# Life expectancy of a HDD?



## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

i've had this seagate 7200.11 1tb drive for over a year now... prolly more like 1.5years.

every once in a while i hear a click like the drive powered down.

i disabled all power saving crap and i still notice the noise about 1-3 times a day.

the drive still performs perfectly but SMART data says that the drive has been run longer than the average drive. i run this drive along with my wd 640 aaks 24/7/365.

should i purchase a new 1tb and copy the data over or is my drive fine?

how long should the drive run 24/7 before its time to worry about swapping it out?

this is the longest i've ever owned a single drive so this is beyond my experience.

thanks in advance.


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## alexp999 (Mar 24, 2009)

Have you turned power saving off in the bios too?


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

i dont think there is anything for hdd power saving in the bios. all the cpu power saving stuff has been disabled though.

this just started happening this week. the bios hasnt changed in months.


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## alexp999 (Mar 24, 2009)

Okay fair enough.

So you get clicks like it has had a power cut or something? Or more of a click that something is rattling about?

Although SMART might report it has been used for more than average time, what does it report for all the seek errors, bad sectors etc?


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

thats the only thing it says is out of the norm. it says normal is between 96-100 and im at 87. everything else is flawless.

the click sounds like the head going to rest and being drawn back into the resting position and hitting the stopper. no sound of the disk spinning down though. i can still access data off of the drive immediately after the noise so i know its still on.


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## alexp999 (Mar 24, 2009)

How weird, maybe its just showing its age?
Like how a car's door panel starts to vibrate after a few years. Nothing wrong with it, just not as new as it once was.

Would it cost much to replace?


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

i have one lined up for $75 shipped NIB.


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## Tau (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> i've had this seagate 7200.11 1tb drive for over a year now... prolly more like 1.5years.
> 
> every once in a while i hear a click like the drive powered down.
> 
> ...




I have noticed the new .10/11 drives have fairly loud heads... i have 30-40 of those drives in use and pretty much all of them have the same sound you are talking about (kind of a click/clunk?  almost sounds like the head is smashing into the case lol)

As long as your SMART info is still reporting ok (no bad sectors, or the like) i wouldent worry about it at all, though still maintaine a good backup solution obviously.

most of my 7200.11's are around the 600 days of uptime mark (basically since launch of the 1TB's)  and I have had 3 failures out of ~40 drives.

Just makesure your backups are up to date and keep the drive adequatly cooled (i try to keep mine sub 40*C) and you shouldent have any issues... save for random sectors going bad, or the heads crashing or something.


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## ktr (Mar 24, 2009)

The power down "click" is normal on many hard drives. As a safety measure, the head gets auto parked during spin down. 



> Auto Park - Turning off the drive power causes the drive to move the read/write heads to a safe non-data landing zone and lock them in place.



It gets latched to a safe area. The latching is what you hear.


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## Tau (Mar 24, 2009)

What are you using to monitor the SMART data?  Download the trial of HDDSentinel and see what it says... frankly i would replace any drive thats now showing 100% health...  87% probobly means it has some bad sectors.  in wich case back it up and RMA it.


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## Shadowdust (Mar 24, 2009)

Every time our camera system's hdd starts clicking, it eventually fails within months of the clicking noise. Both times that it has happened, SMART reported everything within normal parameters. That system system has been running non-stop (except for when the both drives died) like yours since the original version was built three years ago. That's just what has happened to me in the past though, your situation may be different.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

ktr said:


> The power down "click" is normal on many hard drives. As a safety measure, the head gets auto parked during spin down.
> 
> It gets latched to a safe area. The latching is what you hear.



but the drive is not being powered down. it runs 24/7



Tau said:


> What are you using to monitor the SMART data?  Download the trial of HDDSentinel and see what it says... frankly i would replace any drive thats now showing 100% health...  87% probobly means it has some bad sectors.  in wich case back it up and RMA it.



everest and speedfan. there are no bad sectors at all.



Shadowdust said:


> Every time our camera system's hdd starts clicking, it eventually fails within months of the clicking noise. Both times that it has happened, SMART reported everything within normal parameters. That system system has been running non-stop (except for when the both drives died) like yours since the original version was built three years ago. That's just what has happened to me in the past though, your situation may be different.



hmmm.... i may just replace it to be safe.


i have no backup system. this is my main data drive. there is 690gb's of stuff on it that i cannot afford to loose.


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## alexp999 (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> i have no backup system. this is my main data drive. there is 690gb's of stuff on it that i cannot afford to loose.



In that case, you have answered your own question, replace it!

Maybe even keep the old one as backup, or setup Raid 1?


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## Tau (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> but the drive is not being powered down. it runs 24/7
> 
> 
> 
> ...




If you cant affoard to lose it you should have it backed up then 

Also HDDsentinel gives very good smart readings IMO, so you dont have to try and decipher it yourself.


IMO if you have any doubt about its stability (obviously you do) i would replace it.  And get some kind of backup solution in place!

