about HDD lifespan...

CH@NO · Mar 2, 2009

Hi.

I had this question some time ago, a friend tolde once that each formatting of the HDD decreases It's lifespan, is it true??

timta2 · Mar 2, 2009

I would be willing to bet that EVERY operation that a hard drive performs will reduce its lifespan. It is a mechanical device for the most part. I don't think formatting it will reduce its lifespan more than any other operation. I think your friend is technically right.

Polarman · Mar 2, 2009

How long do you intend on keeping it?

I would not keep a hard drive i bought 10 years ago (too small and slow).

Nemesis881 · Mar 2, 2009

timta2 said:
I would be willing to bet that EVERY operation that a hard drive performs will reduce its lifespan. It is a mechanical device for the most part. I don't think formatting it will reduce its lifespan more than any other operation. I think your friend is technically right.

^ Yup, I'm with him.
My 160gb that I bought 4-5~ years ago still works like a charm, so I wouldn't be that concerned.
You can always buy an external to back it up and let that sit dormant in a closet until you need it.

CH@NO · Mar 2, 2009

Polarman said:
How long do you intend on keeping it?

I would not keep a hard drive i bought 10 years ago (too small and slow).

I dunno, but you're right, I start to think to upgrade my current 250GB IDE HDD, It's the oldest and have about 1 1/2 year of operation.

I asked 'cause I've formatted my HDDs a couple of times (20+) and suddenly I remember the advice of my friend, and I just wanna check it with you.

troyrae360 · Mar 2, 2009

your best bet to prolong the life of your HD if you need keep reformating would be to only do Quick formats, not the low level format,

nafets · Mar 2, 2009

Considering most people don't keep their HDDs longer than 5 years, I doubt you'd see the effects of excessive or frequent formatting/reformatting (IE....reduced lifespan)...

Sasqui · Mar 2, 2009

Sure, everything causes wear and tear, including a complete format, but it's not going to harm it.

However, they have showed that yelling at your hard drive increases latency:

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/692131/Yelling-At-Your-Hard-Drive-Wont-Work-Increases-Latency.html

Fleck · Mar 2, 2009

I've got a pretty old 80GB Maxtor still kickin around with all my albums and a little backup data in it. Haven't reformatted it in about 4 years though. That's how long it's been since I lost all my CDs and I spent a long time getting them all back.

AddSub · Mar 2, 2009

I would be willing to bet that EVERY operation that a hard drive performs will reduce its lifespan. It is a mechanical device for the most part. I don't think formatting it will reduce its lifespan more than any other operation. I think your friend is technically right.

Pretty much. Hard disk drives have moving parts. There are platters in there rotating at high speeds and as long as they are spinning and the drive is powered there will be wear.

What can cause more wear than usual is excessive amounts of start-stop cycles. Each hard drive is rated for a certain amount of start-stop cycles. Which is something that can be caused by a sudden power loss or even putting your machine excessively to sleep and waking it up often. (spin-up & spin-down) But nothing to worry about since regular desktop hard drives are rated for anywhere from 40000 to 50000 start-stop cycles, while enterprise drives are rated for many times that.

FatForester · Mar 2, 2009

If you're concerned about the health of your drive I'd suggest downloading SpeedFan and using that to look at your hard drive's SMART data. It'll tell you the statistics on your hard drive concerning the cycles AddSub is talking about and a bunch of other data as well.

1Kurgan1 · Mar 2, 2009

nafets said:
Considering most people don't keep their HDDs longer than 5 years, I doubt you'd see the effects of excessive or frequent formatting/reformatting (IE....reduced lifespan)...

Most people keep their HDD's for over 5 years. Most people buy a comp in a box and use it till something dies. I personally have used all my HDD's till death (and only 1 has died so far), what else are you going to do with them?

RevengE · Mar 2, 2009

A Harddrive Is like a Car Everything you do gives it Wear and Tear, really everything Sooner or later things start wear out on it..You should be fine for atleast a couple years. My friend is using a harddrive I sold him 4 years ago so.

h3llb3nd4 · Mar 2, 2009

Polarman said:
How long do you intend on keeping it?

I would not keep a hard drive i bought 10 years ago (too small and slow).

lol your right about the small part. I have a 4 gb hdd in my pc. and it makes a hell of a noise!

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Video Card(s)	coming soon
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Audio Device(s)	Onboard Realtek HD 6ch Audio
Power Supply	Generic 450W with 20A on the 12v+ rail
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about HDD lifespan...

CH@NO

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timta2

Polarman

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Nemesis881

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CH@NO

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troyrae360

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nafets

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Sasqui

Fleck

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1Kurgan1

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