# What's Your Longest Lasting HDD?



## RCoon (Apr 24, 2015)

On what is a very sad day for us at the office, I have decided to run a thread in the honour of my WD2500 Caviar SE 250GB HDD that died today after *10 years* of undaunted service in our spare office machine. He has seen many HDD's plugged in beside him, Secure Erased and bashed to death with a 12 pound hammer, but never wavered in his duty as loyal spare.







My question to you is, what has been your longest serving Hard Drive? Can you beat a HDD working for 10 years solid?

Pics or it didn't happen!


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Apr 24, 2015)

I still have a box full of working 80-100mb IBM hard drives in the shed. I dont use them for obvious reasons.

::EDIT::

My longest serving has to be an old 300GB Maxtor IDE that i have in a external caddy that ive had since before 2005


----------



## arbiter (Apr 24, 2015)

Up til about 2 years ago i have 500gb AAKS wd drive i used for OS, had 5 years powered on time. Not 1 bad cluster or sector on the drive. Only down side it was a tad slow given the drive was good 6 years old at the time.


----------



## Jetster (Apr 24, 2015)

5.25" Quantum Bigfoot that's about 25 years old. 8.4 Gb. Still works. Its was only running for about 6 years I think

But the question should "what is the most hours on a drive" . I've had one Samsung 1 Tb drive I ran for 42,000 hours

Can you read the hours off the drive? *RCoon*


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Apr 24, 2015)

RCoon said:


> My question to you is, what has been your longest serving Hard Drive? Can you beat a HDD working for 10 years solid?


I'm still using two 250 GB Barracudas (RAID0) purchased in I think June of 2005.  No, I won't take pictures because then I'd have to turn my computer off.

In terms of 24/7 operation, the longest is a 250 GB Barracuda in my server operating since I believe 2006 or 2007 (70,000+ hours by my estimation).  No, I won't take pictures of it because then I'd have to turn my server off. 


I have a Gateway 2000 here with a Quantum Fireball (I think).  It hasn't seen much use in the last decade so...doesn't really count.

Any drives older than that got recycled, including a Seagate 2x5.25" bay 1 GB SCSI drive.  I wish I kept that thing.  It was a museum piece.  Funny thing is, that drive most likely still worked but I wanted to reinstall Windows 95 and couldn't find drivers for its controller card.  I gave up and sent the whole tower to recycling, drive and controller included.


----------



## droopyRO (Apr 24, 2015)

A 1GB Western Digital that still has Windows95 installed on it, made in 1997.
In the modern age a Western Digital 80GB ATA(cant rememeber the model ATM) from about 2004.
But on the downside two 1TB WD Green drives failed me in the last 5 years, the moral of the story is ... backup.


----------



## Maban (Apr 24, 2015)

One of my Samsung F3s rolled over 25,000 power-on hours today. Bought it in September 2009.

I assume my oldest hard drive is a 900MB but I have no idea if it still works.


----------



## Folterknecht (Apr 24, 2015)

I like my WD blues (2x 500GB + 1x 1TB) 1 platter drives. The older of the two 500GB drives has 31300 hours and the younger 22800 hours. Both are still running - hope the 1TB I bough about a year back will turn out that good too.


----------



## yotano211 (Apr 24, 2015)

My oldest HD ever was abut 5 years old when I had a HP elitebook 2510p laptop. It was a 1.8 inch HD 120gb 4200rpm. I upgrade to a new laptop, gave that one to my ex gf's sister and she destroyed it within 2 months. I had that laptop for 4 years, built like a tank and she it did within 2 months. Last last thing I will ever give away. Could gave gotten at least $50 on ebay for it.


----------



## vega22 (Apr 24, 2015)

oldest working is a wb black 40gb which is about 12 years old i think?

idk i will check the numbers later when i need to go out to the shed where it lives as my shed pc drive. not in use atm as that pc is lacking a psu.


