life expectancy for portable hard drives?

[IronWing]

I have a four year old 500Gb drive (Lacie Rugged USB/Firewire) that gets almost daily use and spends the rest of its life bouncing around in my briefcase. The drive has performed with no problems so far. What life expectancy should I expect for this drive?

 

[mikeymikec]

Anywhere between 0 seconds and 10 years I'd say.

Hopefully the data on this drive is backed up.

 

[corkyg]

Anywhere between 0 seconds and 10 years I'd say.
Hopefully the data on this drive is backed up.

This! Ihave 4 of them, now ranging from 6 mos. to5 years old They only run when I want to put something on them. All are external. 2 eSATA and 2 USB2.

Bouncing aroound in your briefcase is probably an added stress. Mine just sit quietly.

 

[fuzzymath10]

With my very limited sample size, I'd say the integrated/pre-built ones off the shelf don't last as long and are harder to repair/recover. If you use bare drives with your own choice of (decent) enclosure, your luck might be better.

 

[Elixer]

With my very limited sample size, I'd say the integrated/pre-built ones off the shelf don't last as long and are harder to repair/recover. If you use bare drives with your own choice of (decent) enclosure, your luck might be better.

Unfortunately, there are external factors that play into this as well, like shipping/packing.
The only thing that can be said for certain is that they WILL fail, no matter what you get.

Right now, external units are much cheaper than internal units for no logical reason that I can see. Even if the external ones use the "green" drives, that still don't explain the large price difference.

 

[Charlie98]

I've been running 2 Seagate 500GB externals, one, a 5400RPM unit with 15000 hours on it has 8 bad sectors now, but keeps trucking along regardless. They don't get abused like yours sounds like, but it's just an example. It's probably 5 years old.

I have a CaseLogic padded case I store the rotated unit into... maybe look into that if you are worried about shock issues.

 

[mikeymikec]

My external hard drive enclosures have a habit of dying every 3 years or so, but then each enclosure sees a multitude of drives in its lifetime.

 

[C1]

Seems both the pre-flood internals and externals simply last until you just dont use/want them anymore. I have a number of old Storix portables which I retired because I replaced them with larger Iomegas. Now Im replacing the portable Iomegas with larger capacity drives (eg, 1 TB), but now in these cases Im not purchasing integrated units, but buying the enclosures and drives separately so as to ensure flexibility (ie, to be able to use the HDD in another system if needed). I feel that the standard internal notebook drive would be easier to sell (eg, on Craigs List) with the flexibility to use as either external or internal. In addition, you have more latitude to choose both the enclosure and the drive quality (user experience rating, manufacturer warranty as well as drive performance attributes).

 

[bryanl]

Anywhere between 0 seconds and 10 years I'd say.

Could you be less specific?

 

[Zodiark1593]

Could you be less specific?

My parents have a drive that's surpassed 15 years. :whiste:

 

[dstevod]

...bouncing around in my briefcase...

It might go on for years, but in use like that you need to plan for it to fail at any time.

i.e. back it up!!!!

S

 

[aigomorla]

5yrs or until u drop it.

lol...

My parents have a drive that's surpassed 15 years. :whiste:

ROFL... its slow as heck huh?

One thing i can be thankful for, is HDD's did get significantly faster.

 

[Zodiark1593]

ROFL... its slow as heck huh?

It actually belonged to my first PC. I threw it in my parent's desktop (bought in 2003) for additional storage to the already included HDD, which btw is also still alive as well.

Not like I'm gonna turn down a free 30GB of storage right?

 

[RU482]

It actually belonged to my first PC. I threw it in my parent's desktop (bought in 2003) for additional storage to the already included HDD, which btw is also still alive as well.

Not like I'm gonna turn down a free 30GB of storage right?

30GB from 1998, Hmmmmmm
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1998/IBM-Unveils-Largest-Hard-Drive-Ever/id-b54444f0c18d6c65c7a28c3ead8c1d56