When are my 2007 HDDs going to die?

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JayBobGamerZz

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Oct 29, 2016
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I've currently got 2 7200rpm HDDs in my system. They are the same 2 HDDs I had in one of my old systems from 2007, which is when I got them new. Every few years I've entirely upgraded my PC with new parts, sold all the old parts except kept the HDDs, and they are still running today, just about 10 years later.

They both seem good as new (okay that's a lie, they're kinda noisy) and after testing both with some applications like Western Digital Lifeguard Diagnostic they appear to be all good.

I'm just curious as to how much more life I'm going to get out of these, and what the chances of failure are etc please.
I'm about to purchase another 8gb DDR4 (to total 16gb, Battlefield 1 appears to be using all available ram in my system so I need more, and I'm video editing in 4K quite frequently).
If the failure of these drives are incredibly imminent, for the same price I could purchase a new 240gb SSD instead to use as primary boot device, keeping the other 2 HDDs until they fail. What's a better investment, the additional 8gb RAM for smoother gaming/editing experience, or are my hard drives about to fail, meaning I should get an SSD? Thanks
 
Solution
Rogue Leader
Heres the deal, hard drives and fans are basically the only 2 things left in your PC with moving parts. Mechanical stuff wears down and breaks. In my time working with computers I've found 5 years is a good number to trust a consumer hard drive. You are clearly well past that point. IMO 5 years nothing goes wrong, you got your moneys worth. If I were you I'd order up 2 new drives, copy your data over and destroy them.
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Rogue Leader

Rogue Leader

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Dec 22, 2014
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Heres the deal, hard drives and fans are basically the only 2 things left in your PC with moving parts. Mechanical stuff wears down and breaks. In my time working with computers I've found 5 years is a good number to trust a consumer hard drive. You are clearly well past that point. IMO 5 years nothing goes wrong, you got your moneys worth. If I were you I'd order up 2 new drives, copy your data over and destroy them.
 
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atljsf

atljsf

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Jun 17, 2015
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the usual time to expect a hard disk to fail is 5 years

as you see that number doesn't apply to all brands and models

it is safe to say that after 8 years i wouldn't trust those drives to store anything important

as always apply the 3,2,1 rule

3 backups, 2 different types of media and 1 outside your house becuase depends on two 10 year old hard disks is a bad idea
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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I've had drives die in 5 weeks, I have drives that are 20 years old (1998) that still work fine.
(hmm..I should crank up that laptop...lol)

For your drives? There is no way to tell "incredibly imminent", but they are a bit past the 'best used by' date.
 
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