Lifespan of Tb external hard drive

[Roy]

Hello group
Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?
I have a couple of these storage device and keep wondering about how
many years will it remain useful?..
Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.


Any ideas...?
TIA
Roy

 

[Marten Kemp]

Hello group
Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?
I have a couple of these storage device and keep wondering about how
many years will it remain useful?..
Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.

No PM, alas. Just keep 'em cool and dust free. and feed 'em good power.
About the only things you can do are:
-backup often with a tested recovery method,
-build a RAID-5 array to minimize the effect of a bad drive,
-replace the drives before they hit the end of their warranty period
or sooner if the SMART data indicate it. Sell the swapped-out drives
on Ebay - lots of people will take chances with the drives.

 

[J G Miller]

Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.

Monitor the state of the disks using their SMART features
with smartmontools.

<http://sourceforge.NET/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki>

 

[mm]

Hello group
Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?
I have a couple of these storage device and keep wondering about how
many years will it remain useful?..
Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.

Absolutely. They should be oiled every spring and every fall.

Also, I have a 500 gig my book, that stands on end, even though it has
vents on the bottom. Now I'm resting it on a big magnifying glass
with two ridges, and it sure seemed that the air at the top or coming
out the top when I cloned a drive to it was cooler. I'm going to get
some stick-on rubber feet for it.

Why do they make them with the most important air intake, the one on
the bottom, closed off in normal use?

 

[philo]

Hello group
Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?
I have a couple of these storage device and keep wondering about how
many years will it remain useful?..
Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.


Any ideas...?
TIA
Roy

I've seen new drives die after four weeks.

I have drives 20 years old that are still working.


Back up your data twice .

The only alternative to backing up your data twice is to back it up
three times!

 

[Paul]

Hello group
Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?
I have a couple of these storage device and keep wondering about how
many years will it remain useful?..
Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.


Any ideas...?
TIA
Roy

You can check the reviews on Newegg, to get some idea how long
some of those products last.

The external enclosure designs aren't really the best, for
continuous usage. If you do backups only on the drive,
it's probably best to shut it down and unplug it, when
not using it.

If you want to keep a TB drive as online storage, it would
be better to install it inside the computer, where there
is some air circulation. Large tower cases are available,
to hold many drives, if necessary.

One of the SMART statistics, is drive temperature, so you can
monitor how things are going for yourself. Give HDTune a try.
My two drives right now (internals), measure 27C and 28C.
And that is because there is an intake fan in front of the
drive bays.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

The hard drive motors are FDB, with sealed fluid bearings. If
the fluid escapes, motor destruction follows soon after. High
temperature can accelerate that process. Once running, FDB is
frictionless (unlike the previous generation of ball bearing
motors, where you could hear the noise level increase with
age). FDB would last forever, if you could keep fluid in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrodynamic_bearing

The landing ramp for the head assembly, is another spot for
wear and tear. The tendency with pre-packaged externals, is
to control operating temperature, by doing frequent spindowns.
While drive are rated for a minimum of 50,000 to 300,000
start/stop cycles, the enclosure design principles may be
wasting those cycles, at the drive's peril. The combination
of OS probes (spinup) followed by enclosure desire to
spindown to control temperature, means the cycle count is
climbing.

You can buy separate enclosures, with fan cooling, and that
is another way to do it. But the external manufacturers
don't want to do that, because of the product returns they'd
get for bad fans, or the complaints from users, about the noise.
Sleeve bearing fans, used in separate enclosures, can fail in
as little as a day or two, due to the sloppy tolerances. It's
the difference between the enclosure manufacturer using a
sub $1 fan, versus a good fan. Ideally, the fan design should
be removable, so it can be replaced. But not all enclosure
designs have the fan as a removable part. Some external
enclosures have the fan as part of the housing.

(The fan in this one can be replaced, as it is held by screws,
and is a standard square design. You install a bare drive mechanism
with a screwdriver, and have your external working with five minutes
of assembly work.)

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/17-182-211-Z06?$S640W$

Some of those, have a switch controlling the fan, so you can turn
off the fan if the noise bothers you. Of course, then you're trading
drive temperature, versus noise free operation.

Paul

 

[Roy]

I've seen new drives die after four weeks.

I have drives 20 years old that are still working.

Back up your data twice .

The only alternative to backing up your data twice is to back it up
three times!

Thanks ...supposing its already filled it data, can I just place it
somewhere cool and dry and thats it it can remain useful for even a
decade or more...?
Why do I have to back up an already filled hard drive often....?
Roy

 

[Roy]

Roy wrote:

You can check the reviews on Newegg, to get some idea how long
some of those products last.

The external enclosure designs aren't really the best, for
continuous usage. If you do backups only on the drive,
it's probably best to shut it down and unplug it, when
not using it.