Think about it this way, would you rather spend the 3 hours and $120 to ensure your data is safe or you would like to lose that 700GB?  Simple ansear in my books


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## Haytch (Mar 24, 2009)

Quad Redundancy!

Every hdd i have ever owned has lasted over 3 years.  Except ofcourse the Raptors which were destined to die upon purchase.

I expect them to last 3 years under constant use.  I still have several 120Gb's from over 5 years ago that i constantly thrash because their sole purpose is for bittorrent and other downloads, prior to sorting and placing things in their proper locations. Somewhat a sandbox.

Try to use your intuition more as opposed to SMART.  Or you could try HDD-Tach.


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## ktr (Mar 24, 2009)

Read this Fit, if you haven't already...

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

so should i get another  seagate or go with something else?


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## Tau (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> so should i get another  seagate or go with something else?



I would stick with Seagate personally....  AS i have had bad luck with WD (they also cost a bit more).  Though i have heard great things about Samsung F1's.... though i have never dealt with thier rma department either.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

i had some samsung 500gbs last year and every single one of 5 died. 

i got this seagate because it was the fastest at the time.


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## sneekypeet (Mar 24, 2009)

Fits odd thing you have for sure, but get this.

I have a 320 Seagate 7200.11, and I used to get the occational tick/click in the drive.

Got a new 1TB drive and swapped my OS to that. Sent the 320GB to backup duty in this PC and it hasnt made a noise since.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

im running the 1tb on my LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time owned maximus formula. i've had this board since i got it from asus as a review sample before they where released.

probably the one item i've owned the longest. havent been tempted to sell it either.

maybe i should update the matrix storage drivers?

this current OS was cloned off of a raid array and is now running in ACHI. would that have anything to do with it?


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## ktr (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> i had some samsung 500gbs last year and every single one of 5 died.
> 
> i got this seagate because it was the fastest at the time.



MAN you have bad luck with hard drives . I have yet to have a single hard drive failure.

I have a 8 year old Maxtor 160gb which I have used on many many rigs that still works just fine (currently being used on my mini linux server)...a 4 year old Seagate 300gb which I used as my external data storage...two 2 year old Seagate 320gb in raid 0 on my desktop that has zero problems. I have many old Seagate Barracuda ranging from 2-8gb SCSI drives that are over 15yrs old that work fine too!


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

i just sell stuff long before it begins to get old. if it dies thats another story


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## n-ster (Mar 24, 2009)

7200.12 is a perfect choice for replacement!

It's a single 500gb platter for 60$ shipped... very good IMO


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## AsRock (Mar 24, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> so should i get another  seagate or go with something else?



There's problems with any brand i believe but i have 7 WD drives here with 0 problems.  Which kinda makes it hard for me to say not to pick any thing other than WD's.

On the other hand might be just bad luck send it back to newegg if possible if not get it RMA'ed.

A friend had a clicking with his Hitachi's all though it went when he solve a heating issue he had and i'm sure thats not your issue here.

Should here 7 HDDs turning off sounds mad lol.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 24, 2009)

n-ster said:


> 7200.12 is a perfect choice for replacement!
> 
> It's a single 500gb platter for 60$ shipped... very good IMO



i have more data than that. i need 1tb+


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## Shadowdust (Mar 25, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> so should i get another  seagate or go with something else?



Heh, isn't that ironic. The the two drives I mentioned earlier were both Seagate drives. One was a 160 GB and the other a 300 GB. I RMA'd the 300 GB one though and it works great now.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)




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## niko084 (Mar 25, 2009)

Same here, I have a hard time trusting a Seagate drive lately...

Some last for 5-10 years, some die in 1-3 years...

I personally check my smart status about weekly, keep a backup of anything too important, and run hdtach to make sure my drive isn't getting slow.

It's too hard to estimate when they will die.

In servers, I swap hard drives out every 2 years NO MATTER WHAT!
If they get tested to be good they get sold.

****
That status is a VERY shot Drive, Board or Cable.
Those Read Errors, Seek Errors and Ecc Recoveries should NOT be there, they should be 0 or close to!
The Airflow temp almost tells me the logic board is toasted on that one, or at least the sensor.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

niko084 said:


> Same here, I have a hard time trusting a Seagate drive lately...
> 
> Some last for 5-10 years, some die in 1-3 years...
> 
> ...




its had 2 fans on it for the entire life i've had it. keep in mind that the drive has a ton of stuff on it and is 1.5years old.


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## niko084 (Mar 25, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> its had 2 fans on it for the entire life i've had it. keep in mind that the drive has a ton of stuff on it and is 1.5years old.



Well looks like performance is still up to par, but you do have a very serious issue non the less.
Normally what I do to test that is either drop the drive into another machine and run a defrag to see if more errors occur, if they do the drive it bad.

