13 replies to this topic

[NoUserName]

Please I'd like to ask for the most reliable tool (free-commercial) to take care of Hard Drive?

[+BudMan]

Take care of hard drive how? Why do you think you need a tool in the first place. There is not much to do to a hard drive once installed. Is this a SSD drive or a standard normal platter type HDD?

If you need to test the drive because you think its failing and need to RMA, etc. then the toolset from the maker can do that for you. But there is really nothing you need to do to a hdd drive once you install it.

Unless you need to upgrade its firmware for some reason - again said software would come from maker.

Are you talking about defrag?

[NoUserName]

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 14:19, said:

Take care of hard drive how? Why do you think you need a tool in the first place. There is not much to do to a hard drive once installed. Is this a SSD drive or a standard normal platter type HDD?

Really thanks a lot for your follow up BudMan
Actually I've realized that I know a lot of bad or wrong info and was used to follow bad habits so I start to think in another way and trying to know the right thing.
It is a standard HDD and not a SSD one.
The reason for taking care of the HDD from the 1st place is that I found that I lose many HDD every few years, for example I lost 2 TB drives WD Green lables since few months and I did not know what were the reasons.
So please if you can guide that would be awesome.

[ajua]

NoUserName, on 07 September 2012 - 14:24, said:

Really thanks a lot for your follow up BudMan
Actually I've realized that I know a lot of bad or wrong info and was used to follow bad habits so I start to think in another way and trying to know the right thing.
It is a standard HDD and not a SSD one.
The reason for taking care of the HDD from the 1st place is that I found that I lose many HDD every few years, for example I lost 2 TB drives WD Green lables since few months and I did not know what were the reasons.
So please if you can guide that would be awesome.

If you use them heavily, it is normal for a normal HDD to last 3-4 years at the very least. If 2 of your drives started to malfunction in a matter of months, there was something wrong with them.

As BudMan said, the best tool to conduct test is the one from the manufacturer. There are also many free tools, like CrystalDiskInfo, that can show you the SMART attributes in an overall health percentage scale.

[Pygmy_Hippo]

Lol, I was going to suggest a hammer and some battery acid, but then I realised you didn't mean "take care of" in the mafia sense

[+BudMan]

Well a drive failing has nothing to do with not running any sort of maint on it, etc.

Drives fail, they all do - sooner or later they will ALL fail! How old were these drives that failed? Where they bought around same time, where they from the same batch?

It doesn't hurt to keep an eye on your smartinfo, normally disk will tell you when its getting close to failure.

To be honest you shouldn't loose a drive, it should warn you that there are possible issues - then you replace and move on before it fails.

What can cause early failure, what temp do the drives run at? If they are running hot!! That can lower life, do you cycle them a lot? Ie do you turn your computer on and off multiple times a day?

Here is the thing, what was the warranty on the drive? 1 year? If you get 1 year out of it your ahead of the curve Don't be expecting your 1 year warranty drive to last 10 years, etc. Could you get 3 or 4, sure maybe -- then again it could fail at day 366 If it failed at 364, you could get it replace from maker.

Sometimes drives die in days or hours or weeks after you get them.. Other times they run for years without any issues. I had a old 6GB hdd in my old router -- thing was 10 years old for sure! Still running, order a 2TB awhile back - freaking powered it on at night, went to start using it next morning and dead.

I have other drives that are few years old, smart is showing some issues - but not real serious. Should prob replace them soon. Just got fingers crossed that drive prices come back down sooner than later. Then again if they fail its not all that big of an issue, so wanting to save a few bucks before go with 3TB drives as replacements, etc.

So to recap, there is no specific maint you need to run on hdd to prevent them from failure. Run them cool, don't freaking power cycle them 100 times a day. And no I wouldn't run defrag on them every hour either.. Current versions of windows run defrag in the background when needed. So there is NOTHING you need to do with your HDD, other then don't run them in a freaking oven to get their expected life out of them. Don't buy 1 year warranty drives if you are hoping they last longer

[NoUserName]

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

Well a drive failing has nothing to do with not running any sort of maint on it, etc.

You mean using any maintenance tool will not increase the HDD life?

