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Dying hard drives....

Dangman

Dangman

Ninja Editor SuperMod
Joined
Dec 15, 2005
Messages
46,056
In the past four months, I have had five hard drives die on me. I'm pretty sure thats not a good sign.

Death toll:
WD 250GB PATA (2 year old)
Maxtor 60GB PATA (3 years old)
WD 120GB PATA (1 year old)
Seagate 300GB SATA (2 month old)
Hitachi 160GB SATA (3 month old)

Anyway I was wondering if there is an explanation as to why all these hard drives died so quickly. My friends believe the main problem is heat but I believe there is a different reason because I have a five year old Seagate 6.4GB in the same case as the other hard drives, yet it has never failed on me.

So is there any other ways I can stop my hard drives from dying?
 
Please post:

System specs (CPU, vid card, anything you can think of with a chip on it or a power connector leading to it)

Brand, model, and +12 current rating (in amps, on the label) of your power supply

How many drives you have installed at any one time

What is cooling the drives
 
sounds like a power supply problem. im not 100% sure if the v1.2 (or is it 1.3? cant remember) delivers power differently than 2.0 (and above), but i am almost certain the v5 and v12 deliver power differently to the drives. what PSU do you have?
 
Danny Bui said:
My friends believe the main problem is heat but I believe there is a different reason because I have a five year old Seagate 6.4GB in the same case as the other hard drives, yet it has never failed on me.
Click to expand...


You're mistaken in your assumptions here. That old Seagate spins at a lower rate and produces less heat internally, therefore it can generally withstand higher ambient temps than today's 7200 and 10000rpm drives. Those old things are just plain workhorses.
 
@DougLite and protias

The specs are in my sig, the PC. As for the power supply, it came with the case, a X-Dreamer II. Here's a picture of the P/S:

IMG_1681Medium.jpg


I usually have 3 hard drives installed at any one time. 2 PATA and 1 SATA. There's a 80mm intake fan right in front of the hard drive

@davidlem

Thats right. I completely forgot about the hard drive's RPM. It is a 5400RPM. That would explain why that Seagate hasn't died yet.
 
Well now I wouldn't draw any absolute conclusions regarding that 5400rpm Seagate. I just didn't want you trouble-shooting while misinformed.
 
PSU is definitely the problem. I have a Turbolink PSU sitting on a junk pile in my garage, as it killed a WD1200BB in less than a week. Aspire's PSUs are among the worst PSUs out there, especially the ones that ship with their cases.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=974240

Head to the PSU forum and check out their stickies to see abotu a replacement. A good Antec, Fortron/Sparkle FSP series, or Enermax doesn't have to be expensive.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1000883
 
@ DougLite

Ahh man, thats good to know. Actually wouldn't have suspected the P/S. Thank you for your help.

@ -(Xyphox)-

I actually have that program. Though it only kept the hard drives running for another two weeks or so, now that I know that the P/S could be the problem, I may have to recheck my hard drives when I get a new P/S
 
Danny Bui said:
@ DougLite

Ahh man, thats good to know. Actually wouldn't have suspected the P/S. Thank you for your help.

@ -(Xyphox)-

I actually have that program. Though it only kept the hard drives running for another two weeks or so, now that I know that the P/S could be the problem, I may have to recheck my hard drives when I get a new P/S
Click to expand...

Spin-Rite best program out there for drives, glad to hear you use it :D
 
Danny Bui said:
@DougLite and protias

The specs are in my sig, the PC. As for the power supply, it came with the case, a X-Dreamer II. Here's a picture of the P/S:

IMG_1681Medium.jpg


I usually have 3 hard drives installed at any one time. 2 PATA and 1 SATA. There's a 80mm intake fan right in front of the hard drive

@davidlem

Thats right. I completely forgot about the hard drive's RPM. It is a 5400RPM. That would explain why that Seagate hasn't died yet.
Click to expand...

Wow, not many safety test lab logos on that sucker. My psu has at least 5 i think.
 
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