Will these hard drives fail soon?

[c47v3770]

Hi all,

Few questions about these drives..

HDD 1: it's in my desktop. I ran SeaTools (Windows) and did the short test... It failed. Then I did the long test and the drive passed. Should I be concerned? The drive is close to 3 years old and it's definitely running a bit slower these days.

HDD 2: it's in my laptop. It's an HGST drive. About a month ago, the drive "made a weird noise" according to my roommate and the "Windows detected a hard disk problem" error message popped up. I ran the HGST Windows Drive Fitness Test (short and long) and the drive passed both.

Should I be using other software to further test these drives or go ahead and get replacements? If so, which drives would you recommend?

Thank you much!

 

[jimmysmitty]

Those tests might not be reading the SMART data and if Windows popped up stating that it is detecting a HDD error or possible failure in the future then it means that SMART is showing an over abundance of failing sectors unable to be recovered.

Have you checked the Event Viewer to verify that the Windows message states a imminent HDD failure?

I personalyl would back up all my data and not trust it TBH.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

Don't trust any of that data. Back everything important up.

I mean, you should be doing that anyway, but whatever.

Also, I recommend trying Speedfan and HDTune. As soon as you have backed everything up, download those and run SMART scans.

In addition, if your drive is making noises, that's a bad sign damn near every time.

 

[c47v3770]

Thank you all. I have not checked the event viewer. I do have backups of both drives. I will run the SMART scans today.

However, I think I may just replace them to avoid any data loss and downtime. I would like keep the same (if not more) storage capacity...1TB on desktop and 500GB laptop.

Could you please recommend some drives?

Thanks!

 

[jimmysmitty]

Most of the HDDs out there are mostly the same in terms of longevity. Either Seagate or WD depenging on how much you want to spend. For laptops, avoid the 7mm drives. I see more failures with those than standard 9mm laptop drives.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

I think of it this way. Sooner or later, every hard drive is going to fail. Period. According to that big Google study:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

56% of their failed drives had no serious SMART errors, and 36% had nothing except temperature warnings. When SMART or Windows or any test gives you some advance warning, thank your lucky stars and keep your backups up to date while finding a replacement.

As for replacements, model matters more than brand. All manufacturers have hits and misses, especially after the flooding. But reliability for specific models tends to be more predictable. Just be sure to keep doing backups, some number of new drives are just destined to fail in the first few thousand hours due to defects, no matter how good the model. After that the failure rate actually falls until wear and tear factor in.

 

[c47v3770]

Would these be fine then?
Laptop drive
Desktop drive

I would love to get SSDs but they may be too pricey based on the capacity I need.

 

[jimmysmitty]

WD Blacks are good drives. Normally have good performance, good reliability and 5 year warranties.

 

[c47v3770]

WD Blacks are good drives. Normally have good performance, good reliability and 5 year warranties.

Thanks! Will probably snag those.

 

[c47v3770]

Don't trust any of that data. Back everything important up.

I mean, you should be doing that anyway, but whatever.

Also, I recommend trying Speedfan and HDTune. As soon as you have backed everything up, download those and run SMART scans.

In addition, if your drive is making noises, that's a bad sign damn near every time.

Well I ran a SMART scan on the desktop drive and everything looks OK. No values highlighted yellow or red.
Only reason I was concerned about this drive is because it failed the short SeaTools test yesterday. However, it did pass the long one. Should I still be concerned?

I will definitely replace the laptop drive ASAP.

 

[jimmysmitty]

What brand HDD is the desktop drive?

I have seen SeaTools fail non Seagate HDDs on the Short DST and I think it is because that test is designed for Seagates drives and not non Seagate drives.

 

[c47v3770]

What brand HDD is the desktop drive?

I have seen SeaTools fail non Seagate HDDs on the Short DST and I think it is because that test is designed for Seagates drives and not non Seagate drives.

It's a Seagate ST1000DM003

 

[jimmysmitty]

That was actually a pretty good line. I had two of those that lasted 6 or 7 years and were still good when I sold them.

If it failed the Seatools Short DST it is hard to say since the SMART tests didn't find anything. However the Short DST might be seeing a impending mechanical failure, they might have certain aspects they can check and have limits for that SMART does not cover.

i would replace it TBH.

 

[c47v3770]

That was actually a pretty good line. I had two of those that lasted 6 or 7 years and were still good when I sold them.

If it failed the Seatools Short DST it is hard to say since the SMART tests didn't find anything. However the Short DST might be seeing a impending mechanical failure, they might have certain aspects they can check and have limits for that SMART does not cover.

i would replace it TBH.

Will do. Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

 

[sshades]

Just as a side note, SMART tests are known to have low false positive rates but high false negative rates.

What that means is that if it fails a SMART test there is GOOD evidence that you have a bad drive. However, if it passes a SMART test there is NOT good evidence that you have a good drive.

Hopefully that makes sense.