external hard drive is easy to die?

[heime2003]

it has been third time within 3 years for my WD and seagate drives to die completely. i havent mishandled them but i had a habit of using them into near full capacity. also all dead drives were 4TB model or higher. i wonder they would have lasted longer if i had left more space or just used small capacity drives(my 2TB model is still working fine)

[craigsters]

My 2tb Passport external drive, it is 6 years old and still works and I now have a 6 tb external hard drive from the same company that's always on and plugged in for my mod backups and other docs etc

I had originally had Steam games backed up on it, but my internet speed is so good I can install a 100 gb game in less then a hour, steam backup can take longer to install

My Book 6 tb external drive is from Western Digital the same with my passport external drive

[Dutchgamer1982]

depends on what type.

traditional disks have platters and a reading head.
(a bit like a pick-up player and it's needle)
when you shake them (especially up and down movements) that head will bump into the platters rendering the disk unreadable

the magnetic sectors on them that define 1 or 0 will when not recieving electricitcy over time also leak.. (lets say that a 1 has 1 microvolt of charge aand an 0 has nothing.. when just written.. as long as the disk is powered these voltages remain fresh.. but once you not power the disk.. they start leaking... so that 1 microvolt will leak to the 0 microvolt sector next to it..
your computer generally can still read the data when it has degraded to 0.7 and 0.3 repectively... but there is a point where the gap between a 0 and a 1 has become so small that the data has become unreadable.
-> thats why traditional harrddrives need to be powered on at least once every 6 months to prevent dataloss

ssd disks.. have no mechanically moving parts.. and you can basiclly toss them around without issue.. thus making them MUCH more suited for an external storage device.
they are also MUCH much more resistant to this leaking.
(not immune.. but generally an ssd can be stored for years without power and still be fine.. a decade likely would be pushing it though..)
-> the issue with ssd is however they have a controller board... with a controller chip, a register chip and some resistors and the likes on it.
Those can totally degrade too.. and once one of those componets damages usually the ENTIRE ssd becomes unreadable at once.
->
ssd sectors also wear down by using them... or being powered.. so in fact having an ssd NOT powered.. lenghtens it's life.. unless you want to overwrite the data regulairly for a backup...

so both have their advantages and drawbacks.
generally the best backup is MULTIPLE backups.
**have a large regulair mechanical harddisk in your pc where you backup to often.
**have an external ssd where you backup to with larger intervals
**have a third backup option of your most sensitive data in the form of burning it away on a dvd or put it in the cloud.

avoiding a single point of failure generally is the best strategy.

[Dutchgamer1982]

my samsung pro 1tb ssd from 2016 is still at 98% health... but I have in the past destroyed MANY classical mechanical HD by just carrying them around... even well packed in a suitcase... the swinging movement from being in a bag on my shoulder.. or in my jacket pocket.. is just a heavy strain on mechanical disks.

[Jackie Daytona]

引用自 apathy：

Seagate HDD are absolutely prone to failure. They are low quality.

If you use one, I strongly recommend you download CrystalDiskInfo to monitor and check on its status. If the results after a scan show anything less than "Good", bin it.

I have a Seagate external HDD. (Which is basically a laptop HDD with a USB interface.) Been working for well over 10 years. 15 GB.

Seems only the last 6-7 years, WD and SG have become unreliable. Sad.

[Ysosrscat]

引用自 heime2003：

it has been third time within 3 years for my WD and seagate drives to die completely. i havent mishandled them but i had a habit of using them into near full capacity. also all dead drives were 4TB model or higher. i wonder they would have lasted longer if i had left more space or just used small capacity drives(my 2TB model is still working fine)

Small externals are likely more fragile than full size drives that are never meant to move.

Regardless, always buy 2

[apathy]

引用自 Jackie Daytona：

引用自 apathy：

Seagate HDD are absolutely prone to failure. They are low quality.

If you use one, I strongly recommend you download CrystalDiskInfo to monitor and check on its status. If the results after a scan show anything less than "Good", bin it.

I have a Seagate external HDD. (Which is basically a laptop HDD with a USB interface.) Been working for well over 10 years. 15 GB.

Seems only the last 6-7 years, WD and SG have become unreliable. Sad.

Not sure how you'd get one of the oldest external HDDs to work in the modern era. The SG I'm talking about are in the 1TB+ range. They are unreliable and many computer repair/data recovery shops were kept in business solely thanks to these failing. Even the backups failed.