----------



## Aquinus (Apr 24, 2015)

In my NAS/Gateway two of my 3x1TB drives have 41k power-on hours. One is a WD green the other is a Hitachi Deskstar, there is a third Hitachi with 37k hours on it and they all still work fine to this day. The 500GB drive in my main tower also has 37k hours on it which is a Seagate Barracuda ES.2 I think.

Performance is still okay as well:

```
$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 294 MB in  3.05 seconds =  96.40 MB/sec
$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
Timing buffered disk reads: 330 MB in  3.02 seconds = 109.40 MB/sec
$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
Timing buffered disk reads: 224 MB in  3.01 seconds =  74.44 MB/sec
```

The last one is the WD green which has always been slower than the other two, even when it was brand new.

Side note: GSmartControl is probably one of the best SMART utilities you can use that works on multiple OS' since it uses smartmontools under the hood.


----------



## Devon68 (Apr 24, 2015)

I had an Western digital 250 GB IDE drive serve me well since 2006 till a couple of month ago. It will boot up the system but after some time there is a click and it seems the platters just stop spinning and the Pc freezes up. Even when it was working it's health was 100% but the performance tab was sometimes 70-80% so I had to replace it.


----------



## AsRock (Apr 24, 2015)

Still using 2 WD 250GB HDD's and all so have a few old Seagate one's from back when i used to buy them, if i find time i will dig'em up.

But here's one of the WD250's


----------



## rtwjunkie (Apr 24, 2015)

My oldest continuous use HDD are 2 (two) 150GB WD Raptors (not velociraptors) from 2007 in 2 different computers.  I can't give pics right now as it would require some minor disassembly, but I could possibly get to it this weekend.


----------



## BarbaricSoul (Apr 24, 2015)

I have a 500GB Seagate 7200.12 that I got used in 2009, and a Seagate External 160GB drive I got in 2007 IIRC. Both are working perfectly.


----------



## dorsetknob (Apr 24, 2015)

Seagate ST3144a Hard Drive cira 1992





Still Alive but not connected

"" MASSIVE 130 MB ""


----------



## MrGenius (Apr 24, 2015)

I had a 40GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 I bought new that lasted ~9 years 6 months(daily use). I've got another 200GB DiamondMax  10 that's still going strong, with a man. date Nov. 28 2005. But I bought that one used, so I don't know how long it's really been ran for.

Sorry no pics of the dead one. I just recently hauled off all my old broken hardware. I'm pretty sure I still have the retail box for it though. I'm a semi-hoarder. Trying not to be.








Then I've also got a Samsung SpinPoint 80GB from 03/03 that my neighbor just gave me(in an ancient P4 system). It seems to work fine. Again, no idea on how much use it's really had though.


----------



## Ebo (Apr 24, 2015)

my oldest HD is a Samsung HD on 3.2GB and it still works, think I bourght it back in 1997/98


----------



## natr0n (Apr 24, 2015)

I have a collection of drives most are 10+ years old.They still all work no bad sectors.


----------



## Countryside (Apr 24, 2015)

Mine was Samsung 120gb it lasted for a good 7 years


----------



## neatfeatguy (Apr 24, 2015)

I have a 320GB WD Blue Scorpio that I purchased about 7 years ago that still runs in the computer I built for the daughter. It's not used very often over the past year that I took installed it, but the computer boots and runs fine when it is in use.


----------



## dorsetknob (Apr 24, 2015)

Sod *Moore's* law  seems Murphys law is better 
it seems to me that the older a drive is the more reliable it was
New Drives just do not have the reliability they should have

Once upon a time the drive you bought was only replaced because it lacked capacity
thats was the Main reason for Drive upgrade

These Days Drive replacement  ""Seems to be driven by Hardware failure""


----------



## qubit (Apr 24, 2015)

@RCoon I read your OP and burst into tears.  Ok, not really, but I did haz a sad, lolcat style.

