Which Hard Drive?

[ignis]

I rebuild or build new my PC every 18 months, but there is a problem…

Last rebuild was last December, now have 2 Core, so was new MB, CPU, 1x HDD, new Power 650w as now 24 pin, new 4g Memory as DDR 2…

My question is how long should a hard drive last + what is the best make?

I have W.D + IBM + Seagate Barracuda, yet non last, my newest 200g Sata 2 has failed after just 6 months. I have been in Thailand now just over 5 years…… This is my 3^rd ‘NEW’ build PC, and have 7 failed Hard drives in this time.

My old Sony Laptop is now 7 years old and still has the 1^st Hard Drive, [bought in UK] so am a a loss as to why the PC Hard drives fail every few months

I cannot think this is normal, myself never buy more than 160g or 200g and do people that buy 500, 750 even 1TB hard drive have them fail after a few months.?

I have/using now, as using Laptop a old IEE hard drive in a USB case [this hard drive 80g came with me from the UK] All the other hard drives were bought here, only have 1x Sata 1, hard drive 200g still working which is now 2years old.

Any help or advise please

[Crossy]

There are a couple of threads on HDD reliabilty, try a search

The gist is, generally, no drive manufacturer (in the same price/performance bracket) is much better than any other. Drives do fail and manufacturers have batch problems, so a regular backup is essential.

BUT

Since you've had drives from different manufacturers fail very rapidly and assuming you're not one of those people who manages to switch makers just as each new one is having 'production difficulties', I would be looking elsewhere.

Perhaps your PSU is on the limit, that combined with poor mains regulation (we are in Thailand after all) could be killing your drives. May be time for an AVR (automatic voltage regulator) and a UPS (or a UPS with built-in AVR). Check your grounding too.

Edited July 2, 2008 by Crossy

[fisherd3]

I like Seagate never had one fail, but I don't suppose I stress them much, right now I am about to buy a WD 640GB for just over 3000thb from Thanni have read reviews all looks good and price per gig is excellent.

[ajarnmark]

I have bought all my HDD in Asia and none of them failed in at least 3 years, after which I usually change them.

I wait till HDD is full and then buy a new bigger capacity HDD and transfer important data on new HDD and sell/give the old HDD to someone. Never had a failure till now.

I prefer seagate, though you may have your own choice.

I have bought both of my HDD in Thailand, now I am in Vietnam, still no problems so far.

I will buy a new HDD soon to replace my 3+ years old HDD bought in Thailand.

[ballbreaker]

I have been in Thailand for 5 years and have not had a HDD fail during that time. In that time I have also built several PC's and used Seagate HDD's in all. A friend on the other hand seems to have the same HDD luck you have.

As someone else stated power in this country is not the best so don't go cheap on the power supply and UPS.

[jeffer]

If you aren't in an air con room then get a case with a fan at the front blowing some cooler air across your drives, always helps with reliability. Haven't lost a drive yet in Thailand using cases with a front intake fan.

[MarkBKK]

If you've had seven HDs fail in five years (!) I think we need a little more information on your circumstances ...

[toptuan]

In 20 years of computing (yes, I had the first IBM PC), I've never had a hard drive fail....

...until coming to Thailand. My first Seagate hard drive failed in 3 months. I've had 2 more subsequent failures in four years.

I chalk it up to heat, humidity and dust in the environment. But what do I know? Not technically trained.

[MarkBKK]

In 20 years of computing (yes, I had the first IBM PC), I've never had a hard drive fail....

...until coming to Thailand. My first Seagate hard drive failed in 3 months. I've had 2 more subsequent failures in four years.

I chalk it up to heat, humidity and dust in the environment. But what do I know? Not technically trained.

IBM PC? Bit more than 20 years ago

But that was kinda my point ... having had a hard disk of one sort or another for quite some time (pre-IBM PC, anyway), sometimes in fairly hostile environments (including supporting one in a tin shed in Wales they had to keep a paraffin heater underneath otherwise it froze, and several in my PC here, including a 10MB SCSI drive that must be 20 years old, mostly without a/c), I've had a total of two failures since 1972-ish ... one of which was usable if you opened it and pushed the platter with a screwdriver to get it started. I've dropped drives onto concrete to see what would happen, and baked them (in an oven) and they've failed, but rarely in normal usage. Seven failures in five years probably means something other than simple h/w failure.

Edited July 2, 2008 by MarkBKK

[ignis]

If you aren't in an air con room then get a case with a fan at the front blowing some cooler air across your drives, always helps with reliability. Haven't lost a drive yet in Thailand using cases with a front intake fan.

