What affects Hard drive life?

[EMP]

Does how often a hard drive saves/deletes shorten or lengthen it's lifespan? I've been told that a hard drive pretty much dies after about 4 or 5 years. But what if someone (like me) uses their computer only once a week for a couple hours? Will it still break down in that time, or should it last longer?

[TheBigWookie]

Heat is the thing that really kills HD's .. also a flaky power supply can do HD in. The faster a HD spins can influence the life of a HD as well .. the slower the better as this also reduces the heat. After saying that .. you are never guaranteed how long a hard drive will last - they can fail 1 day, 1 month 1 year .. 5 years or 10 years. Back your data up on a flash drive or another hard drive if that data is important to you.

[EMP]

Heat is the thing that really kills HD's .. also a flaky power supply can do HD in. The faster a HD spins can influence the life of a HD as well .. the slower the better as this also reduces the heat. After saying that .. you are never guaranteed how long a hard drive will last - they can fail 1 day, 1 month 1 year .. 5 years or 10 years. Back your data up on a flash drive or another hard drive if that data is important to you.

I do keep my stuff backed up on a DVD. I don't have all that much. I just bought this laptop last December. I was just hoping it could have a long, healthy life if I didn't use it as much as people often do, such as all day, everyday.

[phideaux]

Hard drives are rated based on MTBF (mean time between failure)Most HDs are rated in the general neighborhood of 1 million hours MTBF.

[NewBob]

There are two types of hard drive. Those that have failed and those that will fail.

[Goldhedge]

bumping or dropping them while they're running is a bad thing...


Other than that, get a RAID setup so you'll always be good...

[Defenestrator]

Unfortunately, EMP, there is no realistic way to determine how long a hard drive will last. Even the manufacturers use a fairly convoluted method of determining "mean time to failure" that in my opinion is fairly meaningless.

As a user, just about the only thing that you're likely to do to "cause" one to fail is shock. That is if you drop your laptop or knock your desktop case over, the resulting impact can jar the drive, causing either the plates to crack, or the read/write heads to collide against the disk. Bam, dead disk.

I assume that you're referring to an magnetic disk-drive and not a solid-state one.

I recommend you use your laptop as much as you want, and get the enjoyment you intend to out of it, I don't think that "saving" it by only using it 5 hours a week or something is going to make much difference.....sure the hard drive might last 10 years, but your logic board will blow, or your lcd controller will start to flake or something else will go wrong.

[Irons]

The mother board on newer computers are what usually shorts out and dies first. At least in my experience.

[Book]

...But what if someone (like me) uses their computer only once a week for a couple hours?

Your concern is totally unfounded. Enjoy your computer as much as possible.

[EMP]

Your concern is totally unfounded. Enjoy your computer as much as possible.

Oh, I'm not really using it less in order to make it last longer. It's just that the public computers at the library are faster and have easier to use desktop keyboards. I don't have internet at home, and sometimes I take my laptop to the library and use their wifi to do things I can't do on theirs. Wifi is also slower.

[DualCarbon]

I don't know ... but mom said internet porn would destroy the hard drive.

[Argentsum]

Keep your hard drive away from high intensity Gauss fields.

[Defenestrator]

I don't know ... but mom said internet porn would destroy the hard drive.

Yeah, but if what your mom tells you is true, you'll probably be blind long before the hard drive gets destroyed!!

[TheBigWookie]

Oh, I'm not really using it less in order to make it last longer. It's just that the public computers at the library are faster and have easier to use desktop keyboards. I don't have internet at home, and sometimes I take my laptop to the library and use their wifi to do things I can't do on theirs. Wifi is also slower.

With laptops they run hot .. heat is a destroyer of computers, particularly laptops. Try to make sure that you don't put your laptop on top of blankets and that they get some some ventilation. I leave my laptop at work on 24/7 as I remote desktop into my computer from home, but it is raised up and the ventilation fans on the bottom are not covered up .. My laptops at home, I turn off when not using. With public computers at the library, be careful of what passwords you share/use on them as there are many that would take advantage of your passwords. Be careful when transporting as well, and carry in a decent case - laptops don't like to be bounced off the ground or slammed into a wall. Enjoy your laptop and it's portability. Netbooks are great for your mobile computer needs as well.

[elroy]

Laptops do present unique issues due to heat, dropping, banging etc. You are also most likely not getting the power line protection that you might get with a desktop using a UPS.

Also when you buy a laptop you have no idea what brand or quality of drive you're getting.

I've had excellent service from Seagate desktop drives that come with a 5 year warranty.

I have a couple that have run 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week for 5+ years without an issue.

I would say don't abuse your laptop and the drive will last as long as it is going to regardless of hours used.

[Merlin]

Hard drives are rated based on MTBF (mean time between failure)Most HDs are rated in the general neighborhood of 1 million hours MTBF.

Phideaux, this is true. But MTBF never meant much to me because the number is absurd. 1 million hours, for instance, is 114 years at 24 hours a day. So, where do HD manufacturers get these numbers?

[spathatos]

heat.......

[Ragnarok]

Hammers. Bullets. Baseball bats. Large rare earth magnets. Thermite.

R.

[Sport]

Obviously what everyone else has said, heat. Because laptops are designed to be small and light the manufacturers compromise on the design of thermal controls. I use laptop coolers on my laptops and have had good success with them. The best ones that I have found draw air from the sides and push it up to the laptop. At work I made a cooler out of an old monitor stand and two 120 mm fans.

[ttazzman]

I just stumbled on this thread.....

I run a raid 10 ...with 4 drives....meaning both striped and mirrored hard drives.....my computer is on 24/7......i seem to loose drives located in the box clossest to heat sources such as power supply and i had 2 hard drives fail within a month of each other at 3 years age......the other two are still original.....i keep a new hard drive ready to go anytime

needless to say i am a big beliver in mirrored raid setups

[Goldhedge]

Well, I think I just screwed up big time. My desktop has been giving the death signal,

If you do get it to come back up, get an external drive and make a time machine backup. It's really easy.

Plug in the USB and start 'Time Machine' and it will do the rest...



Another 'idea' you might try is get a copy of Knoppix and boot from that. If your drive is any good, it will find it.

Chances are you'll be able to copy what you want off your drive and paste it to your external drive (that you should have anyway...).

[ttazzman]

Thanks, Goldhedge. Doesn't look like my desktop has time machine, got it in 2006 I think. Tried "migration assistant", but they couldn't find each other and the new puter said the old puter needed it's "migration assistant" upgraded (curious comment since they couldn't find each other).... no go on that, old puter says no software updates available. Old puter is running Tiger and new one is running Lion. Guess they didn't have "Time Machine" during the Tiger days.

Wife wrote down what daughter said on phone... get a "jump" or "thumb" drive from walmart and copy to that? I'm only after the family & vacation movies at this point, whenever I try to move them into iweb or anyplace else, I get messaged can't 'cause either they are corrupted or I don't have permission, well obviously I have permission.... so this puppy is just melting down. Was able to get a couple of movies moved into imovies from iphoto and then emailed, but after it compressed them down for email... you can hardly recognize anyone as the quality becomes garbage. Got all my photos emailed okay to new puter, except the PM ones... don't know if I want those on new puter or not in this environment.... "PM's, what PM's?"

Anyway, got the old puter back on currently... using it now for this post... so long as I don't shut her down or get a power outage, I might get those movies saved yet.

I have been in your situation before......and the damn windows program shut down to do a update....i was extremely lucky to get things back up n running...point being watch out for those automatic updates.