SMART reports drive on its way out

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Jacobs
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark Jacobs

My Maxtor IDE 60GB drive which is a mere 4 years old, is being reported as on
its last legs, and I am advised to back up all my data (which I am doing onto
CDs over the next few days). The system then continues to boot up normally,
and I get no further problems. Obviously, I am not going to ignore the
warning, but I am trying to find out if this is normal. Should an IDE drive
last a mere 4 years before needing replacement? In my particular case, I
switch the PC on in the morning everyday, and power off at night. Does this
add strain to the PSU, Montiro, or hard drive? Is it better to leave the thing
on all the while?
 
There is no definitive answer to your question...

some drives can go many years with no problems, some drives don't last a
week. You have gotten 4 years of use from the drive...back it up, and with
the prices of drives these days you can get a much larger capacity, faster
drive for less than you paid for the current drive 4 years ago.

I would also recommend that you adopt a regular backup regimen, as trusting
important data to a hard drive and not backing it up regularly is asking for
trouble.

Bobby
 
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