Hmm, it means its longevity is better if you store it once filled
up........than being ever connected to the PC....?

 

[Paul]

Hmm, it means its longevity is better if you store it once filled
up........than being ever connected to the PC....?

What I'm saying is, if your external enclosure is causing
excessive spinup/spindown cycles, then powering it off
and disconnecting it is the best policy.

If the internal hard drive was placed inside your PC case, it
might not suffer from the spinup/spindown problem. The
spinup/spindown thing is used, inside the external enclosure,
as a "thermal solution", to keep the drive cool. It is a
stupid solution, to a lack of cooling inside the enclosure.
And it's the reason, I've given a casual suggestion, that
in the event a lot of spinup/spindown is being used, you
could wear out the drive, simply because of that battle.

Not all external enclosures do that. If you find, that many
times when you go to access the drive, it takes 5-10 seconds
to respond, it may have been sitting in a spindown state. And
that would suggest to you, the manufacturer of the product,
is doing thermal control that way. If the OS would "leave
the drive alone" and not probe it occasionally, is isn't quite
so bad (the drive could sleep when you're not using it).
But if, between the OS and the enclosure, they're continually
doing spinup/spindown cycles, well, sooner or later you'll
exceed the 300,000 acceptable cycles of that type. I have heard
of some externally enclosed disks, that manage to do a huge
number of those cycles, per day. Not a good thing.

That has nothing to do with the amount of space on the
1TB drive that holds data. There could be 1 byte on there,
there could be 10**12 bytes on there. It matters not, if
the head assembly is ground off, going up and down the
landing ramp.

Paul

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Does anybody here have an information about the actual lifespan of a
terabyte of external hard drive.?

For all sizes, manufacturer's specs often say 5 years, based on either
24 hours/day or 8 hours/day use. For both new and old hard drives,
I've also seen ratings of 30,000-50,000 hours. This isn't to be
confused with the mean time between failure (MTBF) statistics, which
have risen from roughly 50,000 hours in past decades to over 2 million
hours for current drives.

There's the famous Google study, based on 100,000 drives in use since
2001. It said the first-year failure rate was 1.7%, about 8% in years
2-3. Also SMART scans seemed to predict failure. Only 2% of drives
showed errors then, but those that did were 10x as likely to fail soon
(70% of such drives survived another 8 months). Drives with sector
reallocations failed 3x - 6x as often, with 85% surviving 8 months
after the first reallocation.

http://static.googleusercontent.com...abs.google.com/en/us/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Are there any preventive maintenance methods for such devices.

Treat them the way a nerd would, not the way a business major would
(especially a marketing major). Don't zap them with static (store in
anti-static metallic plastic bags or at least in pink anti-static
plastic bags), don't get them wet (not even dew), and don't knock them
around (especially when they're turned on -- even a gentle bump can
make the heads bounce against the platters).

 

[Roy]

Not all external enclosures do that. If you find, that many
times when you go to access the drive, it takes 5-10 seconds
to respond, it may have been sitting in a spindown state. And
that would suggest to you, the manufacturer of the product,
is doing thermal control that way. If the OS would "leave
the drive alone" and not probe it occasionally, is isn't quite
so bad (the drive could sleep when you're not using it).
But if, between the OS and the enclosure, they're continually
doing spinup/spindown cycles, well, sooner or later you'll
exceed the 300,000 acceptable cycles of that type. I have heard
of some externally enclosed disks, that manage to do a huge
number of those cycles, per day. Not a good thing.

Hmm that might be the reason why it took several seconds for the data
to come out when accessed from that external hard drive... so you
imply its better to shut it down than to be continuously connected
via the external inclosure?

Roy

 

[Roy]

For all sizes, manufacturer's specs often say 5 years, based on either
24 hours/day or 8 hours/day use.  For both new and old hard drives,
I've also seen ratings of 30,000-50,000 hours.  This isn't to be
confused with the mean time between failure (MTBF) statistics, which
have risen from roughly 50,000 hours in past decades to over 2 million
hours for current drives.

Hmm so if the manufacturer says the warranty is 3 years, it can be
stable up to 5 years of 24/7 continuous use...?

Treat them the way a nerd would, not the way a business major would
(especially a marketing major).  Don't zap them with static (store in
anti-static metallic plastic bags or at least in pink anti-static
plastic bags), don't get them wet (not even dew), and don't knock them
around (especially when they're turned on -- even a gentle bump can
make the heads bounce against the platters).

How about if I store it in the box where it originally come,would that
suffice?

Roy

 

[Roy]

On 10/16/2010 02:49 PM, Roy wrote:

True, it very well might be able to sit around for decades and still be
fine...but considering the price of hard drives...a double back up is
good insurance

Implying... that I have to get a similarlysized hard drive to copy the
data into it?

