Why do these hard drives keep failing?

[frogster220]

Up until about 2 years ago, I never had a hard drive fail. Since then, these things keep dropping like flies, especially the bigger drives. I had a 1.5 yr old 120 gig drive die 2 weeks ago and then my 4 month old 200 gig drive just died (at least it is still under warranty). I've had 4 or 5 drives fail in the last 2 years.

After the first couple died, I made sure that I had adequate cooling and proper power.

What are the factors that can cause drives to fail?
power, heat, dust, humidity?

is this large number of failures due to the operating environment or is it due to lower quality and bigger drives?

 

[EXman]

just the shear # they are putting out now the % might stay the same but the # will go up with the total # produced.

I will never buy another WD product. I run SCSI on purpose now they are built like a tank.

 

[Cheetah8799]

IMO, manufacturers are cutting corners to produce larger drives to compete in a hard market, and try to give the consumers cheap huge drives. So, now their quality control in the manufacturing lets through more "iffy" parts which don't last long.

Ever wonder why they cut back from 3 year warranty to 1 year warranty on almost ALL hard drives now? Saves them money on replacing poor products they know they are shipping to the consumers...

 

[frogster220]

LOL, I didn't even mention that they were almost all WD drives. I did have one maxtor fail, but it was really old and never saw anything resembling proper cooling.

Also, the last 2 failures were without warning. They just died.

 

[frogster220]

This last one just died. The bios doesn't even see the drive. Is there any way to get data off of this?

Also, are there any quality drive manufacturers left? I'm definitely done with WD at any price. You really can't back up 100-200 gigs of data and the price savings isn't worth it.

 

[AluminumStudios]

I agree that drives are made much more cheaply these days, but I think it's pretty much the luck of the draw which drives fail on you. I've seen more Seagates drop dead than all other brands put together. I love WD (I have 9 purring away at home just fine.) You can always find people who are scored against the brand of drive that failed them. (I hate Seagate for example and love WD, while EXman hates WD.)

 

[Duvie]

Proper cooling and power are issues, but so are oevrclocking....Many amd systems up until late have lacked pci locks so when ppl have oc'd the fsb of the system they have been running the pci mhz out of its 33mhz spec. These larger drives may be more sensitive then the old drives.....

I have seen plenty of drives from ppl ocing with older mobo and amd chips go down so I think it can be related to running the pci out of spec....


I have out of the 20 or so HDD I have owned or built for my office pcs and familty for the last 8 yeras had 2 HDDs fail..... 1 Maxtor 4.3gb drive and 1 quantum SCSi 2.1gb HDD....

I have only used WD in the last 3-4 years since IBM tanked in quality and I haven't had one die yet. All of the PCs besides my personal one has been ran at stock speed with quality PSU and cooling....I have for the last 2-1/2 years been running with p4s and mobos with agp/pci locks and haven't had any die....I usually keep the drives for an average of 2-3 years for my personal use. I have had my current 40gb drive for 2years 4 months now and still kickin....My raptor is only 4 months old so I will have to see on that bad boy.....


Drop the WD bashing as others and I have had plent y ofdrives and none failing....Many of these manufacturers have similar failing rates and WD is likely no more then others....


Sidenote I have heard of many ppl of late losing drives all over the place (mult manfacturers as well) in relating to power surges and general home power issues....If anything these drives are extremely sensitive and this needs to be taken into account.


Cooling:

I run a case where I have 1 intake fan mounted directly in front of my raptor and blows air directly oevr and under it.....

Power:

I also use quality PSU like enermax...Backup Protectors and surge protectors changed regularly can help as well...

 

[MplsBob]

Several of the above have mentioned some causes of disk failure. I would like to add one or two possibilities.

The drive manufacturers are shoving more and more bits onto essentially the same platter space, more bits per inch if you like. It would seem that at some point along this curve the physics involved wouldbecome more "touchy" about vibration and thermal variations and mechanical shock. So , maybe that is part of the problem.