My case has the 7 hard drive mounting at the side [push & click never seen this type b4, case was 2,000baht without PSU] not the front mountings as normal, and last 2 cases I had + I have twin fans on each HDD

[ignis]

If you've had seven HDs fail in five years (!) I think we need a little more information on your circumstances ...

2 of the HDD have never been in a PC but in a USB case, I use just for back ups, and they only get switched on when I back up, so maybe 1 hour per week. both Seagate Baracuda 200g

The Seagate 200g Sata2 'c' + 'd' drive in the PC only the 'c' partition with the OS will not show. Genuine XP Pro.... when I shut down before going away MS downloaded 7 updates.... just wondered if any were the problem SP3 and this was the reason?

[ignis]

I have been in Thailand for 5 years and have not had a HDD fail during that time. In that time I have also built several PC's and used Seagate HDD's in all. A friend on the other hand seems to have the same HDD luck you have.

As someone else stated power in this country is not the best so don't go cheap on the power supply and UPS.

Have 24pin 650w PSU, and yes have a very good UPS........ The joys of living out in the sticks is the power goes out often, 10 + times every day

[think_too_mut]

My question is how long should a hard drive last + what is the best make

For high end drives (Fibre Channel) that go for 3000-4000US$ a piece, failure rate is 0.22%. That means, if there are 1000 HDDs in a storage arrays it is expected that 2.2 will fail in 1 year.

SATA drives, high end, have higher expected failure rate, about double.

Hobby quality drives, like those in laptops and home PCs - it's impossible to tell, even for manufacturers. Many failed drives simply don't get reported.

The best make - at home level of machines, there is no big difference unless a manufacturer releases a bad batch, as WD did 10 years ago when a systematic quality problem sneaked into their manufacturing plant.

[Crushdepth]

Here is the link to the Google study - Failure trends in a large hard drive population.

[nikster]

In 20 years of computing (yes, I had the first IBM PC), I've never had a hard drive fail....

...until coming to Thailand. My first Seagate hard drive failed in 3 months. I've had 2 more subsequent failures in four years.

I chalk it up to heat, humidity and dust in the environment. But what do I know? Not technically trained.

I agree, heat, humidity, or both. I never had a drive fail before Thailand either, and now, after 4 years I am looking at 5 failed laptop drives. I don't like air-con, I don't mind the heat so much - but apparently the same cannot be said for hard drives.

If I look at manufacturer specs, they often top out at 55 degrees celsius, and I can easily imagine the HD getting way more than that on a hot day inside the laptop.

Now I have a USB laptop cooling pad. It has cheesy blue lights but it keeps the laptop really cool - and it only cost 170 BHT

[JetsetBkk]

I've had 4 external HDDs in USB cases over 5 years and none of them has failed. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't b*ggered them up, but they haven't failed of their own accord!

One of them got b*ggered when I kept forgetting to shutdown a bit-torrent client (Azureus) before shutting down Windows and another got ditto when I unplugged the USB cable while checkdisk was running on it - pretty stupid, I know. But none has failed due to heat or humidity.

You absolutely must use a UPS which is constantly online and has power smoothing to prevent power glitches, especially on USB drives in externally powered enclosures. I discovered one of my UPS's was NOT smoothing the power when I noticed that my USB drive would sometimes "disappear" from Windows when I turned the outside lights on or off.

[think_too_mut]

If I look at manufacturer specs, they often top out at 55 degrees celsius, and I can easily imagine the HD getting way more than that on a hot day inside the laptop.

Is that right? The manufacturers (of the whole PC assembly) would say up to 35C.

But, it's hardly your room temperature. It's what's inside your PC that has fans and heat-sinks to cool it down.

Even worse, your laptop. Sometimes my laptop gets so hot underneath, it's almost hard to touch the spot. That's what kills HDDs.

Have you seen those clips with a DELL laptop burning in Osaka hotel conference room? I bet the room was very well airconditioned.

Edited July 3, 2008 by think_too_mut

[JetsetBkk]

...Have you seen those clips with a DELL laptop burning in Osaka hotel conference room? I bet the room was very well airconditioned.

That was due to a faulty batch of batteries supplied by Sony. Toshiba and Fujitsu were involved too. But nothing to do with this topic.

[annette]

hi you seem to know a bit about couputers i got a question to ask ive got a dell computer dimension 5150 which i am very fond of ,and next year i am moving to thailand from the uk will it still work there or will have to leave it behide and bye a new one

[geoffphuket]

hi you seem to know a bit about couputers i got a question to ask ive got a dell computer dimension 5150 which i am very fond of ,and next year i am moving to thailand from the uk will it still work there or will have to leave it behide and bye a new one

to Thai Visa

It'll work just fine here...good luck on the move

geoffphuket

[ignis]

hi you seem to know a bit about couputers i got a question to ask ive got a dell computer dimension 5150 which i am very fond of ,and next year i am moving to thailand from the uk will it still work there or will have to leave it behide and bye a new one

I bought a Sony Vaio PCG-FR215H in the UK, I brought it with me 5 years ago when I moved here, I am using it now as my PC is not working, it has never missed a beat or gone wrong...

