# How accurate is hard disk sentinal?



## stoggs1 (Dec 17, 2018)

Ok so I am using hard disk sentinal to monitor my drives and according to it both my drives have over a 1000 days of life.

And my main drive is at 100 percent health any second drive is at 97 percent with two re allocated sectors which I don't know what that means so if someone could explain that me I would appreciate that.

And what is the average lifespan of a hard drive with moderate use and in a pc that does not get ran 24/7?

Thanks in advance.


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## Ahhzz (Dec 17, 2018)

To answer the first part of your question, I've used HDSentinel to diagnose at least 5 different computers in the last 2 years that had hard drive issues that weren't showing up in the Windows event viewer. I trust it more than Windows itself.  I wouldn't take the "1000 days" as gospel, but it is a pretty good indicator. 
The reallocated sectors means that some sectors on your drive arte too weak to hold data properly, and have been marked as "Do Not Use". Some drives run for years with reallocated sectors, but just like with a car with a continuing rattle or whine, it does mean that "something" is not right. It may run for years to come, or it may the bolt on the transmission, and it all falls out under you on the freeway   Just a note to " Be Alert for Other Issues"


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## rtwjunkie (Dec 17, 2018)

Ignore the number of days Sentinel says your drives have.  There may be a law of averages, but quite simply, an HDD could fail tomorrow, or 8 years from now, even if run 24/7. 

Use the SMART values it monitors as a relative guide to how healthy your drive is. Just be aware that your drives are not bound by those SMART values.

One good predictor though, which bears watching is the reallocated sectors count.  It may not be bad. A couple of sectors could easily have needed to be written to other “reallocated” sectors because of a power failure or sudden shutdown.  If it is always growing, that indicates a possible problem.

Same thing with Pending sector count.  That will grow when sectors cannot be read. If it grows, it is a trouble sign. 

Hope this helps.

p.s. Just a little reference:
http://www.easis.com/smart-value-interpretation.html


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## stoggs1 (Dec 17, 2018)

Ok thanks for the information, and what would be the average lifespan for a drive in a pc that is only on for a couple of hours a day?

I have been trying to find an answer on Google but I can't find an exact answer, I know it's impossible to predict this but I would like a least and educated guess.


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## moproblems99 (Dec 17, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> Ok thanks for the information, and what would be the average lifespan for a drive in a pc that is only on for a couple of hours a day?
> 
> I have been trying to find an answer on Google but I can't find an exact answer, I know it's impossible to predict this but I would like a least and educated guess.



I have drives well over 15 years old that still work fine.  Often, the technologies driving the drives will become obsolete before the drives fail.


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## R-T-B (Dec 18, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> Ok thanks for the information, and what would be the average lifespan for a drive in a pc that is only on for a couple of hours a day?



The problem is any average will have a good amount of outliers of drives that last 15 years and drives that last only a day.

I'd say an average is like 3-5 years, but don't quote me.


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## stoggs1 (Dec 18, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> The problem is any average will have a good amount of outliers of drives that last 15 years and drives that last only a day.
> 
> I'd say an average is like 3-5 years, but don't quote me.


That's the main response I keep hearing but then I hear people that they have drives that last a lot longer.

The main reason I have been researching this is I'm wondering if should retire my 1tb drive.

It's almost 4 years old but I have barely used it for the past two years.  Their isn't much data on it other than my Windows 7 partition and a few older games that don't work well in Windows 10.

I haven't even booted into it since June.


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## rtwjunkie (Dec 18, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> It's almost 4 years old but I have barely used it for the past two years. Their isn't much data on it other than my Windows 7 partition and a few older games that don't work well in Windows 10.


As long as you back up, and there are no warning signs, keep using it.  I’ve got several drives over 4 Years old, and 2 in my server still going strong 7 years later, with 4 More 5 and 6 years old.

Again, back up, and then just use your drives. When they die, they die, you won’t lose the important stuff. And that’s what matters.


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## R-T-B (Dec 18, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> That's the main response I keep hearing but then I hear people that they have drives that last a lot longer.



And there are drives that last a lot shorter too...  makes averaging hard.

I would only take a >4 year old drive out if it's showing some flukes on SMART.  Even then it's probably good for nonessential data.


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## John Naylor (Dec 18, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> Ok thanks for the information, and what would be the average lifespan for a drive in a pc that is only on for a couple of hours a day?
> 
> I have been trying to find an answer on Google but I can't find an exact answer, I know it's impossible to predict this but I would like a least and educated guess.



Will depend on a number of things ..... 

a)  quality of design / materials
b)  operating temperature (how hot)
c)  operating temperature range (frequent heat up / cool downs ?)
d)  How organized ... for example, if you store the same types of files that are frequently accessed together all over the place... drive 'get more miles on it)
e)  Vibration
f)  Proper selection ... using a server drive in a  desktop or consumer drove in a  server will lead to early failure (listening backblaze ?)
g)  Drives failing early are more like;y ton have failed cause something was wrong out of the factory.

Again,  f) is why backblaze data is useless ...  consumer drives have a head parking feature which protects a drive in a consumer environment by parking the heads. Enabling this feature ona  server drive oir using a consumer drive ina  server environment will kill a drive as it can go thru it's rated number of cycles in a matter of months.

We haven't bought / installed a HD in 8 years,   Most boxes receive at least (1) SSD and (1) SSHD.   If users budget is really tight, we'll install OS and programs on 25 GB partition on an SSD and then they can clown it to a SSD they add down the line.  In this period:

(0) SSHD failures in 8 years ... both 2.5" (laptop) and 3.5' (desktop) 7200 rpm units.
(3) SSDs, faiures in 8 years .... one of the three was a warranty replacement so essentially the one purchase was replaced twice.  All (3) were units purchased between 5 and 8 years ago ... 0 faiures in last 5 years.  I attribute this to maturation of the technology; the stuff out 5-8 years ago wasn't as good as today's units.

All units had 5 year warrantees.

On my current build (run 24/7 as SOHO data / media server, AuotoCAD workstation and personal gaming box....

SSD 1 - 90 % life left
SSD 1 - 98 % life left
SSHD1 - No warnings
SSHD2 - No warnings

Temps typically 29 - 32C

I typically change the drives out after 5 years ... relegating older ones to off site storage ... data drives are mirrored, not in RAID but Data partitions are synced once a day and rest a week,  HD dock rotates out drives for offsite storage.


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## stoggs1 (Dec 18, 2018)

My main drive which is a 2tb sshd with 100 percent health and is a little over 2 years so it should still be good for while right?


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## rtwjunkie (Dec 18, 2018)

stoggs1 said:


> My main drive which is a 2tb sshd with 100 percent health and is a little over 2 years so it should still be good for while right?


Impossible to predict. Keep it backed up and then no worries.


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## R-T-B (Dec 18, 2018)

rtwjunkie said:


> Impossible to predict. Keep it backed up and then no worries.



This.  Redundant backups is king.


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## Athlonite (Dec 18, 2018)

We here can not extol the virtues of backing up your personal data enough .....
also the cooler you can keep your HDD's and to some extent SSD's the longer they should last case in point none of my drives get over 35c when working hard several of those drives are more than five years old and all still (according to HDD Sentinel) in 100% shape 

another problem can be from power delivery, Spikes and brown outs can be a killer to electronics brownouts in particular are really bad things so if you live in an area that has constant power problems you might want to look at buying an UPS especially one that handles power filtering


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