hard drive spin up problems

[pentium]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

The drives have not crashed. They just have mild corruption that prevents a complete boot.

how the hell do you call a drive with bad blocks "working great"

I run hard drives into the ground. Any drive with less than 20 bad blocks (or one bad sector sometimes) I use until the drive finally gives the ghost. You would scream if you saw the things I do to keep drives running.


Anyways, case closed. Problem resolved.

[starfury1]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

H All

Ok Dood I am with you...just thought you might have missed it

But think I actually missed your point re TC.....


Cheers

[Topcat]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

The drives have not crashed. They just have mild corruption that prevents a complete boot.

I run hard drives into the ground. Any drive with less than 20 bad blocks (or one bad sector sometimes) I use until the drive finally gives the ghost. You would scream if you saw the things I do to keep drives running.


Anyways, case closed. Problem resolved.

I hope you don't keep mission-critical data on those drives, its just asking for disaster. I cycle drives out regularly, even if they work fine. If I even suspect a failure, they're pulled immediately and replaced. Remember, a hard drive is a mechanical device with moving parts that wear in a very unpredictable manner. Two identical drives, one may last 10 years, the other may last 10 days, it's impossible to predict. Never rely solely on a single hard disk, always have a plan in the event of failure, and of course, keep backups religiously. Bad sectors are commonly caused when the surface of the platter becomes worn and unreadable, this obviously causes data corruption. Never use a drive with bad sectors, the drive will only get worse, and so will your data corruption problem.

[gdement]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

I cycle drives out regularly, even if they work fine.

I'd be interested to see a well researched chart showing hard drive failure frequencies as a function of age. I don't have much of a sample size myself, but it seems to me I've had just as many failures from new lemon drives as I get with old ones. Once they've been around a while I tend to trust them more. It almost seems like the chances of failure in any given year are about the same, and maybe higher in the early going. I'd be hesitant to replace a good working drive with a new one.

I don't know a lot about hard drive manufacturing, but from what I've read I get the impression that they're not very consistent. Different parts are used, different circuit boards get used, different firmwares, etc. The firmware parameters are calibrated to whatever works on that particular unit. In other words, these things are a crapshoot even for the manufacturer.

[edit:
https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...6165f4f647.pdf

Just found an article about this. Haven't read it though.

[gdement]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

After reading some of that article, it looks like they found that hard drive failures do increase steadily from year to year. Oh well, I still don't trust new drives.

[Topcat]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

I have some SCSI hdd's (Fujitsu) that have been in operation for 5 years, showing no signs of failure. They will be cycled out soon, simply because of their age. SCSI hdd's seem to be built a bit better, as they seem to fail a lot less... From my personal experiences, the average server life of an ATA/SATA is about 1.5~2 years before failing or becoming problematic, whereas the SCSI's I use will last 3 times that long, and end up being replaced because of age or size limitations rather than failure. I've used Fujitsu SCSI hdd's since the late 90's, and I can honestly say I've never had one fail. I've had plenty of IBM, quantum, and seagate SCSI's bite the dust while on duty, as well as countless crappy ATA's. Like mentioned above, it's a crapshoot with hdd's anymore, quality doesn't seem to be anyone's top priority these days, which is why I always preach good backups and failsafe strategies to prevent data loss. You just never know when the head is going to grind itself into the platter, destroying everything.

[Per Hansson]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

Google released a doc on the reliability of their harddrives (incause you did not know they use normal computers as server, not real server hardware...)

So this is data from IDE/SATA harddrives, and the data is of allot of drives!

[bgavin]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

I hope you don't keep mission-critical data on those drives, its just asking for disaster. I cycle drives out regularly, even if they work fine.

I have my business clients on a 3-year rotation for drives. After joining this board, I now have them on the same 3-year rotation for power supplies.

Data loss from hardware failure is the same as data loss from abject stupidity. I have a former client (read: I fired him) that is so damn arrogant he had no security system in his medical office, and refused to take backups home. The bad guys broke in with a crowbar and made off with his shiny new Dell, so they could steal all the social security and driver's license numbers found in most medical systems.

Not only did he lose his entire practice, he also lost years' of work in the creation of custom medical forms used in his practice. His wife is cutting him zero slack on this one, as she and I both warned him repeatedly.

Some folks have hardware failures, others are just plain stupid.

[Topcat]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

^
Wow, now that's an idiot!!! Don't think I'd want him cutting on me!! lol

[pentium]

Re: hard drive spin up problems

Seagate has never failed me, neither has Western Digital.
Maxtor, Fujitsu and IBM have had their rare failure.
Quantum, kalok (why bother?), and toshiba Ipod drives Have a bad rep in my books.
I'm still attempting to figure out why almost all my quantum drives died within the same month from crashing, spin-up failure and bad sectors.