Or, drop another drive on that machine it's in and replace the cable and see if more errors occur on the known good drive, if that happens, your board is to blame. I normally just let a auto install of windows run on the system with the new known good drive.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

i run my setup alot different than most people.

i have a OS drive... in my case its a wd 640 aaks

and

storage drive... seagate 1tb.

that way, if the OS needs to be reinstalled i just format and reinstall.

as soon as i get to the desktop all my shit is there in the 1tb ready to use. no fucking around or loosing any data.

my problem is...

the 1tb seems like its headed for the grave. so i guess im just going to get a new one and clone the shit over and sell the old one.


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## niko084 (Mar 25, 2009)

Fitseries3 said:


> i run my setup alot different than most people.
> 
> i have a OS drive... in my case its a wd 640 aaks
> 
> ...



Ya I run the same way.
If your WD drive doesn't have the same errors, you know its the drive.

But ya, I see errors like that a lot, it's so annoying because there isn't a definite answer to where the problem is all the time.

Either way, as long as you get it off before death you're good to go!


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

heres the WD....


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Mar 25, 2009)

Fit, I feel your pain!  I just took a look at my HD today.  






Initial response:  Fuck
Niko's response:  You're fucked
My next response:  Just ordered a new HD

Good luck.


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 25, 2009)

In my experience.... (glances at my stack of 4 decomissioned Maxtor hard drives) loud clicking possibly followed up by random spin ups are usually a sign that the drive is on its way out to paperweight city. If you havent backed up your stuff yet then do it now while the drives still operational because once its condition deteriorates further you run a high risk of losing everything.

3 times Ive had random loud clicking noises & 3 hard drives suffering from the same symptoms ended up dead within 2 weeks. - the 4th hard drive would BSOD everytime i tried to transfer anything over.


its a pain in the ass now. but once you start getting 'Delayed Write Errors' its as good as gone because that will bring with it a host of 'Cyclic Redundancy Errors' which then it will probably start to BSOD your system if it gets to that point.

I have experience in this field! trust me!!!

.:EDIT:.


btw the decomissioned hard drives lasted me about 2-3years of heavy gaming & general thrashing before dying off


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## FordGT90Concept (Mar 25, 2009)

If anything, that drive you got has a manufacturing defect (which is why they come with a 3-5 year warranty).  Open a dialog with Seagate to get it RMA'd.


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## 95Viper (Mar 25, 2009)

Fit, those tests look like normal drive usage and seem to be within standards.  It does look like you leave your system on for extended periods of time. If you read at the bottom of the results they say your drive overall, in performance and fitness is: seagate is 95 % and WD is 99%.

Unless you are having problems, I would not waste money on a new drive.

Back-up anyway, 'cause there is Moore's law.  If it can go wrong, it will. Or, something to that effect.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

its clicking right now. its occasionally not responding now too.

i went ahead and got another drive. same one just new. $75 shipped.


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## 95Viper (Mar 25, 2009)

If it clicks continuously, yeah it is dying.  I would go WD.  Sorry for your loss.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

not continuously... just a few times a day.


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 25, 2009)

Myself - I have never been a huge fan of seagates ever since 1 failed within the first 2 weeks of my first system build. back then maxtors were pretty decent & reliable too! Im running all Samsung Spinpoints now. hopefully they will do a good 3 years


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 25, 2009)

if you dont keep it within its operating temperatures (extreme heat or cold) will actually kill the drive due to headactuator/controller/platter failure.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 25, 2009)

i covered that already more than once.


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## 95Viper (Mar 25, 2009)

If it is just clicking once in a while it is probably just S.M.A.R.T. doing it's thing:http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/featuresIdle-c.html


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 25, 2009)

95Viper said:


> If it is just clicking once in a while it is probably just S.M.A.R.T. doing it's thing:http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/featuresIdle-c.html





maybe so but If any hard drive degrades to the point where it starts kickin out loud clicks randomly I dont think its gonna be alive for much longer. & it would be best to seek a replacement.

I have 3 hard drives that started giving out loud random clicks & they all eventually died soon after


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## niko084 (Mar 25, 2009)

95Viper said:


> Fit, those tests look like normal drive usage and seem to be within standards.  It does look like you leave your system on for extended periods of time. If you read at the bottom of the results they say your drive overall, in performance and fitness is: seagate is 95 % and WD is 99%.
> 
> Unless you are having problems, I would not waste money on a new drive.
> 
> Back-up anyway, 'cause there is Moore's law.  If it can go wrong, it will. Or, something to that effect.



You can't EVER go with the "fitness" numbers they give you...
I use that test on 15+ drives a day, you can't imagine how many I have seen with 95%+ fitness that were completely shot.

When you see Read/Seek/ECC recoveries like that, something is BAD and needs to be replaced. Those error's should NOT exist beyond literally maybe 0-100 over 2-3 years.

The WD however looks fine.


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## Fitseries3 (Mar 31, 2009)

ok guys.....

for some reason power management would not stay disabled. after some reg edits i have forced it off and the noise is gone. should i still replace this drive?

i have a sealed seagate 1tb on my desk and if i dont have to open it i can send it back


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## nicholasblock (Mar 31, 2009)

Hey the 7200.11's had problems theres a firmware update on seagates website maybe that will help


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