to confirm there really isn't any loss?

If you really don't want to experience a failure, it is time
to replace them. Copy the data and leave them intact
holding same data, to cover the potential for infant
mortality.

The first layer of safety is a motherboard with bios having
smart aware (and per bios setting, activated) reporting.
How effective this is also depends on how often you reboot,
so it would poll and show this error flag (you've told us
nothing about the type of system and role of it, 8 years is
quite a long time in computer generations).

The HDD manufacturer's diagnostics are one way to check
drive fitness. There are many other apps that can check HDD
parameters and report them, which to choose can often depend
on what other information you wish such an app to provide
since most people don't want a separate app running for each
thing they want to know about. Google can find quite a few,
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ive+monitoring

John McGaw wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
> Hard drives last as long as they last. I've got at least one SCSI
> HD (4.5gB IIRC) which is 15 years old and still works. But I'm not
> going to totally trust my data to any single drive for duration.
> Frequent backup is the key to long-term happiness.

You're well on the way to free HDs forever. When the oldest bring
antique prices on the open market, you are getting close to
recovering 1/2 their original price. That should buy several much
larger drives today. :-)

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Mike" <nospam@email.com> wrote in message
news:vvgHj.2040$GT5.542@fe085.usenetserver.com...
> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
> maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
> because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
> and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard
drives?
>
>

All you have to do is go the the websites of the manufacturers...
then get their dignostic utility.
If it finds any problem at all, the drive should be replaced.

Since 8 years is a pretty long time for a HD,
I'd probably replace them now...even if they pass diagnostics...

Then save them as backups

Mike wrote:
> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
> maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
> because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
> and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?
>
>
A new one can die 10 minutes after installation, just like your current
ones can die 10 minutes from now.

You should invest in a large external (USB) hard drive and Acronis True
Image and set up a backup schedule (i.e full backup once a month or once
a week with daily differentials or incrementals). Be sure to create a
Rescue Boot Disc (from Acronis) and use "validate" during the backups.
Think about what you would loose right now if your drive died.

Just get an external enclosure and a drive to put in it; for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817145656

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148135

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832200004

To monitor your drives (free):

http://www.panterasoft.com/

On 29 Mar, 00:59, "Mike" <nos...@email.com> wrote:
> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
> maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
> because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
> and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?

somebody whose posts dissapear, mentioned SMART Data.

You can see it with some well known popular freeware called Speedfan
(not to be confused with a BIOS feature of the same name)

There is a PDF on hard drive failures or hard disk failure rates ,
from what I recall, it didn`t say much.. I will link to it when I find
it.

On 29 Mar, 22:38, "jameshanle...@yahoo.co.uk"
<jameshanle...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On 29 Mar, 00:59, "Mike" <nos...@email.com> wrote:
>
> > I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
> > maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
> > because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
> > and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard drives?
>
> somebody whose posts dissapear, mentioned SMART Data.
>
> You can see it with some well known popular freeware called Speedfan
> (not to be confused with a BIOS feature of the same name)
>
> There is a PDF on hard drive failures or hard disk failure rates ,
> from what I recall, it didn`t say much.. I will link to it when I find
> it.


http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf

summary here
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=129975

"Rookie" <rookie@hates.spam> wrote in message
news:Xns9A7024884532F3jfk6@localhost...
> "Mike" <nospam@email.com> wrote in
> news:vvgHj.2040$GT5.542@fe085.usenetserver.com:
>
>> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2
>> are maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new
>> ones because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive
>> failure before and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that
>> can test hard drives?
>>
>
> Check SMART status, if supported by drives, and backup (which should be
> done with every disk you use, unfortunately).

Not on an 8 year old drive!

"Mike" <nospam@email.com> wrote in message
news:vvgHj.2040$GT5.542@fe085.usenetserver.com...
>I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2 are
>maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new ones
>because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive failure before
>and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that can test hard
>drives?

Any new drive is going to be bigger than all 3 of them put together and it
will also be considerably faster.

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:22:42 +0100, "GT"
<ContactGT_remove_@hotmail.com> wrote:

>"Rookie" <rookie@hates.spam> wrote in message
>news:Xns9A7024884532F3jfk6@localhost...
>> "Mike" <nospam@email.com> wrote in
>> news:vvgHj.2040$GT5.542@fe085.usenetserver.com:
>>
>>> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2
>>> are maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new
>>> ones because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive
>>> failure before and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that
>>> can test hard drives?
>>>
>>
>> Check SMART status, if supported by drives, and backup (which should be
>> done with every disk you use, unfortunately).
>
>Not on an 8 year old drive!
>


IIRC, most if not all drives supported SMART 8 years ago.

"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:vtd2v3tmr0782evkdi71hn6l8oa9na19ud@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:22:42 +0100, "GT"
> <ContactGT_remove_@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"Rookie" <rookie@hates.spam> wrote in message
>>news:Xns9A7024884532F3jfk6@localhost...
>>> "Mike" <nospam@email.com> wrote in
>>> news:vvgHj.2040$GT5.542@fe085.usenetserver.com:
>>>
>>>> I have 3 hard drives that are 8 years old and they still run great. 2
>>>> are maxtors and the other is WD. Should get rid of all 3 and get new
>>>> ones because they are so old? I never been through a hard drive
>>>> failure before and I dont want to experience it. Is there an app that
>>>> can test hard drives?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Check SMART status, if supported by drives, and backup (which should be
>>> done with every disk you use, unfortunately).
>>
>>Not on an 8 year old drive!
>
> IIRC, most if not all drives supported SMART 8 years ago.

Time flies!