How long before you "trust" that a HD won't fail?

[Barfo]

I bought a 2TB WD hard rive about 2 months ago that died on me about 4 days after putting it in my case. Although I didn't lose any data, this left me with a very bad taste sice it's the first time it has happened to me.

So, my new 2TB Samsung arrived yesterday and I'm wary of another failure so instead of a weekly backup I plan on backing up its contents on a daily basis for now.

My question is, is there a period of time after which a new hard drive is less prone to failing? or do you guys think there's one, even if you can't back your claims? I don't want to be running backups all the time or afraid I'll lose data.

 

[TC91]

Had a Seagate 500gb 7200.10 drive die on me after 7 months a few years ago... was NOT pleased when it happened. Don't think I could fully trust a HDD, so anything of importance go on my RAID 1's and are backed up to usb flash drives/externals.

 

[Josh154]

Yeah i don't trust my HDD's at all anymore. Backup any data that you need and don't want too loose. Simple as that.

 

[KillerBee]

The formula is:
Failure Day = Warranty Expiration Date + 1

 

[Ruger22C]

Josh, it's lose - not loose.

And I don't trust HDDs. IOW, time of trust = 0.00000001

I had a caviar black die after.. 9 months? and they're supposed to be reliable. I was okay with it though, they sent me a 1tB back for my 640gB.

They work under very precise conditions. That means more room for error to destroy them.

 

[Qacer]

Google Chrome OS will fix that. ;-)

After many HD failures, I decided to burn my important files to DVDs. For videos, you just need to split it into a size that can fit a DVD. Other than that, it's a hassle, but well worth it.

 

[Josh154]

Josh, it's lose - not loose.

And I don't trust HDDs. IOW, time of trust = 0.00000001

I had a caviar black die after.. 9 months? and they're supposed to be reliable. I was okay with it though, they sent me a 1tB back for my 640gB.

They work under very precise conditions. That means more room for error to destroy them.

My bad! I haven't slept all night, all night lan's ftw!

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

FWIW, HDDs will generally fail early or late, so anything under 6 months or over 5 years. The fact that you lost it in 9 months would likely put it in the early failure category. I like to run the HDD fitness tests on new drives a few times before putting them into a system. I got a bad batch of WDs from Fry's a while back and the pre-test helped me return all of them. 3 of 4 failed SMART in the first week. The replacements have been rock solid however, and i don't hold a grudge against WD.

 

[God Mode]

I trust nothing. I place important backups on dvds and 3 external drives that get powered up now and then. I have a stack of 300 dvds with pretty much the same information on them with a few updates. Haven't lost a thing yet.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah i don't trust my HDD's at all anymore. Backup any data that you need and don't want too loose. Simple as that.

This. Any drive can fail at any time. Just make sure you have a robust backup solution and then you don't even have to worry about it.

 

[Fallingwater]

I don't trust them at all, ever. I always behave as if I'm gonna lose the drive tomorrow. It's more expensive, because you need at least another drive to backup data on, but it saves me data-loss-related headaches in a big way.

Remember - data you don't backup is data you don't really care about keeping.

 

[capeconsultant]

According to a large study by Google, big spike at around 3 years. Google for the study. VERY interesting.

 

[tommo123]

i always do a full format, fill the suckers up to the brim, then do a chkdsk /f on the things. format and repeat. 1 bad sector and it goes back

think it helps i don't let the drives spin down

 

[Socratesx]

Now that Bluray drives will become cheaper, taking backups of important files will be easy.

 

[Blain]

Yeah i don't trust my HDD's at all anymore. Backup any data that you need and don't want too loose. Simple as that.

Very true.
Since moving to perpendicular recording and denser packed platters, HD reliability and longevity has suffered.
But on the flip side, we now have much faster, higher capacity and cheaper drives... While they last.

 

[tommo123]

Now that Bluray drives will become cheaper, taking backups of important files will be easy.

what? maybe when they get 200GB disks out, actually, no. not even then. you try backing up 8TB on 25 or 50GB disks.

blu rays are tiny tiny things

 

[KeithP]

I never trust that they won't fail.

Before I put I new drive in use, I will do a multi-pass secure wipe (write data onto the entire surface of a drive). Usually 3-7 full passes to try and uncover any early failures.

And yes, this can take a long time. The last drive I purchased was a 2TB external that I did 4 passes on. As I recall that was working for 4-5 days.

-KeithP

 

[RebateMonger]

Hard drives can and will fail at any time, often without warning. I back up my servers on multiple hard drives and my "super-critical" information is also on Carbonite. My desktop PCs are backed up nightly using Windows Home Server.

Probably 80% of my hard drives are used for backups, rather than for primary storage.

 

[frostedflakes]

According to a large study by Google, big spike at around 3 years. Google for the study. VERY interesting.

I wish Google was allowed to release data about reliability by brand and model, stuff like that. But there's still a ton of other useful info in the report.

 

[PsiStar]

what the heck? Everything fails. It is just a question of "when", so plan for that.

 

[pitz]

I wish Google was allowed to release data about reliability by brand and model, stuff like that. But there's still a ton of other useful info in the report.

The problem is, by the time Google (or another operator/vendor) has 'good' information, the hard drive model typically would be obsolete. A typical 5-year-old drive today is in the 200-320gb range. How many of us would consider 5-year-old 200-320gb drives for our new systems?

Personally I RAID-1 everything, and don't really worry. Drives are cheap enough that you can go redundant, and there's definitely a lot of performance advantages with RAID-1.

 

[bryanl]

Before I put I new drive in use, I will do a multi-pass secure wipe (write data onto the entire surface of a drive). Usually 3-7 full passes to try and uncover any early failures.

That may not find faulty sectors as well as the worst-case test patterns will. Example: I used Spinrite to find defects in then-new 40MB drives, thinking it would do the job more thoroughly than anything else, but I found it flagged fewer sectors than the hard disk controller's own diagnostic did because the controller used worst-case test patterns while Spinrite used only general ones. Not only that, but Spinrite took much longer to complete its testing.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

trusting hard drives is foolish

 

[Golgatha]

The problem is, by the time Google (or another operator/vendor) has 'good' information, the hard drive model typically would be obsolete. A typical 5-year-old drive today is in the 200-320gb range. How many of us would consider 5-year-old 200-320gb drives for our new systems?

Personally I RAID-1 everything, and don't really worry. Drives are cheap enough that you can go redundant, and there's definitely a lot of performance advantages with RAID-1.

RAID1 is not a backup. It's meant to keep your system up and running and to increase read performance. It does not protect against viruses, overwriting with bad data (e.g. bad stick of memory writing back to the drive array or a faulty RAID controller), or user error.

The only way to properly backup data is to store it in multiple places. This is the only way to decrease your chance of loosing data. Personally, I keep my data in two separate locations at home, and off site on an external drive, which gets updated roughly every month.

 

[frostedflakes]

It does help protect against hard drive failures, though, which is the only thing that has ever caused me to lose important data. But yes, redundant arrays don't protect you from everything and aren't a complete backup solution.