Hard disk aging/degrading?

MrNicholas1029

Honorable
Oct 12, 2012
37
0
10,530
My hard disk is a WD10EZEX 1TB Blue model. I have been using it for nearly 3 years. I have been running it 24/7 mostly, a relatively heavy load per day and prone to vibration. I know that this is going to wear out my hard disk, however I was not ready for a dramatic change. A few weeks or so before, the response time has slowed down a lot. I get more application errors and I have to defrag twice more often. And so I installed CrystalDiskInfo, http://i.imgur.com/AfhetZp.png

This was my result, and I have no idea what anything means. I only know the power on hours and temperature. I doubt its health status, so I looked at the numbers below. Can anyone explain what those means and what is considered good or bad?
 
Solution
Hi there MrNicholas1029,

According to the results, the HDD should be perfectly fine. It will not hurt to test it with some other tools as well. You can try WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool as it is brand specific.
Regarding the failure rates/average life discussion, you can check this article out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=SE1ZOa

Apart from that, as you experience some performance decrease, I guess you should test your other components. You can start with testing your RAM. Also, you can check your temps as well.

WD's DLG tool: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=5CYD8s

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
If you don't trust CrystalDiskInfo's interpretation of the data then don't use it. BUT look at the RAW data -- The values for reallocated events, Pending Sector Count, Uncorrectable Sector Count, and Reallocated Sectors is all ZERO. Your power on hours is around 2 years. Disks like to be in a steady state. Your power on count shows that you haven't done a bunch of power cycles. That improves the longevity. BackBlaze (a cloud storage company) has published very good statistics on drive failures. After 3 years run-time the failure rate increases. That is not a predictor of failure, but an indication that you should follow a comprehensive backup strategy.

Your SMART statistics look OK today. But that can't predict what they will look like in a week. You should always assume that your disk could fail tomorrow and do backups appropriately.
 

MrNicholas1029

Honorable
Oct 12, 2012
37
0
10,530


I have read blackblaze's test, however, I can only find blackblaze doing such test, there aren't other companies that test hard disk failure rates. I personally do not trust blackblaze's test.
Anyway, if my hard disk is still in good condition, what can be the cause of slow respnse time. I have already uninstalled all unecessary bloatware and deleted recycle bin and junk files.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator


I think other companies do keep the statistics but may not publish them. My own experience has been 5 years for enterprise disks and the failure rates rise significantly. I have no reason not to believe BackBlaze's published statistics.

Is your disk (either partition) getting very full? Above 75% fill can slow your performance.
 
Hi there MrNicholas1029,

According to the results, the HDD should be perfectly fine. It will not hurt to test it with some other tools as well. You can try WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool as it is brand specific.
Regarding the failure rates/average life discussion, you can check this article out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=SE1ZOa

Apart from that, as you experience some performance decrease, I guess you should test your other components. You can start with testing your RAM. Also, you can check your temps as well.

WD's DLG tool: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=5CYD8s

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
 
Solution

TRENDING THREADS