IBM Deathstars that didn't blow up

[AluminumStudios]

Everyone knows about the insanely high failure rate of the IBM Deskstar GXP hard drives from a few years ago.

I have a question though - if there is an IBM Deathstar that has been running OK for a few years now, is it as trustworthy as any other hard drive of it's age? Were all of the defective drives doomed to blow up, or would it be likely at all for one to hang on this long and blow in the near future?

I have a machine here at work with a deathstar in it that has been working great for quite a while. We are upgrading it and I"m wondering if it would be safe to use this drive for a little extra storage of non-critical files in another system ...

 

[Special1Sauce]

I'd guess so But make shure that you back that hdd up more frequently then six months time.

 

[wraith3k]

How long have you had it? I had a 30GB 75GXP that ran great for about 3 years, then suddently died with basically no warning.

 

[lopri]

I had a 30GB 75GXP that ran great for about 3 years, then suddently died with basically no warning

That's quite scary..

 

[RobCur]

HD are the most reliable media, make sure you back everything up on DVDR
VERY worth it!@#%$

 

[jamesey]

my 75gxp lasted from june 2000 until december 02....1.5 years
my 60gxp (Free replacement) has lasted from december 02 until present...1.5 years. I'm getting nervous

 

[dwcal]

I have a 45GB 75GXP fours years old and still working. It's in one of my extra systems that's not powered on very often. I don't trust it with any important data. I ran it in my main system for a year until the news came out about defective drives. My cousin bought one the same summer as I did and his crashed less than a year later. If it's just for "a little extra storage of non-critical files" go ahead and use it. And thanks for reminding me. I should go update the Ghost images of that computer.

 

[Sunner]

I had one 75GXP personally, it eventually died, but that was after ~3 years, and from bad sectors, not the typical DeathStar death.
I have a whole bunch of 60GXP's(4-5 20GB'ers and one 60GB) that are still chugging along, not a single one has died so far.

 

[Slapstick]

The problem was with the hard drive heads when they idled too long. Here's the link to IBM'S IDENTIFICATION UTIL and firmware update that supposedly fixes the problem. I applied it to an old deathstar and while I got another year out of it, it did die so I don?t know if it did any good or not.

 

[JackHawksmoor]

Both of my 45GB 75GXPs just quit spinning up within a week of each other. One was six months old and another was closer to a year.