Well, my contender _would_ have been my trusty 8GB Samsung SV0844A HDD that i bought in 1999. I say this due to the abuse it received from my occasional cack-handed handling. It's been dropped, banged and generally knocked about quite hard - and all while it was running. In that time only once or twice did it temporarily throw up an error and re-sync, but then just carried on like nothing had happened. That was one tough drive, I can tell you. Samsung built this thing like a tank. 

Unfortunately, that all came to an end when my flat was burgled in 2009, where various things were stolen, including this drive which was in my shoebox full of classic hard drives, some 20 years old. They included things like Connor 60MB laptop drives, 100MB Seagates and other obsolete weird and wonderful drives that I can't even remember now. Bastards. I'm still really pissed about it to this day, especially about that HDD which had real sentimental value for me.


----------



## Zafar (Apr 24, 2015)

My first HDD, a Seagate 40GB IDE drive, that I bought way back in 2005 is still working, despite having sprung up a few bad sectors. A WD 160GB drive which I bought from a friend in 2007 is still going strong.


----------



## Caring1 (Apr 25, 2015)

Most of the old IDE drives I had got dismantled and the platters frisbee'd into a bin and the magnets played with for a while (tip, don't use them as fridge magnets, they are bastards to remove) I still have an old '05 Hitachi TravelStar 60Gb from an old Acer lappy I sold off, the H.D. contains too many photos and memories to destroy and it still functions with a SATA adapter.


----------



## de.das.dude (Apr 25, 2015)

80gb hitachi hdd from 2006. 
lasted till this year until i accidently kicked it off my bed while sleeping.
not it makes weird crunchy noises 

so much good p0rn on that drive.....


----------



## xvi (Apr 25, 2015)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I'm still using two 250 GB Barracudas (RAID0) purchased in I think June of 2005.  No, I won't take pictures because then I'd have to turn my computer off.


I have two Barracuda 7200.10 250GB drives that I purchased new around the same time that have been powered on nearly 24/7 for many, many years. Finally went offline when I built sig rig. I'll power them up and see if I can get power up hours values off of them. Very reliable drives for me.


----------



## droopyRO (Apr 25, 2015)

Two pics for nostalgia. My mistake it is a 2GB hard drive not a 1GB as mentioned earlier.


----------



## GreiverBlade (Apr 25, 2015)

all of them are in a working state and are used in some of the rigs in my Sys Specs

from my K6-2 build:


from a PIII Dell Optiplex Gx
 

from my Athlon Xp build (still in use in a AXP build)
 

and from a P4 build (still in use in  the server or in the AXP rig)


----------



## animal007uk (Apr 25, 2015)

I can't get pics because the pc was that old it got chucked out but i did have a pc here that was so old it had 128MB's ram an old nvidia vanta GPU and had windows ME on it and i think the drive was like 20gig at most and untill i chucked it away it was still working fine and the drive showed no errors.


----------



## qubit (Apr 26, 2015)

Caring1 said:


> the H.D. contains too many photos and memories to destroy and it still functions with a SATA adapter.


Why don't you copy the files to more permanent storage? You can then let go of that drive (after first wiping it). At least make sure you have a minimum of two copies of those files or you'll lose them for certain.


----------



## Jack1n (Apr 26, 2015)

WD Black 640GB in service since 2009 and still going strong


----------



## Batou1986 (Apr 26, 2015)

I need to take a picture of my working 486 system with its 250mb hdd


----------



## Frick (Apr 26, 2015)

yotano211 said:


> My oldest HD ever was abut 5 years old when I had a HP elitebook 2510p laptop. It was a 1.8 inch HD 120gb 4200rpm. I upgrade to a new laptop, gave that one to my ex gf's sister and she destroyed it within 2 months. I had that laptop for 4 years, built like a tank and she it did within 2 months. Last last thing I will ever give away. Could gave gotten at least $50 on ebay for it.



