Hard Drive Shelf Life

suraswami · Sep 16, 2017

Hi,

Bought a Samsung 500GB 5400 RPM Single Platter Desktop drive before Samsung was bought out. Kept it as spare and never used it. Been sitting in my storage box for many years and even forgot about it.

Now my main drive is running out of space and going thru my stash I found the drive.

Is it OK to put this into action?

What is the usual Shelf life of unused drives?

:toast:

Cybrnook2002 · Sep 16, 2017

I don't think they really have any part that would deteriorate, so you are likely fine to use it. Typically retail drives are slated to have a working life of about 5 years, note "working".

thesmokingman · Sep 16, 2017

They can be stored for decades but need to be run every now and then, so they're not great for long term cold storage. I think the figure for the losses of magnetic signal/strength is anywhere from 1% per yr to 1% per decade. It doesn't sound like its been that long so fire it up and run it thru some tests.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/298...edia-and-methods-for-archiving-your-data.html

newtekie1 · Sep 16, 2017

I'd fire it up and run an HDTune error scan on it just to make sure there isn't any issues. If it passes, then use it.

eidairaman1 · Sep 16, 2017

newtekie1 said:
I'd fire it up and run an HDTune error scan on it just to make sure there isn't any issues. If it passes, then use it.

On top of that Hitachi Disk Fitness Test

FordGT90Concept · Sep 16, 2017

If it wasn't soaking in water, it's fine.

System Name	---
Processor	FX 8350 @ 4.00 Ghz with 1.28v
Motherboard	Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 v4.0, Hacked Bios F4.x
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Video Card(s)	Asus R9 290 OC @ GPU - 1050, MEM - 1300
Storage	Inland 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD for OS, WDC Black - 2TB + 1TB Storage, Inland 480GB SSD - Games
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Case	AeroCool XPredator X3
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Processor	AMD 5900x
Motherboard	Asus x570 Strix-E
Cooling	Hardware Labs
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Video Card(s)	RTX 3090
Storage	Sabrent
Display(s)	Samsung G9
Case	Phanteks 719
Audio Device(s)	Fiio K5 Pro
Power Supply	EVGA 1000 P2
Mouse	Logitech G600
Keyboard	Corsair K95

Processor	Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard	AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling	Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory	32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s)	RTX 2070 Super
Storage	500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s)	Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case	Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s)	Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply	eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
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System Name	PCGOD
Processor	AMD FX 8350@ 5.0GHz
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Video Card(s)	AMD Radeon 290 Sapphire Vapor-X
Storage	Samsung 840 Pro 256GB, WD Velociraptor 1TB
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Keyboard	Roccat Ryos MK Pro
Software	Windows 7 Pro 64

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Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard	MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling	Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory	2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s)	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
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Hard Drive Shelf Life

suraswami

Cybrnook2002

thesmokingman

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"