HDD Lifespan Question

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

I have a 2.5" 140GB hard drive that has logged 16,000 hours of use (2-3 years actively used for gaming, 3 years backup only, totaling ~6 years)

I want to give it to a friend but I'm not sure what kind of life expectancy it would have. His son plays minecraft for 5 hours in a week and other than that his laptop is off all week long minus a day of online bills. I could not picture any computer being used less.

He will fill about 95GB on it and then basically nothing else, so the HDD will remain at 75% usage for the rest of its life basically. His laptop sucks and won't do any gaming. Minecraft is the only exception

Thanks guys

140GB Seagate Momentus
Sata II 3 Gb/s
7200rpm
16MB buffer
75% full (100 of 140GB used and will not increase)
16,000 hrs usage

I have Crystaldisk already, It says

Health GOOD 37C
Power on Count 6758
Power on Hours 16986
Serial #: 5TG0D8HW

 

[Mr5oh]

I have an original 36 GB Raptor drive that still alive and kicking in a family members PC. Many hard drives have no problems going 10+ years. You're giving it to him for free right, if it dies it dies. I wouldn't sweat it odds are if it made it this far its going to live for quite a while longer.

 

[Reyaz123]

Since the brand name is Seagate, that brand is known for the highest failure rate for a hard drive. Probably doesn't have much life left in it. If it is already making loud noises when the PC is turned on, it can fail at any time

Here's a good deal on a brand new laptop hard drive whenever you decide to replace it: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Drives-Notebook-WD5000LPVX/dp/B00C9TECFO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1435526837&sr=1-1&keywords=Wd+laptop+hard+drive

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

I have an original 36 GB Raptor drive that still alive and kicking in a family members PC. Many hard drives have no problems going 10+ years. You're giving it to him for free right, if it dies it dies. I wouldn't sweat it odds are if it made it this far its going to live for quite a while longer.

Yeah free however his current drive is similar but performs worse than mine. It's a small upgrade for a computer he really doesn't care about.

I just want to make sure I don't go through hell copying his files and reinstalling Win8.1 all for this hdd to die in a year.

It took me 6 years to hit 16000 hours on the HDD. I imagine it'd take him another 6 to hit 1/2 that amount

 

[Reyaz123]

Also check the health of the drive/s using crystaldiskinfo. If it says the health is good, do not worry about it failing http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

Since the brand name is Seagate, that brand is known for the highest failure rate for a hard drive. Probably doesn't have much life left in it. If it is already making loud noises when the PC is turned on, it can fail at any time

Here's a good deal on a brand new laptop hard drive whenever you decide to replace it: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Drives-Notebook-WD5000LPVX/dp/B00C9TECFO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1435526837&sr=1-1&keywords=Wd+laptop+hard+drive

lol what a huge load of crap. Show a link with proof please

 

[Reyaz123]

It might not be a Seagate barracuda. But here are links with telling evidence
http://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-reliable-hard-drive-brands-1505797966

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/175089-who-makes-the-most-reliable-hard-drives

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

Also check the health of the drive/s using crystaldiskinfo. If it says the health is good, do not worry about it failing http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

I have Crystaldisk already, It says

-Health- GOOD 37C
Power on Count 6758
Power on Hours 16986
Serial #: 5TG0D8HW

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

I made an update guys. Thanks!
I have Crystaldisk already, It says

Health- GOOD 37C
Power on Count 6758
Power on Hours 16986
Serial #: 5TG0D8HW

 

[Reyaz123]

Yep, if that's the case the drive is still good condition. No reason to be worried at this point. Although, drives could fail suddenly due to completely random mechanical errors. Should always backup data when you can just in case

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

Yep, if that's the case the drive is still good condition. No reason to be worried at this point. Although, drives could fail suddenly due to completely random mechanical errors. Should always backup data when you can just in case

Ah, well I do backups but he does not. Then again, all of his info that is not OS related fits onto a 12GB flash drive. I'll tell him to do that.

Seagate's SEATOOLS showed no errors or anything. It passed the LONG and SHORT drive tests for errors and such. No corrupted sectors either but then again all of its data has been sitting still unchanged for 2 years. Every 6 months I move the data off of the backup onto my main drive, perform a reformat then move it all back to be safe. I've taken great care of the drive. I would hope it reaches its 50,000 hours lifespan since it's so lightly used all these years. It would take my friend 15 more years to hit 50000 hours

 

[Reyaz123]

Every test is passed, that's really impressive for a drive at that age. Great health and luckily for your friend, hard drives are getting far cheaper due to ssds taking over the market. By the time it's reached 50k hours, hard drive could even sell for 10tb for 40 bucks in 10 years but that is just my opinion on it all.

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

Every test is passed, that's really impressive for a drive at that age. Great health and luckily for your friend, hard drives are getting far cheaper due to ssds taking over the market. By the time it's reached 50k hours, hard drive could even sell for 10tb for 40 bucks in 10 years but that is just my opinion on it all.

The HDD I'm giving my friend is just a backup drive. It does nothing except boot up then idle.

My main drive is a Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid (SATA III 6Gb/s 7200rpm 32MB buffer 4GB NAND) and
it has already logged 10,617 hours with intensive use and 4036 power on's and I can guarantee it's on its last legs.

It's been in use for exactly 2 years (as of May) at 15 hours per day while my previous drive

15 hours per day x 365= 5500 hours, x2 years =11000 hours. haha this drive is definitely used for hardcore gaming

I would not give it away free because I know it could not last. The SSD portion of my hybrid just has to be worn out. I'm replacing it with a 5TB HDD+ 240GB 840 EVO as cache. I'd use an SSD as a main drive except next year there are 2500GB of games I'm going to buy, so I will not waste my time and just use a smaller SSD as a cache with Intel SRT

 

[Reyaz123]

You have very good luck with Seagate drives lol. In my lifetime I've been through 3 failed Seagate drives and only came across 1 WD drive failure

 

[CmdrJeffSinclair]

You have very good luck with Seagate drives lol. In my lifetime I've been through 3 failed Seagate drives and only came across 1 WD drive failure

In general I've been very fortunate. My Alienware M17-R1 is turning 8 years old this Christmas lol and the only issues I've had were out of date drivers (AMD discontinued support for 3870x2 in 2013) and this is my second laptop adapter death (still, 4 years per adapter for a 240w laptop is an insane lifespan)

I'm currently building a desktop and I can only hope my fortunes continue because money is very tight!

 

[Reyaz123]

Read as many reviews as you can before purchasing any computer product. Lol budget tight, heard that one before

Good luck,
-Reyaz