Life expectancy of hard drives?

[marcfrick2112]

Hi All, As I have had a bad run of luck with magnetic media this month, (lost an 8.5GB Maxstor IDE HDD some weeks back, and just today a 2.1GB Quantum Fireball SCSI HDD) what is the average life expectancy of a hard drive? I just don't understand this run of luck, granted  both of these drives were pretty old, yet one of my oldest hard drives still works (a 540MB Quantum Maverick), I am using it now :-) the A500 it was attached to is long gone :-(  Sooo, what's the longest time you have had a hard drive keep working? Just curious.....

Oh, and an OT P.S. .... Anyone know how many hard drives the PSU in an A4000T could handle? (Toaster/Flyer setup BTW...)
Many Thanks   :-D

[Damion]

marcfrick2112 wrote:
HSooo, what's the longest time you have had a hard drive keep working? Just curious.....

I have an 8088 in the garage with a *still* (as of last year) working Seagate; the drive is over 20 years old.

[monami]

i have an old zenith "ez pc" (they got there before eyetech!) it has a 30mb drive. it has 520k of ram. there was an upgrade plug in to 640k!!! it probably cost the earth. i had to partition around a serious problem on the disk. i hardly use it as it's black and white. but i love the sound it makes on boot up. lots of lovely beeps.

i keep my 2nd hard drives (for backup) or with a different os on in removeable drive bays so the drives are off while i use the 1st disk. they have lasted a good time longer by not being used. i use a good amount of ram where possible so they are not worn out with virtual mem swapping. but...

i bought a 250gb new sealed hd and it was damaged after a few uses. and had to send it back. software that comes on floppy can usually repair the drive by bad block swapping. i rescued a 60gb drive of mine that i think had been dropped like this! and it works fine.

i just found "autopark prefs" glad to see i can set any amiga drive to switch off with an amiga and save there life a bit. i've set them for 5 minutes.

[tokyoracer]

Older ones seem to last longer then the newer ones as a rule.

[bloodline]

tokyoracer wrote:
Older ones seem to last longer then the newer ones as a rule.

No, the older ones HAVE lasted longer, by definition :-) you won't find any older drives that didn't last as they wouldn't be kept :-D

It's like a prophesy, if it comes true it was a prophesy... If it doesn't come true it wasn't a prophesy... Like old hard drives, all prophesy are self fulfilling!

[actung_bab]

maxtor drives arent very good l brought one by accident
and wasint good so got the guy to replace with segate and it worked fine.

l have never had hard drive fail completly . some have had errors etc .

mind you l did have jazz drive go on my that was anyoing it cost alot of money ended up in the bin.

 :-)

[A1260]

life of a hd should be 30 years or more but you must also think about what usage the drive have had over the years... 24/7 usage in 30 years or keept in a over heated place for 30 years will ofcourse kill it off faster...

anyway the old maxstor and quantum fireball is also notorious  for failur...

[Aus1200]

I pulled out a working 40MB HDD from my A1200. I guess the older drives with their slower rotation speeds would mean the bearings wouldn't wear out like the newer 7200 to 10,000rpm drives

[ChuckT]

If they were built to be maintained then they would last longer.  I suppose a lot of hard drives are sealed.  If you could find a way to add oil to the bearings then they might last longer.

My neighbor flushes his hot water heater once a month to get the contaminants out of it and he has had his hot water heater since the 1980's.  The average life of a hot water heater is 7 to 9 years so he is doing really well.

The problem is that products are not made to last anymore because there isn't money in not being able to sell or fix something.  We have thrown out copiers at work because they were produced with plastic gears that weren't meant to be used in non-airconditioned rooms and if it had all metal gears, our copier might still be running.

[RRunner]

I usually end up upgrading drives before they wear out but I do have an old Quantum drive in my A2000 that still works that has to be around 15 years old... maybe older.

[Srbin]

My old 80MB Conner hd lasted from 1994-2005


Fanstastic 11 years, without a single brakedown.

It might last longer, but when i bought pc, i threw away my amiga

[melott]

The older (slower) drives will tend to last longer.
I had/have an Quantum 1.4 gig (5400 rpm ?) drive that
I bought back in 1993 for the Amiga BBS I was running
at the time. I ran that drive 24/7 365 for about 5 years.
When I shut down the BBS I installed the drive in my
A3000 for several more years (4 or 5 years). I removed it
because on boot-up it didn't always want to spin up.
With a little coaxing it will spin up and all data is
still intact.

I 'LIKE' the older Quantum drives .........
IMHO they are the best ..

Mel
   

[Xamiche]

melott wrote:
I 'LIKE' the older Quantum drives .........
IMHO they are the best ..

Mel

I agree. I love all my Quantum and Quantum Fireball drives. I've never had one die on me. I always try to rescue them when  I'm salvaging parts from older PCs.

Srbin wrote:
My old 80MB Conner hd lasted from 1994-2005


Fanstastic 11 years, without a single brakedown.

It might last longer, but when i bought pc, i threw away my amiga

You threw away an Amiga?? *faints*  
I hope you mean figuratively 'threw' away. :boohoo:

[amiga_3k]

Expect newer harddrives to survive just a month longer than the warranty. Escpecially if it's Maxtor / Quantum. Seagate / Western Digital and Samsung seem to survive longer (I had multiple Maxtors and Quantums getting invalid just out of warranty, I've got Western Digitals and Samsungs which still survive).

Whatever you do, don't expect the modern ones to survive for the same period as the good-old Amiga drives (yes, Quantum still made quality back then :-)).

[Gwion]

I have a 50MB HD from 1988 and it still works!
Its in my A2000