So yes bring it with you

Some times wonder why I bother with the big fast PC... as my laptop I can plug in a USB keyboard USB mouse + my 22" LCD Monitor...... arr just remembered, its a pain as keep forgetting to change, cannot print or scan, use web cam, use 3 HDD USB cases without changing USBs... PC has 11 USB's laptop has 3, PC has 2x DVD burners, laptop has one. memory max is 1.5g on laptop, 8g on PC [use 4g] Laptop does not have a GeForce 8600 GTS, forget and load a game that will not play.

Edited July 4, 2008 by ignis

[ignis]

Wondered if and when I get my PC working again, would it help to buy one of those square tall fans and place under the desk blowing on the case ??

[MarkBKK]

If you've had seven HDs fail in five years (!) I think we need a little more information on your circumstances ...

2 of the HDD have never been in a PC but in a USB case, I use just for back ups, and they only get switched on when I back up, so maybe 1 hour per week. both Seagate Baracuda 200g

The Seagate 200g Sata2 'c' + 'd' drive in the PC only the 'c' partition with the OS will not show. Genuine XP Pro.... when I shut down before going away MS downloaded 7 updates.... just wondered if any were the problem SP3 and this was the reason?

If you're having problems with partitions coming and going I think it's less likely to be a hardware problem and more likely to be an OS problem, or I suppose maybe BIOS (or maybe just incorrectly set up partitions).

BTW, I had one or two funnies after installing XP SP3 too. It suddenly decided a couple of my drives were unformatted, but the problem fixed itself after a couple of reboots. Couldn't find anything in the MSKB about it.

[ignis]

If you've had seven HDs fail in five years (!) I think we need a little more information on your circumstances ...

2 of the HDD have never been in a PC but in a USB case, I use just for back ups, and they only get switched on when I back up, so maybe 1 hour per week. both Seagate Baracuda 200g

The Seagate 200g Sata2 'c' + 'd' drive in the PC only the 'c' partition with the OS will not show. Genuine XP Pro.... when I shut down before going away MS downloaded 7 updates.... just wondered if any were the problem SP3 and this was the reason?

If you're having problems with partitions coming and going I think it's less likely to be a hardware problem and more likely to be an OS problem, or I suppose maybe BIOS (or maybe just incorrectly set up partitions).

BTW, I had one or two funnies after installing XP SP3 too. It suddenly decided a couple of my drives were unformatted, but the problem fixed itself after a couple of reboots. Couldn't find anything in the MSKB about it.

No idea what my problem is, bought yesterday another HDD Seagate Baracuda 250g Sata 2, took out the old HDD's thought would start again, but no luck, shows now just the 1x HDD is Bios of 250g, but will not load windows....

Closed this laptop at 10am, and MS stated there were 27 updates !!, Just got back and this laptop is still working fine..... Took the PC to Pantip 2, got there at 11am, and the place was full, all 13 floors there was no parking places, after 1.5 hr of trying to find a place drove home..... normal at 11am there is maybe 10cars parked on the 4th floor, as they open at 11am, so no idea why today every floor is full.

Will have to go back on Monday, if cannot work out what is wrong or why cannot install a OS on a brand new HDD

[Crushdepth]

I've dropped drives onto concrete to see what would happen, and baked them (in an oven) and they've failed

So what happened ? :-)

[MarkBKK]

I've dropped drives onto concrete to see what would happen, and baked them (in an oven) and they've failed

So what happened ? :-)

Er ... I learned that dropping them onto concrete and baking them isn't usually a very good for hard disk drives ... although the failure rate isn't as high as you'd think, i.e. it's not 100 per cent. But neither is it a very good idea. Actually, it's not really recommended at all.

One thing I have learned in Thailand though is that notebook PCs -- in a small sampling of me and my mates -- is that optical drives suffer a 100 per cent failure rate after about 18 months.

[Crushdepth]

I've thrown away a few cd/dvd drives here too, mostly cheap Liteon crap. I have had less problems since switching to respectable name brands.

[ignis]

Just got back from Pantip 2, no problem with the hard drives it was the Power Supply [650w] Engineer put in a new High End Dual Core 450w [1,200baht in Sale] and all is running fine.

[ignis]

I've thrown away a few cd/dvd drives here too, mostly cheap Liteon crap. I have had less problems since switching to respectable name brands.

Never had a problem, have a 6yr old LG DVD RAM Burner, and a 5 yr old Asus DVD burner.