Hard Disk Reliability

[Rod Speed]

A bad controller.....yes.

Shouldnt be possible to DESTROY a hard drive in the sense that its physically damaged.

 

[Arno Wagner]

A bad controller.....yes.

That should not be possible. I have not heard any credible
reports of that happening.

Arno

 

[Dave]

That should not be possible. I have not heard any credible
reports of that happening.

Arno

Well a bad controller can definitely cause corrupted files. And depending
on what the controller is DOING to the hard drive, it's theoretically
possible that the controller could wear out the hard drive by causing it to
perform unnecessary functions over and over and over again. -Dave

 

[Rod Speed]

Well a bad controller can definitely cause corrupted files.

Sure, but thats completely different to physically destroying the drive.

And depending on what the controller is DOING to the hard drive, it's
theoretically possible that the controller could wear out the hard drive by causing it to perform unnecessary
functions over and over and over again.

Nope, the controller cant do anything different to what the controller is supposed
to do like with a very drive intensive use, and that doesnt kill drives.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Well a bad controller can definitely cause corrupted files.

Sure, no argument about that. No damage to the drive here.

And depending on what the controller is DOING to the hard drive,
it's theoretically possible that the controller could wear out the
hard drive by causing it to perform unnecessary functions over and
over and over again.

Modern drives cannot really be "worn out".

The only exception I know is that 3.5" drives typically can only
stand 50'000 start-stop cycles, but this is simething a bad
controller is very unlikely to cause.

Arno

 

[Ed Medlin]

Sure, but thats completely different to physically destroying the drive.


Nope, the controller cant do anything different to what the controller is
supposed
to do like with a very drive intensive use, and that doesnt kill drives.

I have one here right now where the SATA controller had the first and sixth
channel go bad and took the HDD with channel one. The only thing I cannot
say is whether the drive went bad on it's own or the controller caused it.
That will be impossible to tell since the drive is completely unrecoverable
with the usual vendor tools (WD) and I am not going to risk another drive by
connecting it to the bad controller channels for very long. I did connect a
good drive to both the bad channels just long enough to verify that they
were inoperable. I can hear the drive spin up and shut down and repeat on
both channel one and six. Using the same power and SATA cables channels 2-5
work normally and the drives are detectable. This is only the 2nd WD drive I
have had go bad on me in 15 or so years that wasn't mishandled like being
dropped or something. I have used mainly Samsung and WD drives in my builds
and have had good results with both.


Ed

 

[Rod Speed]

I have one here right now where the SATA controller had the first and sixth channel go bad and took the HDD with
channel one. The only thing I cannot say is whether the drive went bad on it's own or the controller caused it.

And that last is what matters.

That will be impossible to tell since the drive is completely unrecoverable with the usual vendor tools (WD)

All you currently have evidence for is that the drive did die. No news that drives do die.

and I am not going to risk another drive by connecting it to the bad
controller channels for very long. I did connect a good drive to both
the bad channels just long enough to verify that they were inoperable.

It clearly cant be killing drives very aggressively if it didnt kill that one.

I can hear the drive spin up and shut down and repeat on both channel one and six. Using the same power and SATA
cables
channels 2-5 work normally and the drives are detectable. This is only the 2nd WD drive I have had go bad on me in 15
or so years that wasn't mishandled like being dropped or something.

Sure, but drives do die at a low rate. Thats all you actually have evidence for.

I have used mainly Samsung and WD drives in my builds and have had good results with both.

Yeah, I used to use WDs myself until I liked Samsungs better, particularly
quieter, dont get as warm and without the rather stupid jumpering of the
WDs. Never had any of them fail, tho one WD did get very noisy bearings.