The other part, the part we never see,is the mistreatment received during shipment. Given the tales I've heard from others, along with my own experiences, I'm surprised that any hardware works after shipment. So there's even the possiblity of internal damage that occurred before you even took ownership of a particular piece of hardware.

I would also signon to the caution about getting down on any one manufacturer, in this case WD. If any manufacturer starts turning out junk, everybody and his brother will be talking about it on the web. As was the case here relatively recently with IBM, whodid start turningout junk, andit was THE MAIN TOPIC FOR DISCUSSIONon just about all of the forums on the Internet. It quickly reached the point where only the uninformed would actually purchase an IBM drive. So I would suggest holding off a bit on asserting that WD makes nothing but junk. If they are, it will be all over the place in nothing flat. So just keep an eye on the forums and if you see a trend toward the bad then you can comfortablycontribute a note on yourown experiences.

 

[Zepper]

I have had several drives shipped to me just rolled up in several layers of bubble wrap - not exactly what the mfr's would recommend ... As others above have said, some can be blamed on the poor power quality we're getting these days. It would probably pay to get a good UPS AND a good surge protector (put the surge protector between the wall socket and the UPS). A good surge protector (at least 1000 jules) is absolute minimum. No Virginia, Belkin anything is NOT good - Belkin's raison d'etre is just to help the big box stores make a profit.
. Also check to make sure the ground at your wall outlet is good. Anyone that circumvents the ground connection for their computer with a 3 to 2 pin power adapter needs to be taken out and shot to keep their skanky stuff out of the gene pool! Household circuit testers can be had on sale for <$2. and everyday for <$5. HDs generate static electricity from their rotatating platters and it must be drained to a true earth ground!!!
I also agree with others here that most hard drives today are built quite well and will all have a bad batch now and then due to some out of spec parts shipment. IAC, you can still get 3yr warranties (Samsung has on all models - Hitachi too I think, WD on some models (8MB cache units)).
..bh.

p.s. And there is no excuse to not back up your data! Hard drives are cheap - just buy another one and put it in a removable tray. Or use a CD or DVD burner if you don't mind reinstalling/configuring your software - I do, that's why I use removable or external HDs for badkup.
..bh.

 

[frogster220]

I have an Enermax PS, two intake fans that cool the drives, and I'm not overclocking the FSB. I'll try checking the power source.

Based on my experience, I am dissatisfied with the performance of the newer WD drives. Other drives in my system, including older WD drives haven't had a problem.

 

[Markfw]

I have seen more WD drives die. I love Maxtor, and Seagate when quiet is required. The new Hitachi's also look promising. The only WD I would ever buy is a Raptor. I wish Maxtor would make a comparable drive.

 

[boomerang]

.

This last one just died. The bios doesn't even see the drive. Is there any way to get data off of this? Also, are there any quality drive manufacturers left? I'm definitely done with WD at any price. You really can't back up 100-200 gigs of data and the price savings isn't worth it.

A lot of folks had good luck getting data off their IBM drives by putting them in the freezer. Put it in overnight and quickly hook it up. Have your backup media ready to go.

Worth a try

 

[Luthien]

My advice to everyone is to make sure you purchase only 3 year warranty HD's to make sure you get your money's worth. I have had exclusively Maxtor HD's for about 6 years now and I have had to RMA about 10X !!! Oh, and I always upgrade to new three year warranty drivers before my current warranty runs out and sell the older stuff on ebay, etc.

 

[Duvie]

I agree I always buy new drives with warranties and sell my old stuff to others.....

I recommend DVD burners and backing up data....I could have my whole system crash now and all the drives die and I would lose nothing at this time I couldn't replace with my backup....

 

[hahher]

why are scsi more reliable, technically speaking?

 

[spanner]

I have not had the best esperience with WD (goes bach to 7 years ago). I have even had better luck with IBM. So far my luck with maxtor has been awsome (touch wood). Go for the drives with 8mb cache cos ,being higher end products, they are built to higher standards. The main reason (theoretically) a hard drive would fail is mechanical shock.

