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MNS1968

Member

Registered: 2023-12-28

Posts: 29

Hard drive life span

Greetings everyone.

Has anyone have an idea how long a 1TB hard drive should last with the below messages?

The drive in question is a Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 7K1000.C, which I've had since 2013 and I do have 2 x data backups from this drive.

I found recently it had some bad sectors which I've isolated via e2fsck. Using smartctl afterwards I got the following ...

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   095   095   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       655360
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   137   137   054    Pre-fail  Offline      -       90
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   121   121   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       314 (Average 310)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       19191
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       24
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   067    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   138   138   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       31
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       21181
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       18717
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   085   085   000    Old_age   Always       -       19197
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   085   085   000    Old_age   Always       -       19197
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   166   166   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Min/Max 5/48)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       24
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1

Doesn't look too encouraging does it?!

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,886

Re: Hard drive life span

Keep a very close eye on the smart data - if the disk has been good for 13 years and is now acummulating sector reallocations fast, it's falling apart.
If it has allocated 24 bad sectors equally over the past 6 years and keeps that rate it might still have some years - but since you no longer can trust it I'd recommend to replace and second-life it as semi-temporary storage for disposable data (eg. external storage for an AV player - if the music plays: good. If it starts to glitch too much it's time so say goodbye to the drive but nothing else was lost)

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MNS1968

Member

Registered: 2023-12-28

Posts: 29

Re: Hard drive life span

If it has allocated 24 bad sectors equally over the past 6 years and keeps that rate it might still have some years

The drive had originally 56 bad sectors when I first scanned with S.M.A.R.T, then during e2fsck running it's repairs, a further four appeared.

I'm was quite surprised when it reduced it down to 24 errors left. Might think about replacing it with a new one. Only £40.00 on Amazon.

Thanks, Seth.

Last edited by MNS1968 (2026-07-13 14:36:15)