Here we go! Yearly drive replacement.

Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
edited June 2008 in Hardware
Last year about this time I made a post along the lines of "I go through a set of drives once a year."

Like clockwork, two of the four drives are dead, and one is on it's last leg. I'm getting sick of these mechanical disks. This is costing me too much but SSD's are ridiculously overpriced and too damn small. Even though I can get 640GB drives for 100 a pop, the investment isn't worth it since they're mechanical, they could arrive dead, close to dying or any amount of health. I'm sick of this crap. There needs to be another alternative.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    No offense, but if you're losing that many drives per year, you're doing it wrong.
  • ZuntarZuntar North Carolina Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    ^agreed^
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited May 2008
    Agreed, I manage a network of 150+ computer and we don't go through 4 drives a year.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    Ambient heat?
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    We have a server here from 1998 with all of its original drives, and most of our 5+ year old PCs have theirs.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited May 2008
    They've got a 25cm fan blowing directly on them. It's not heat. The entire computer is getting clean power, The computer hasn't been knocked around too much. It's just every year, I have to replace 2-All drives. It's just how it's always been with me. I defrag regular (Usually once a week), The only thing I can think of is that I can put 24 hour load on a drive five times every week.
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    Um if you are having a drive fail every year why aren't you sending in the RMA, you said it is costing you.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited May 2008
    Because I'm a dumbass and I don't keep the boxes.
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    Thats why you keep the UPC and serial number off of them, though you actually shouldn't need any of that information since it should be listed on the drive.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    YAD, I know you said you have a fan blowing on the drives. I also recall you commenting on how warm your home is in the summer. So, possibly the the fan is blowing air that's so warm the drives don't cool properly in the summer? Run *SpeedFan. You can configure it to monitor the hard drives' temperatures. Perhaps they are a lot hotter than you think.

    It just defies odds that you have that many early hard drive hardware failures in a row. Not saying it's not possible, just highly unlikely.

    Over the years I've RMA'd at least four hard drives, WD, IBM (not Hitachi), and Maxtor. Each time all the manufacturer needed was the serial number to authorize the RMA, after I completed their required troubleshooting. They did not require the original box, but reserved the right to refuse a replacement drive if they deemed my packing substandard. I packed the drives very carefully and received a replacement from each manufacturer.

    *Everex will monitor drive temps as well.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited May 2008
    I'd actually suggest not running defrag so often. If you are needing to run it once a week because they actually say they need it then there is something else going on to warrant it.
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    Defragmenting with NTFS gives negligible performance gains, especially with today's drives. Ten, or even five years ago I would have said it's worth the effort.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited May 2008
    Well, I usually do it like that because when I do defrag, I've got more than 60% red. The temperature in here was only over 90 twice, but the fan blowing on the drives also had help that day. And if two days of 95 degrees is enough to kill the drives, there is seriously something wrong here.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited May 2008
    Hard drives are also notorious for power transients- it's the nature of the beast. Four of them coupled with heat ... what's your PSU?

    Better cooling for sure, but my other thought for consideration at this point is that you might have a borderline PSU spiking your drives- a better rated one may help.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited May 2008
    Your Amish Daddy wrote:
    Well, I usually do it like that because when I do defrag, I've got more than 60% red. The temperature in here was only over 90 twice, but the fan blowing on the drives also had help that day. And if two days of 95 degrees is enough to kill the drives, there is seriously something wrong here.

    What are you doing to these drives that's hitting them with 60% fragmentation in a week? That's a lot of file file movement to cause that.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited May 2008
    I do alot of stuff really. Sometimes I'm working with uncompressed audio and video, other times I'm working with textures for models. Depends really on who's got me for the day.

    I've got the Thermaltake Toughpower 700. It's growing to a year old too. It's new to the drives, if that helps. They came off of a Aspire 500W. I needed more power back in October, so I got it.
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

    Dunno, but you might wanna run through this calculator. Your PSU only has a total of g6A on the 12v lines. If for some reason your system is pulling too much juice, it might case the drives to get cranky.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited May 2008
    Well I'm only pulling 24A out of 56A at full disk load by my math. The drives should be on the third rail, which is only shared by first 25cm fan and each rail is 18. Their site says I need 361W to power this box, but it only consumes ~163 idle, and about 230 full load.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited May 2008
    Your Amish Daddy wrote:
    Well I'm only pulling 24A out of 56A at full disk load by my math. The drives should be on the third rail, which is only shared by first 25cm fan and each rail is 18. Their site says I need 361W to power this box, but it only consumes ~163 idle, and about 230 full load.

    YAD- like you say each 12V rail on that PSU supplies 18A and your 5V has 28A. Drives tend to use up a fair amount of each during R/Ws on top of the idle power like this. Remember also that many PSU specs assume a "Standard Day" temp like 25C but, depending on quality, can really roll off at higher temps.

    I'd try to divvy up my drives to balance the load and see if that helps.

    ADDED: Also note that your measurements are probably steady-state measurements- meaning that your drives, etc. are mostly dormant. If your drives are all active under heavy load, the 361 seems a safe number for power that is actually consumed.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited June 2008
    Ok you know what...I would get into a huge argument about people telling me I don't know my stuff but I just realized how much of a dumbass I am. The clicking I'm hearing is coming from the front 25cm fan, because there's wires stuck in it.

    Sometimes I really shouldn't be allowed to talk.
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited June 2008
    We've all been there. That's a lot cheaper to fix than replacing hard drives. ;)
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited June 2008
    God that bixnood was so nasty that there was a quarter inch of dust, wires were tangled up but not in the way oddly. It was the crappy grill. I'll be making a new one for it in the week.
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