Practically how long can my hard drives last?

[brannsiu]

I have now, approximately 10 hard drives, both internal 3.5" and portable 2.5”. A few of them are older than 8 years but still going strong. One drive went wrong because I accidentally and obviously did something bad to it (shorting the circuit). All other drives are still fine.

I'm wondering when they'll die, assume that no accident happens to them?

I understand about backup, I am not talking about backup things

 

[Colif]

Well, you know average is about 3 to 5 years but they can last as long as 10 years - https://blog.archiware.com/blog/how-long-does-a-hard-drive-last/#:~:text=The answer to the question,but these are the outliers.

It depends on usage, if they just storage drives and hardly used, they can last a long time.
I expect if you use an ssd as boot and hdd as storage, the hdd will last a long time.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm wondering when they'll die, assume that no accident happens to them?

Anywhere from 2 days to 20 years.

Unless you're looking at trends for 1,000's of them, there is no real "prediction".

 

[avg9956]

I personally have a Samsung 500GB drive that's over 11 years old now (2010) and its still running
You can't really tell if and when it fails, but you can tell how good it is by the number of years its still operational.
SMART metrics from software can't be used to accurately depict the current health of the drive, but it gives you an idea how much wear it has experienced or if it has been used if you're buying a supposedly brand new one.

All drives eventually fail, that is the inevitable - its just a matter of when.
Avoid vibrations, fall damage, sudden changes in acceleration and magnets to the drive to keep it safe from physical harm.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I tend to consider 5 years out of a consumer HDD you got your money's worth. Unless its in something thats not used much. If its a backup drive I'd say longer, but if you're using it daily, 5 years is a good time to consider replacement.

 

[Grobe]

Based on the experience of - said some people posting in this forum, I'll claim I can predict pretty much accurate when a disk will die:

It most probably dies the same day or the day before you figure out the real importance of having a backup routine

 

[Colif]

well, OP knows about backups so does that mean never?

 

[USAFRet]

well, OP knows about backups so does that mean never?

Knowing and doing are two different things.

 

[Colif]

shame a lot of people who think they know, tell those that do, what to do. That applies to a lot of things

 

[lvt]

They die when the mechanical part or electronic part fails, whichever comes first.

 

[avg9956]

Treat your hardware right and your hardware will treat you right
If hardware doesn't treat you right despite treating it right, then that's when you can blame the hardware!

Also don't forget the effects of heat too be it HDD or SSD. I'd find it quite doubtful for any drive to last long in prolonged periods of increased heat.
Insufficient cooling = expect drive to quit on you sooner than later.

 

[brannsiu]

shame a lot of people who think they know, tell those that do, what to do. That applies to a lot of things

My files are always classified into a few categories.
For the most important files there is always backup
But some files are occupying capacities but they can be lost or deleted
that I don't care, but I don't want to delete or lose them until the last day, it's a compromise between cost of hard drives, physical space and importance of the files.

That's why I am interested to know how long usually a drive would last and for what reason will it die of. Then I can have some ideas when I will be replacing those drives, or not to replace them, depending on my situation
at that time.

This isn't shame

 

[USAFRet]

My files are always classified into a few categories.
For the most important files there is always backup
But some files are occupying capacities but they can be lost or deleted
that I don't care, but I don't want to delete or lose them until the last day, it's a compromise between cost of hard drives, physical space and importance of the files.

That's why I am interested to know how long usually a drive would last and for what reason will it die of. Then I can have some ideas when I will be replacing those drives, or not to replace them, depending on my situation
at that time.

This isn't shame

There is no prediction for the single instance of your drive(s).

When you look at numbers in the thousands, you might see a fail rate of 0.5% - 1.0%, over 3-4 years of 24/7 data center use.
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html
Which is meaningless for your drives.

I have drives that are 20 years old, still working. I've had other drives die at 5 weeks out of the box.