Gods I hate those drives. So slow, but the computer itself is very nice.

Most hours I dunno. I have a 80GB drive from an office computer that has many hours on it, but they're not my hours. As for years ... probably no more than two. Every year I go through a life crisis and decide to get rid of all my computers. Rince, repeat.


----------



## Solaris17 (Apr 26, 2015)

I retired my samsung F1 1TB i bought back in like 07 i think when it was released it had someware over 45k hours. I loved that drive.


----------



## yotano211 (Apr 26, 2015)

Frick said:


> Gods I hate those drives. So slow, but the computer itself is very nice.
> 
> Most hours I dunno. I have a 80GB drive from an office computer that has many hours on it, but they're not my hours. As for years ... probably no more than two. Every year I go through a life crisis and decide to get rid of all my computers. Rince, repeat.


It was very slow but I could not upgrade it anymore. It had a special connector that I dont know the name of it. I remember the write speeds tests on it, it read about 22-25mb per sec. I loved the long battery life and tank quality built. I upgraded to a 2560p that is still in the closet. I will sell it one day.


----------



## broken pixel (Apr 26, 2015)

I still have some old school Barracuda drives that where removed from an old EMC Clariion RAID server.


----------



## toastem2004 (Apr 27, 2015)

My longest running one right now is a WD 2TB Green, just looked it has a runtime of 26281 hrs on it.  Its in my file server, so that pretty much non-stop run time.  For disclosure, it was off and not running for about 3 weeks while I moved from TX to CA.


----------



## torgoth (Apr 28, 2015)

Still have a 20gb hdd way back from the Duron days)


----------



## XSI (Apr 28, 2015)

i've had 4GB drive with celeron 333 (year 1997). almost for 10 years and then gave my computer away i know it worked several years more.


----------



## Guitar (Apr 29, 2015)

Longest running one in my PC right now is a WD5000AAKS (500gb) drive. 56018 hours, 596 power on counts. I think this is a drive I got second hand, but not sure...

Next is my Samsung HD501LJ 500gb with 39200 hours and 425 power on counts.

My SSD that I bought when I built this PC has 23404 on it, Kingston SH103S3240G 240gb. 105 power on counts.


----------



## GorbazTheDragon (Apr 29, 2015)

Hmm, I don't really know as far as operating hours, the ones (WD scorpio 500GB) in my GT60 could be some of the most used, that thing has been on for ~12h/d for 31 months (adds up to around 12k hours), however my pair of old 250GB drives (one ?Seagate? and one WD) are older (7 years now) but saw much less use in that period, probably only around 9k, one of them (the WD) is still running fine as boot drive for my brother's gaming rig (he is starting to wonder why it boots so slowly, 50MB/s FTW) but it is 100% healthy. The other is a spare drive I have laying around which sometimes is used for bench rigs.

I am actually looking to sell that laptop, but am a bit hesitant of keeping to those two heavily used drives in it, especially since they have been bumped around quite a bit too.

Fun fact, I ran those Scorpios at 4500m altitude while I was travelling in the north of Chile


----------



## Sasqui (Apr 29, 2015)

RCoon said:


> My question to you is, what has been your longest serving Hard Drive? Can you beat a HDD working for 10 years solid?



I have that EXACT same drive and it's still kicking.  It's now the OS drive in my second rig.  No hammer bashing though


----------



## xkm1948 (May 6, 2015)

An old Maxtor 850MB HDD, it still works the last time I went home and power up my ancient 486. Pretty amazing that it still works~


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (May 6, 2015)

My first laptop for college use: an ASUS K40IN. It uses a Toshiba Deskstar 320GB SATA 5400rpm 2.5-inch notebook Hard Drive. Got this laptop around Summer 2009 since everyone has one & it's been well maintained & kept well for nearly 7 years of use other than being my one & only platform to play games before I started building my 1st gaming rig. Now it's sitting in my room as emergency backup PC.


----------

