How long is too long?

TechBoy

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Oct 1, 2006
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Ok well I have had my Hitachi 7k250 IDE 160gb hard drive for about 3 years now. I keep my computer on all the time so this hard drive has logged quite a bit of hours. So my question is how long is too long, I mean life span wise. I don't want to see that in the next few months my Hard Drive breaks down and I have to buy a new one, rather I would like to take preventative measures. So do you guys think it is time to buy a new hard drive or can this thing keep going until the 1TB hard drives get a little cheaper?
 
I have a 40 gig Seagate and 2 80 gig WD's that have been running non stop for 7 years. I've had a 60 gig Maxtor, a 160 gig Seagate, and a 160 gig WD all fail within a few months, not in the same system or same time, but they only lasted short time. I think there is no definitive way to tell when a HD will die. SMART monitoring can help, but I never had good luck with. Run the windows check disk, and any tools Hitachi may have, see if you get any errors. There's always the chance the hd can die (knock on wood), the only thing you can do is keep all your important data backed up.

I'm not sure if any of that answered your question, sorry. :eek:
 
YES! Buy now, and don't buy Hitachi --- they suck!!

I bought a 750GB Hitachi SATA 3gb/s. It worked for 3 days and died!!!!

Hurry and switch before your timebomb ticks off!
 
YES! Buy now, and don't buy Hitachi --- they suck!!

I bought a 750GB Hitachi SATA 3gb/s. It worked for 3 days and died!!!!

Hurry and switch before your timebomb ticks off!

Really? My last 5 drives have all been a Hitachi, so far none of them had failed on me. So far a performance hitachi drives are pretty damn good.
 
I've got two Hitachi drives that have performed without problem. The problems with Hitachi are in the past. The speed is good too.

Any drive worth its salt should run for years powered continuously.
 
There isn't really a way to answer this question. It could die tomorrow, or it could run another 10+ years. No one would need data back ups if we could tell when our drivers are going to die, so I'm not sure what exactly you want someone to tell you. Make sure you're data is backed up, and if you are paranoid, run some disk diags on it.
 
YES! Buy now, and don't buy Hitachi --- they suck!!

I bought a 750GB Hitachi SATA 3gb/s. It worked for 3 days and died!!!!

Hurry and switch before your timebomb ticks off!

Don't listen to this guy. Hitachi bought and expanded on IBM's very successful hard drive business. If you feel the need to buy a new drive I would recommend Seagate, Western Digital, or Hitachi. Between these 3 companies, it's really just a matter of price.
 
Well, I wanted to get another Hitachi 7k500 to match with my current one but I would end up spending at the very least $160 for a 500GB. Where as I got mine for 90$ from a sale. I saw the WD 750gb hard drive, seemed tempting but 150$ just isnt what I want to spend right now.
Thanks for all the recommendations. Anyone know of a decent Hard drive with at least 500gb and from a decent company for about 100$?
 
YES! Buy now, and don't buy Hitachi --- they suck!!

I bought a 750GB Hitachi SATA 3gb/s. It worked for 3 days and died!!!!

Hurry and switch before your timebomb ticks off!

:rolleyes:

surely a single observation is a very good indicator of the general trend: The other day I saw a person in shorts stumble on the street and fall. All people in shorts must be falling constantly.
 
I've had very bad luck with Seagate (three externals, one internal melted down in the space of a month), so I don't use them although I won't tell anyone else to avoid them. I'm just kind of superstitious about them now.

I have all Western Digital drives, two died (Raptor w/ a bad controller board that corrupted data and caused my computer to not ever shut off) and a 7500AAKS that had a Reallocated Sector Count spike through the roof. Two are still in service in other computers of friends I sold the drives to (2500KS).

My computers are on 24/7.
 
YES! Buy now, and don't buy Hitachi --- they suck!!
I bought a 750GB Hitachi SATA 3gb/s. It worked for 3 days and died!!!!
Hurry and switch before your timebomb ticks off!
O'RLY? Had 2x 160GB and 1x 250GB running in my fileserver 24/7/365 for the last 3 years without a hitch. Just shoved in 6x 1TB drives and they've been running without a peep 24/7 for the last 7 months.

Then again, they all sit in CM 4-in-3s, so they get cooled very well :)
 
:rolleyes:

surely a single observation is a very good indicator of the general trend: The other day I saw a person in shorts stumble on the street and fall. All people in shorts must be falling constantly.

Oh man, I got in trouble from this, I was in lecture and laughed out loud.
 
I think its really depends on luck ... for my experience, I some of my clients are using WD , in most case it will die within 1 year.... but Seagate can least about 3 years or more. Thats what I know , my clients are office user, so they use over 10hrs /day. If you really want to protect your valuable data, you may try some backup strategy or use RAID.
 
Oh man, I got in trouble from this, I was in lecture and laughed out loud.

Glad at least someone liked it.


On topic:

I am still running a quantum fireball KX plus. I've been using it for eight years now, it has 49766 Power_On_Hours which translates into running nonstop for 5.5 years. I have had other drives arrive DOA, fail within 1 year, 3 years...
 
Glad at least someone liked it.


On topic:

I am still running a quantum fireball KX plus. I've been using it for eight years now, it has 49766 Power_On_Hours which translates into running nonstop for 5.5 years. I have had other drives arrive DOA, fail within 1 year, 3 years...

wow those sound like really reliable drives. my Hitachi 7k250 drives have probably been on for
25000 something odd hours in the past 3 years. I am kinda worried though as I do back up my hard drive on my 500gb, but I forgot to mention that one time before a few months ago the hard drive refused to boot, mainly i think was because it over heated. After a day or two I tried again and the drive booted and has worked ever since. So I was thinking I could find a hard drive around 500gb thats 100$ or less.
 
wow those sound like really reliable drives. my Hitachi 7k250 drives have probably been on for
25000 something odd hours in the past 3 years. I am kinda worried though as I do back up my hard drive on my 500gb, but I forgot to mention that one time before a few months ago the hard drive refused to boot, mainly i think was because it over heated. After a day or two I tried again and the drive booted and has worked ever since. So I was thinking I could find a hard drive around 500gb thats 100$ or less.

Have a 160gb Hitachi that's been running without a Hit_ch_ (get it?!) for at least 5-6 years. Even got wet from a leaky roof (don't ask) and no problem.

Then again I have a 80gb WD Caviar that's been going well.

In my experience it's luck of the draw from the start... I don't have many drives fail on me in the long run... normally really early or nothing.
 
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