Hard Drive Life

bigmck · 16 Feb 2012

I have a Western Digital 160 GB that I purchased in 2006. I am wondering if that is getting near the end-life of it or is there a such thing? Thanks,

richc46 · 16 Feb 2012

The life of the hard drive is dependent on a number of factors
The quality of the HD
The amount of use
and
The type of use. For example do you turn the computer off properly?
I had my Windows 98 from 2000-2008. Finally, I had to get another computer, but not because of the Hard Drive, that was working as good as the day I bought it.
You may want to test the drive.
Harddrive scan usings SeaTools - SeaTools for Windows | Seagate - Both long and short tests

JimLewandowski · 17 Feb 2012

The longer they run withOUT failure, the longer they WILL run.

I have a 10-yr old 80G from a Win XP box that outlived the replacement 7-yr old 250G.

bigmck · 17 Feb 2012

Thanks for your help guys. I have been eyeing the SSD's, but I just can't bring myself to spend that much. Hopefully they will begin to go down soon.

GeneO · 17 Feb 2012

bigmck said:

I have a Western Digital 160 GB that I purchased in 2006. I am wondering if that is getting near the end-life of it or is there a such thing? Thanks,

Well, if that is the only drive you have and all of your data is on it, I would be a bit concerned. Best to get as new one and use this old as a backup.

rraod · 18 Feb 2012

You may suspect your old drive if it is making any unnatural clicking noises indicating that it is near it's active life. Otherwise you can backup the data and do a full format for identifying any bad sectors.

Nowadays the mechanical hard disks have become cheaper and faster with very large capacities. For the money you have spent on the old 160, you will get a modern faster high capacity SATA drives. If a SSD is way too much for you now, you can go for a decent normal hard disk and have peace of mind.

zigzag3143 · 18 Feb 2012

bigmck said:

I have a Western Digital 160 GB that I purchased in 2006. I am wondering if that is getting near the end-life of it or is there a such thing? Thanks,

One way to get an answer is to check the uptime hours in smart and check with the manufacturer for a number called "mean time between failures". Thats an average of how long their drive usually last. Compare that to your smart number and you have a close idea

bigmck · 18 Feb 2012

zigzag3143 said:

bigmck said:

I have a Western Digital 160 GB that I purchased in 2006. I am wondering if that is getting near the end-life of it or is there a such thing? Thanks,

One way to get an answer is to check the uptime hours in smart and check with the manufacturer for a number called "mean time between failures". Thats an average of how long their drive usually last. Compare that to your smart number and you have a close idea

How I find my "Smart Number"?

zigzag3143 · 18 Feb 2012

bigmck said:

zigzag3143 said:

bigmck said:

I have a Western Digital 160 GB that I purchased in 2006. I am wondering if that is getting near the end-life of it or is there a such thing? Thanks,

One way to get an answer is to check the uptime hours in smart and check with the manufacturer for a number called "mean time between failures". Thats an average of how long their drive usually last. Compare that to your smart number and you have a close idea

How I find my "Smart Number"?

Any decent HD utility should. The manufacturers test utility might and there are quite a few 3rd party apps. For the life of me I cant remember the name of one atm.

bigmck · 18 Feb 2012

Since I started the thread, I will just "hijack the subject". == I am thinking more and more about a SSD. The OCZ 120 GB are kind of in my price range. The screen shot below shows how my HDD is setup. I would expand the D drive to cover the whole HDD and make the SSD my C drive. Two questions == How do I expand the D to the left? I have Macrium Reflect V5. == If I unplug the C / D drive and put in the SSD, would Macrium restore to the SSD just like it does to the HDD or is it different?