 

[Zepper]

The SCSI market is largely within the business sector where the pressures are for reliability and performance in server applications. The IDE market is largely in the consumer sector where the pressures are low cost and capacity.
. IDE was largely a cobbed together standard to make connections and set up easier for "consumers". Where SCSI was actually designed as a cohesive generalized system to handle just about any number of I/O devices at any speed. In SCSI, the intelligence is in the devices, which can talk to each other without recourse to mobo resources. All the computer has to do is send a few commands every now and then and the SCSI system will do the rest.
. But mostly it's the price-pressure that doesn't really exist in the SCSI realm where the warranties are generally 5 years or more and the devices are built to outlast them easily. Have you seen the prices on the top end U-320 drives - 'nuf said.
. Another way to tell is to put a SCSI drive on the scale against an equivalent size IDE drive - quality will out, just like with PSUs.
. For more SCSI info, see: http://www.scsifaq.org .

.bh.

 

[frogster220]

Originally posted by: boomerang
.

This last one just died. The bios doesn't even see the drive. Is there any way to get data off of this? Also, are there any quality drive manufacturers left? I'm definitely done with WD at any price. You really can't back up 100-200 gigs of data and the price savings isn't worth it.

A lot of folks had good luck getting data off their IBM drives by putting them in the freezer. Put it in overnight and quickly hook it up. Have your backup media ready to go.

Worth a try

Worth a try although my expectations are low.

The one positive about the 200 gig drive is that it came with a 3 year warranty. i wouldn't be all that upset if i had backed up my last set of photos.

 

[MplsBob]

Old timers in talking about disk failures and backup will say:

It's not a question of whether your hard drive will fail, it is a question of when.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: frogster220

Originally posted by: boomerang
.

This last one just died. The bios doesn't even see the drive. Is there any way to get data off of this? Also, are there any quality drive manufacturers left? I'm definitely done with WD at any price. You really can't back up 100-200 gigs of data and the price savings isn't worth it.

A lot of folks had good luck getting data off their IBM drives by putting them in the freezer. Put it in overnight and quickly hook it up. Have your backup media ready to go.

Worth a try

Worth a try although my expectations are low.

The one positive about the 200 gig drive is that it came with a 3 year warranty. i wouldn't be all that upset if i had backed up my last set of photos.

If you do the freezer trick, put it in a ziplock bag, and then that bag inside another. The possible ramifications by not doing this make my blood run cold every time I see it

 

[jyates]

I bought 6 80gb wd's from newegg for some computers I assembled for
my company and within 1 week 2 of them were clicking and the systems
wouldn't boot. That's why I always pay a little more and get the 3 year
warranty versus the 1 year warranty.

JY

 

[Deskstar]

You name the company and I can recall one of their drives that have failed during my use of it. The only really massive quality problems that I recall any discussion of was with one version of the older IBM IDE drives (I forget the model). Yes, two of those failed on me. But, I am still running several even older IBM drives and some Hitachi drives without any problems. I do run a drive check program annually on all machines now, and do not rely only on the "automatic" drive monitoring programs.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

I've never had a Maxtor fail on me yet.

 

[frogster220]

UPDATE:

I installed my replacement drive and backed up most of my data. I tried the "freezer" method without success.

I need to do better at backing up my photos and documents in the future.

Are there any software programs that will automatically generate a mirror of a directory on another computer?

Also, I had another WD 120gig drive fail over the weekend with the standard clicking sound. This drive was in a replaytv unit. The good news is that if there is a cause of these failures specific to their operating environment, it's probably not the power supply. These drives are all located within my basement. Some source of these failures may be carpet fibers and/or dampness (although it doesn't seem damp to me). I'm looking into getting stands to keep my computers up from the floor a bit.

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: frogster220
UPDATE:

Are there any software programs that will automatically generate a mirror of a directory on another computer?

Drive Image will do that. You might want to check out Acronis too.