# Storage Drive Efficiency - Post your results!



## N-Gen (Oct 24, 2011)

Ok guys, the basic idea of this is to have a collection of data as regards to how reliable hard drives are, we can work out averages on popular drives as more data comes in.

Why am I doing this? I have been checking my HDD stats recently and shockingly there are some drives that are not really reliable at all, so in order to help people with more accurate data, other than me just blaming 1 drive, we can collect data and have some sort of chart being updated.

It is advisable to read this document regarding drive failures kindly linked by repman244 (Please thank him here http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2434914&postcount=12).
Document link: http://static.googleusercontent.com.../labs.google.com/en//papers/disk_failures.pdf

I should say as well the idea had a little spark while reading the thread by satindemon4u regarding HDD speeds which can be found here http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151860

I recommend using Hard Disk Sentinel, the trial version is enough.

You should post:

A screenshot of the overview
A screenshot of the temperature tab

This way we can see what health and performance % the drives have and their bad sectors after what kind of usage is listed on the overview itself. At the same time we will be helping each other in future purchases, or saving that HDD from failing on you and destroying all your precious data. I have no idea about SSDs yet as mine should be arriving this week, however feel free to post.

If you want to use any other software please feel free to do so as long as your provide the same information required.

I will attach an example as I'm at school right now and I have no actual screenies of my older HDDs.

Status:







Temperatures:


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## Derek12 (Oct 24, 2011)

Here is it  











but... HDTune says this:


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## Frick (Oct 24, 2011)

Yeah, different programs interpret some SMART statuses differntely. Also that row indicates that there's an error/has been an error between the harddrive and the device the harddrive is plugged in to. It can be that it had a bad connection or something, so it's not that serious.

That G-sense is interesting though. What do you do with your HDDs? 

EDIT: If you check the SMART tab in HD Sentinel it will tell you the same thing.


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## N-Gen (Oct 24, 2011)

I avoided telling people to use SMART values simply because that would be too much information to make a simple chart, however it's nice to see that you took the initiative to show these values.

Thanks for your contribution


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## Peter1986C (Oct 24, 2011)

Cool that they also have a Linux version.

I will run this prog soon.


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## Derek12 (Oct 24, 2011)

Here is my netbook










@Frick
Many thanks for the explanation  , I will change the SATA cable as it is a bit old and it's quite twisted!.

About the G-sense, maybe it's due to me hit the computer tower accidentally with the chair and my feets, *flushed* 

PD: Correct, HD Sentinel says it is has 1 in "Data" column. But the explanation  of the attribute is quite interesting:

"Count of errors during data transfer between disk and host. Indicate problem with the *power supply* or data cable."
Power supply 





N-Gen said:


> I avoided telling people to use SMART values simply because that would be too much information to make a simple chart, however it's nice to see that you took the initiative to show these values.
> 
> Thanks for your contribution



Totally right, and sometimes SMART values are a bit chaotic to follow!!


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## N-Gen (Oct 24, 2011)

Derek12 said:


> Here is my netbook
> http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7697/sinttulosom.png
> http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/3817/sinttulo2bgq.png
> 
> ...



I'll assume probably it could be a bad electricity supply from the sata power cable on the psu, switch sata data cable and then test again to see if the error is eliminated.


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## Derek12 (Oct 24, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> I'll assume probably it could be a bad electricity supply from the sata power cable on the psu, switch sata data cable and then test again to see if the error is eliminated.



Ah, makes sense, I tried with another SATA power lead but the error continues. As far I found in Google, the error will be there forever and my hard disk won't be "OK" never again in the HDtune's eyes. Only I should watch it to not increase much


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## N-Gen (Oct 24, 2011)

If you use HD Sentinel's health % indicator and bad sector notification in the overview every now and then you should be covered. A friend of mine working at a store told me they have tested hard drives that have shown 30% health and were still functioning well, however in this case it is advisable to replace the drive to avoid losing any data.

You hard drives are quite young so they should be fine, I'll post my Samsung Hybrid Drive status later and it has over 1000 days in operation where the values are much different.


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## Peter1986C (Oct 24, 2011)

Sig pc


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## Arctucas (Oct 24, 2011)

My external storage drive:


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## repman244 (Oct 24, 2011)

I realize these drives are really old but I would still buy them if I had another machine for them. HDD Sentinel couldn't pick them up since they are plugged in a SCSI controller.

Almost 50k hours and no errors.










This one has a few hard read errors but those occurred a very long time ago.





One of the newer ones.






And all of these drives were really hammered in their lifetime.

*Also, I really advise EVERYONE to read this*: http://static.googleusercontent.com.../labs.google.com/en//papers/disk_failures.pdf

It may be a bit old but it has some very very useful data and information about how different temperatures, usage patterns etc. affect the HDD life span.


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## N-Gen (Oct 24, 2011)

I have given a thanks to everyone for their contributions and thanks repman244 for your PDF, I will link it (with credit) in the first post so everyone can see it.

For now the graphs will be quite flat, so I suggest we wait for a few more submissions, in the meantime we should have an "award" section, so I'd appreciate any ideas for categories. (One that comes to mind is for instance, "Longest lasting drive without errors/bad sectors", therefore giving everyone an idea what to look for depending on what they need).


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## N-Gen (Oct 29, 2011)

Here are the results for a 500GB Sata 2 WD Blue drive that needed some file recovery as part of a computer repair I'm doing for someone. (Unfortunately his main drive (A Seagate 7200.11 500GB) died, so can't post those results, that's why the c is here in the first place)

Status:




Temps:


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## Derek12 (Oct 30, 2011)

My dad laptop. Seems HD Tune is reading strangely the Reallocated Event Count lol










Edit:


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## HTC (Oct 30, 2011)

It doesn't pick up my RAID drives but it does the single ones:











And


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## N-Gen (Oct 30, 2011)

HTC are your RAID arrays on a dedicated controller? Mine are picked up by HDS and they're on the motherboard RAID controller.


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## HTC (Oct 31, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> *HTC are your RAID arrays on a dedicated controller?* Mine are picked up by HDS and they're on the motherboard RAID controller.



Yup: Adaptec 3405.

I asked Adaptec support the following:



> About the controllers, maybe i'm reading it wrong but you can check for yourself (see pic in attach or this link: http://www.hdsentinel.com/compatibility_disk_controllers.php).
> This is from the software i normally use: i'm sure other software vendors have same and/or other compatible hardware controllers.



Got this reply:



> The controllers listed by this tool are either Host controllers, or HostRaid controllers, which are using the processor of the motherboard for all Raid processes.
> The Adaptec 3405 is a hardware RAID controller, which has its own processor, and this is a different product range which cannot be compared with the Raid controllers listed by this tool.
> This is the reason, why our controllers are not working with this tool.




They said there is only one program that does this and is in Linux:



> There is because the tool under Windows 7 cannot see the physical drives over the Raid controller, but only the logical volume.
> There is only one tool under Linux called SMARTMON, which can do this, but none under Windows.


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## xBruce88x (Oct 31, 2011)

Here's the 40GB drive in my laptop.


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## N-Gen (Nov 2, 2011)

Toshiba MK1234GSX 120GB 2.5" Drive


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 2, 2011)

Heres mine-

Overview-




Temp-


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