I once used a 250GB Targa Databox long ago. The f**king thing had no shielding on its cabling, and when you switch it on, it knocks the broadband Internet modem out. Plus I can't find its unique power cable anywhere. I backed everything up on there...I'll get round to scrapping the d@mn thing eventually.

Old games consoles without proper shielding on their cables was the bane of my existence as an electrician. The picture and sound was always a mess. Companies used to lie and say their gold-plated SCART cables give the best picture, only to find it was missing various pins, therefore was composite. How products that don't comply with standards get made and sold on the market is beyond me, its like no one tested for these things.

[GunsForBucks]

引用自 Cid：

引用自 apathy：

Seagate HDD are absolutely prone to failure. They are low quality.

If you use one, I strongly recommend you download CrystalDiskInfo to monitor and check on its status. If the results after a scan show anything less than "Good", bin it.

As someone who spent several years working in a PC repair shop, I can say that one reason I stay away from Seagate myself is the amount of prematurely failed Seagate drives that I saw come in. And getting an RMA on any of their stuff damn near required hiring an attorney. It's been a few years, so maybe they're better now, but I don't forget/forgive easily.

Not that I'm saying WD is perfect either, but I haven't seen that anywhere near as much with them.

引用自 Nargo：

Seagate is notorious for dying easily. Used to joke that it had the strongest encryption tech because eventually, nobody can access data from it.

The line I've always liked to use there is that the amount of data recovery jobs Seagate has created is one positive about them.

You are correct about Seagate I remember them as being bad as well.
Around that time I think Kingston RAM was also failing a lot.

But over time they seemed to have fixed things. I tend to go WD but now people are saying they are the worse choice. And Kingston Ram improved as well so it seems.

Frankly I don't know what to think.

[BottleCap]

On my case, my 3 year 1TB hardrive outlived my 500 GB SSD that only lasted 1 year, one day my computer froze and it was because the SSD where i had windows installed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ died all of a sudden

[xDDD]

I've had good luck with my external hard drive. Been a few years now and no issues.
It is also stationary 99% of the time though so maybe that's why? Or maybe I've just been lucky.

[Raelic]

The degree of hard or easy is subjective.

However, I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who would claim it's easy. If you keep any storage drive SSD or HDD full, it will wear out faster. It will also be slower.

And HDDs are cheap so just get a spare to move stuff you want to save to.

[Raelic]

引用自 Eld3r：

引用自 Raelic：

The degree of hard or easy is subjective.

However, I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who would claim it's easy. If you keep any storage drive SSD or HDD full, it will wear out faster. It will also be slower.

And HDDs are cheap so just get a spare to move stuff you want to save to.

HDDs dont wear out faster when they are full

SSDs will but mostly because TRIM wont have any spare memory to use for repairs unless the end user has overprovisioned space on the SSD

They most certainly do.

[Raelic]

引用自 Eld3r：

引用自 Raelic：

They most certainly do.

sorry, but they dont

i worked on the things for years

And I filled fast food orders for years. It does.

[Raelic]

引用自 Eld3r：

引用自 Raelic：

And I filled fast food orders for years. It does.

if you mean using them a LOT more than average can wear them out faster, sure

otherwise what i stated earlier is true

For the same reason having a full HDD or SSD makes them slower is also why it does use them more to be full and wears them out faster.

There's no mental math here.

[Raelic]

引用自 Eld3r：

引用自 Raelic：

For the same reason having a full HDD or SSD makes them slower is also why it does use them more to be full and wears them out faster.

There's no mental math here.

being full will certainly make them slower to write or not write at all

but it will not slow reads (excluding for fragmentation in actual HDDs)

btw, i worked on all manner of storage for several years

I still just stuffed fast food orders in brown bags for several years. And you're still wrong. A full HDD or SSD will wear out faster. It's even taught this way in numerous basic IT certifications like A+.

[Raelic]

引用自 Eld3r：

引用自 Raelic：

I still just stuffed fast food orders in brown bags for several years. And you're still wrong. A full HDD or SSD will wear out faster. It's even taught this way in numerous basic IT certifications like A+.

i would love to see that written in the A+ documentation (i have that cert, btw)

again in case it is needed, a full SDD that does not have overprovisioning in place will wear out faster but or just break suddenly

but HDDs dont wear out faster because they are full

There's no such thing as an SDD and Professor Messer has a ton of videos you can source. I tried finding it specifically, but it's such a common sense thing I can't find it.

It has to do with heat if I recall correctly.