Roy

 

[Roy]

Absolutely.  They should be oiled every spring and every fall.

Also, I have a 500 gig my book, that stands on end, even though it has
vents on the bottom.  Now I'm resting it on a big magnifying glass
with two ridges, and it sure seemed that the air at the top or coming
out the top when I cloned a drive to it was cooler.  I'm going to get
some stick-on rubber feet for it.

Why do they make them with the most important air intake, the one on
the bottom, closed off in normal use?

I had a similar 500 gb iomega encased in a thick metal plating which
makes the device look like armored and heavy...
is it a better case than the latest thin plastic like enclosure?

Roy

 

[Paul]

Hmm that might be the reason why it took several seconds for the data
to come out when accessed from that external hard drive... so you
imply its better to shut it down than to be continuously connected
via the external inclosure?

Roy

I recommend shutting it down, if there is evidence the enclosure
uses the "rapid spindown" method to remain cool. If every time
you go to use it, there is a significant time delay, it implies that
is what is going on. You could also try listening for vibration,
by sticking your ear on the casing, to tell when it is spun down.
If you think it is using spindown a lot, or at frequent intervals,
then it may be better to shut down and disconnect it.

And to judge what to do, take the 50,000 start/stop number, listen
to the drive to see how often it is spinning up and then down again
minutes later. Work out how many times that would happen per day,
per year and so on. If you see a chance you could significantly
exceed 50,000 cycles in a three year period, then turn it off
when not using it.

If Windows would leave the drive alone, it would be less of an issue.
It's when the drive spins down, then Windows gives it a quick poke,
then it spins down again, that this becomes a problem. I wouldn't
have worried about this, except one user reported this was happening
very rapidly. And that doesn't sound good, if the periodicity is
measured in seconds.

Paul

 

[philo]

Implying... that I have to get a similarlysized hard drive to copy the
data into it?

Roy

You don't have to do that if you don't want...
I'm just saying it's cheap insurance.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

On Oct 17, 10:34 am, "larry moe 'n curly" <[email protected]>
wrote:

How about if I store it in the box where it originally come,would that
suffice?

Sure, as long as all the original material is used, especially the
metallic anti-static bag.

 

[Roy]

Sure, as long as all the original material is used, especially the
metallic anti-static bag.

thanks!

 

[Roy]

I recommend shutting it down, if there is evidence the enclosure
uses the "rapid spindown" method to remain cool. If every time
you go to use it, there is a significant time delay, it implies that
is what is going on. You could also try listening for vibration,
by sticking your ear on the casing, to tell when it is spun down.
If you think it is using spindown a lot, or at frequent intervals,
then it may be better to shut down and disconnect it.

And to judge what to do, take the 50,000 start/stop number, listen
to the drive to see how often it is spinning up and then down again
minutes later. Work out how many times that would happen per day,
per year and so on. If you see a chance you could significantly
exceed 50,000 cycles in a three year period, then turn it off
when not using it.

If Windows would leave the drive alone, it would be less of an issue.
It's when the drive spins down, then Windows gives it a quick poke,
then it spins down again, that this becomes a problem. I wouldn't
have worried about this, except one user reported this was happening
very rapidly. And that doesn't sound good, if the periodicity is
measured in seconds.

    Paul

So if the hard drive is USB plugged to the PC that spin down even will
happen?
I have one terabyte connected always to my PC but often I did not see
it active, unless open it by my computer\ seagate hd...then I can
hear the faint hum of spinning disk.
But if not , I can see the indicator lights being active but I don't
hear any sound...
Does this imply that this USB connected expansion drive will remain
dormant if its not opened?

Roy

 

[Paul]

So if the hard drive is USB plugged to the PC that spin down even will
happen?
I have one terabyte connected always to my PC but often I did not see
it active, unless open it by my computer\ seagate hd...then I can
hear the faint hum of spinning disk.
But if not , I can see the indicator lights being active but I don't
hear any sound...
Does this imply that this USB connected expansion drive will remain
dormant if its not opened?

Roy

Having the drive spin down, when it is not active, is not all bad. It
is when the enclosure commands spin down, and a few seconds later,
Windows makes it spin up, that is bad. If your drive remains spun down
for hours at a time (when you're not using it), then obviously there
is no impact in terms of wear and tear on the head assembly. What I'm
warning you about, is situations where the drive spins up and spins down
frequently. And listening to it, might be one way to keep track.

You can also use your computer to do the listening. You can easily record
sound on the computer for an hour or more, then take the recording
into a tool like Audacity, and look at the envelope of the sound.
That might be the quickest way, to record what is happening.
(Obviously, don't write the recorded sound on the external disk,
or you'll wake it up and spoil the test.)

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Paul