Does a dying HDD show signs of dying or does it just die?

[tracerit]

I have three 3TB HDDs hooked up now and am considering reorganizing everything. Wondering if I should make backups of them as I'd hate to lose the data. WHen I had my SSD, it started freezing up randomly. I could still use it but it wasn't reliable anymore. Since I have my HDD as storage, I'm not sure i'tll freeze up like that or if there are other signs. How reliable are those SMART tests?

 

[master_shake_]

don't question if your drives are bad.

assume they are going to die and do something about it now.

data recovery is mucho dineros.

 

[Batmeat]

Dying hard drives are fickle. Some show signs and some don't. Don't waste time. Do what Master_shake_ said and do something about it. Back up your data and get replacements ready.

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, there is no sure fire way to tell when a HD (or SSD) will be the last day the system sees it again.
SMART is basically worthless except for all but a few, rare exceptions.
Most of the drives I had, never showed any signs of being door stops.

 

[tracerit]

That's what the reorganizing thing is for haha. I'm thinking maybe I'll just get a crashplan subscription instead. Gonna research that now. Thanks for the answers!

 

[Red Squirrel]

When it comes to multi TB data storage, it makes a LOT of sense to use some form of raid, in addition to hot backups. Maybe even add a cold backup job to that too. Backups alone are great but it still sucks to deal with lost data and having to do a restore when a drive fails. You have to reset attributes, permissions etc... and unless the backup is an exact mirror you may need to reorganize data how it was so stuff like file shares work etc. Use raid, and a failed drive is simply a minor inconvenience of having to swap a drive out. That said if you have to pick between raid or backups, then backups are better, but idealy do both.

Because drives are so big now, I tend to just do a raid 10 and call it a day. Raid 6 is a good option too. Raid 5 is a bit iffy due to the guarantee of total failure if another drive fails, and the long rebuild time. I do have one raid5 array left, it is 8 1TB drives, and a rebuild takes about half a day. I only use that array for backups of my two raid 10's so raid 5 is fine for that array. Should it fail, I did not lose anything. I still have the live data and the cold backups.

 

[Erithan13]

That's what the reorganizing thing is for haha. I'm thinking maybe I'll just get a crashplan subscription instead. Gonna research that now. Thanks for the answers!

Online backups are great but I would not rely on it as a primary and only backup. Also test your upload speed since multi-terabyte online backups are going to take their sweet time (if you can leave the system on 24/7 you can take advantage of higher upload speeds overnight though). The other thing to be aware of is that some backup services claim 'unlimited' storage, but they'll have a clause hidden away that still allows them to terminate your account anytime they want if they think you are uploading too much too rapidly. Basically, treat online backups like a hard drive, all that data can be taken away from you in an instant if the company folds or they start getting abusive with their usage policies.

When it comes to backing up a drive, don't bother copy/pasting manually unless your data is very static and unchanging. Use something like Macrium Reflect to image the drive directly to a backup drive. A good strategy is to have two backup drives, one kept locally and one kept offsite so you don't have everything in one place.

 

[Painman]

Who in the world has 3*3TB drives stuffed full of disparate data?

Oh, never mind.

Well, if you DO mind, make some sacrifices and create a RAID 1 array out of 2 of them and mothball the third one as a contingency. Or acquire a fourth and RAID those.

 

[tweakboy]

It depends. If you buy junk drive from Maxtor / Seagate = same company. Maxtor makes the drives for seagate and that is when all hell broke loose... Seagates drives used to be good long time ago, But ever since Maxtor and Seagate hopped in bed together things have been a disaster for those who buy those brand. Go with WD or Sammy.... thx BTW Get Crystal Disk Info That will tell you everything you want to know. Thx

 

[Ranulf]

"Does a dying HDD show signs of dying or does it just die?"

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Backups are a must.

 

[denis280]

thats why i still use dvd

 

[MongGrel]

thats why i still use dvd

You aren't going to fit much on a dvd...

 

[Puffnstuff]

"Does a dying HDD show signs of dying or does it just die?"
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Backups are a must.

Depends on the cirmcunstances surrounding the failure as to whether or not you get some forewarning. Enable smart in your bios which gives you some indication of an impending failure. I got a caution flag on my veloraptor giving me time to move the data to another drive before the head crashed on it. Other drives started the click of death in advance. SSD's on the other hand have given me absolutely ZERO warning before they locked up.

You aren't going to fit much on a dvd...

True that. I personally use bd-rw's, external hd's and cloud storage these days to back up my data to numerous locations. If you want optical media BDXL will give you around 100gb per disc if you get the right media.

 

[amenx]

Just had a seagate 1tb HD die without warning. Well, only warning is that PC started to freeze. It wasnt an OS drive, only used for media storage. Took it out and put in an enclosure to connect via USB. Managed to get some stuff off it but froze again and never recovered. I would love to hear the old clicking sound of a dying drive as that usually gives enough warning to copy anything valuable before ditching it.

 

[Elixer]

I do have to wonder, what is the #1 problem with HDs going bad?
I assume it has to do with the r/w heads, then the PCB board, since I have never seen a motor go bad.

 

[bruceb]

You could use Blu Ray media for data storage. But get the type designed for Archival use. Supermediastore.com has them.

 

[Smoblikat]

Other than reading/writing much slower and actually losing data, its hard to tell if a drive is on its way out or not. Run an HDTune error scan on it to get a general idea of its health.

 

[Brado78]

I have had bad sectors creep up and then mysteriously go away, and the "spare" pool of them hasn't been touched.
I have had one die all of a sudden with no warning.

 

[bryanl]

Not enough to rely on them to predict failure.

 

[spat55]

Mines been ticking for the past 5 months since I got it second hand but has kept going. Only cost me £17 for it and I only use it for gameplay videos so was worth it, always back it up to my external HDD though as soon as I've added to it though, which is excellent as I backup the whole PC so much more since I've had it.

 

[bononos]

I have three 3TB HDDs hooked up now and am considering reorganizing everything. Wondering if I should make backups of them as I'd hate to lose the data. WHen I had my SSD, it started freezing up randomly. I could still use it but it wasn't reliable anymore. Since I have my HDD as storage, I'm not sure i'tll freeze up like that or if there are other signs. How reliable are those SMART tests?

According to backblaze, SMART data is quite useful for predicting failures.
Its a good idea to check if the raw values for sensitive attributes are increasing (>0) and making backups even if they don't reach threshold values. With my last drive that conked , I made a mistake for ignoring those and relying on monitors that only alert when threshold values are reached.

 

[Elixer]

According to backblaze, SMART data is quite useful for predicting failures.
Its a good idea to check if the raw values for sensitive attributes are increasing (>0) and making backups even if they don't reach threshold values. With my last drive that conked , I made a mistake for ignoring those and relying on monitors that only alert when threshold values are reached.

They have a completely different use case than most people would have, those drives they have would never power down, and are on 24/7.
Most dead HDs that I have had NO SMART attribute change at all, besides the trivial ones, like power on and so on.
If you ignore the ones that they say tripped, that is a different story.
Exact same thing for SSDs that died, they didn't throw up any SMART warning at all before they went belly up.