2 Hard Drives got errors in 6 months .....cause ?

hi members , i am trying to figure what is causing this problem. One of my Hard Drives in my PC got errors on it then failed terribly so i got another HDD to replace it and about 6 months later it got errors on it.


im trying to figure out is it my cat who jumps on my tower daily or Open PS2 Loader streaming PS2 isos ?


i have since taped a cardboard barrier so my cat can't jump on the tower

 

bad sectors?

 

hi LeHaM , not sure ..............interestingly the first one that went was catastrophic , this replacement is still functional but when i unrar'ed a few files a few months back the PC froze. So i checked Crystal and it says the below

 

Have you considered the possibility, that it might be your PSU? It doesn't seem likely that normal wear and tear (i.e. from using OPL or even just using your PC) can cause such defects within such a short time.

 

i seriously doubt its your cat mate, my cats jump all over my Microservers all the time and I have never had a problem (and they aint exactly gentle)
unless of course the Tower is not balanced correctly and if the cat is jumping up and knocking the tower from side to side while the HDD is accessing data (read or write)

also it depends on what your using the HDD for, if its experiencing heavy use then maybe they just cant cope (change brand) or your just very unlucky with your last 2 HDD's
I have some Western Digital 2TB drives in one of my Microservers and its had HEAVY use for the past 4 years and I have never had to change a drive in it yet

 

Neither of those things should cause errors. I think check your PSU is a good shout.

Technically knocking the drive could cause issue, but we're talking fallen out powercable or physically making the discs inside jump sorta knocks. Not something a cat should be able to do.

 

What hard drives are you buying (model, brand, capacity)?
Where are you buying them from?

While it's not impossible for a PSU or shock to cause these types of issues, you should try to rule out the new drive first. Some hardware is more susceptible to shock then others, and the problem may lie more in what you're buying.

 

Two drives from two batches though? Unlikely to be a manufacturer thing.

 

If they're both the same model that's prone to early failure? Very likely to be a manufacturer thing.

There are drives on the market that have 10 and 20% annualized failure rates.
Many fail in a matter of months.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/

It's unacceptable, but it does happen.

What drive you choose for your needs matters. Not saying studies like these should define what you buy, but they should give you pause.

 

Seagate got sued over that model
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST3000DM001

 

Stop buying second hand drives!

16,662 hours = 694.25 days

 

hi guys , ive been reading through but finding it tough to pin down a cause. I should say i have a really good PSU , also the current HDD is a Seagate ST3000DM001 3 Terabytes and was purchased new from Centrecom ( a PC chain store ). As Toki's link mentioned it has high failure rates , i can't remember exactly when i bought this HDD but it was around the end of 2015 and start of 2016.

the rack up of many hours is due to torrents seeding , the HDD is part torrents seeding part storage part streaming of PS3/XBOX360/PS2 isos.

 

You could try some other brand like a WD Red drive.

 

@retro - Depending on the vendor, the power on hours field may not be accurate. It might be a raw value or start as a value based on time of creation, so Crystal often doesn't correctly translate it. I can't speak to whether this value is accurate for Seagate's as I don't generally purchase them, but I regularly see brand new SSDs reporting starting values in the thousands at work.

@s8n - I really don't think your power supply is an issue. You need to get better quality drives if you want to be constantly streaming. Take a look at the Backblaze report I linked and choose one with a sub 5%+ annualized failure rate. Yeah you might pay more for it, but trust me, avoiding the hassle you're going through now is well worth the extra expense.

 

No more info about how the first drive failed? Not possible to get SMART status for that?

Was the first drive the same make/model?

Of course, if you have warranty you should claim it and depending on what the laws are where you live you might be able to claim it as an original defect. (Up to 3 years in some countries)

You could definitely be unlucky - make sure next drive has a long warranty - for example Seagate offers 5 year warranty for some models while less for other models, length of warranty of course shows how much they trust the products themselves.

I'm personally a Seagate fanboy (over the last 5 years I've bought 2x2TB, 4x1TB SSHD, 3x750GB SSHD, 4x500GB, all 2,5", all of them have held up so far but I might have been lucky)

Also note that nowadays Seagate recommends regularly checking for firmware updates.

 

I did to. It was called Seagare HDDs. I will buy other brands in the future.