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

Drives fail, they all do - sooner or later they will ALL fail! How old were these drives that failed? Where they bought around same time, where they from the same batch?

It was less then a year and it was western digital green cavier or lable.
What do you mean by Where they bought around same time, where they from the same batch?

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

It doesn't hurt to keep an eye on your smartinfo, normally disk will tell you when its getting close to failure.

Yes I'd like to know how to do so or which tool to use to keep an eye on it to know the smart info for the HDD.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

To be honest you shouldn't loose a drive, it should warn you that there are possible issues - then you replace and move on before it fails.

That sound great, please tell me what tools you are using and what are the indicator that you know that it must be replaced earlier?

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

What can cause early failure, what temp do the drives run at? If they are running hot!! That can lower life, do you cycle them a lot? Ie do you turn your computer on and off multiple times a day?

The computer is the Dell OptiPlex GX 620 and I am placing it in a normal room and sometimes I open the air conditioned or a normal fans.
What do you mean by Cycle Them A Lot
Does this mean keep the computer running all days and nights is ok?
is it really ok for the power supply and other parts of the computer to keep working for direct 3 or 4 months? for example?

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

Here is the thing, what was the warranty on the drive? 1 year? If you get 1 year out of it your ahead of the curve Don't be expecting your 1 year warranty drive to last 10 years, etc. Could you get 3 or 4, sure maybe -- then again it could fail at day 366 If it failed at 364, you could get it replace from maker.

We have 11 months warranty on regular HDD while 3 yeras for the SSD drives.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

Sometimes drives die in days or hours or weeks after you get them.. Other times they run for years without any issues. I had a old 6GB hdd in my old router -- thing was 10 years old for sure! Still running, order a 2TB awhile back - freaking powered it on at night, went to start using it next morning and dead.

Yes I know that feelings

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

I have other drives that are few years old, smart is showing some issues - but not real serious. Should prob replace them soon. Just got fingers crossed that drive prices come back down sooner than later. Then again if they fail its not all that big of an issue, so wanting to save a few bucks before go with 3TB drives as replacements, etc.

Please I do not understand.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

Run them cool

Does the cool means air conditioned or normal fans inside the cpu?

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 15:18, said:

So to recap, there is no specific maint you need to run on hdd to prevent them from failure. Run them cool, don't freaking power cycle them 100 times a day. And no I wouldn't run defrag on them every hour either.. Current versions of windows run defrag in the background when needed. So there is NOTHING you need to do with your HDD, other then don't run them in a freaking oven to get their expected life out of them. Don't buy 1 year warranty drives if you are hoping they last longer

I do remember that the Piriform Defraggler software shows the status of the HDD if it require defragmentations or not?

[Tyler R.]

NoUserName, on 07 September 2012 - 16:19, said:

-snip-

Turn on smart data in the bios, use crystal disk to check health status. You want to keep them cool as possible. Fans are cheap. Max your case with as many fans as it supports. Make sure you install them correctly. If you flip the fan, it either blows air in, or sucks it out. You can also get these

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835110018

You also might want to turn of indexing. <-- Warning! Can bork stuff up if not done correctly!

[NoUserName]

Tyler R., on 07 September 2012 - 16:31, said:

Turn on smart data in the bios, use crystal disk to check health status. You want to keep them cool as possible. Fans are cheap. Max your case with as many fans as it supports. Make sure you install them correctly. If you flip the fan, it either blows air in, or sucks it out. You can also get these

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835110018

You also might want to turn of indexing. <-- Warning! Can bork stuff up if not done correctly!

but it will not fit my dell optiplex gx 620.
i've more then 20 computers in my lab.

[Tyler R.]

NoUserName, on 07 September 2012 - 16:34, said:

but it will not fit my dell optiplex gx 620.
i've more then 20 computers in my lab.

Ohh...OK. My fault. Are you a teacher or something? What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe try getting a grant to replace all the computers?

[+BudMan]

"You mean using any maintenance tool will not increase the HDD life?"

What do you think this maint software would do to increase life?? Come on - really, what would it do??

You don't understand if the drives were bought at the same time? Clearly english is not your native language, so I am willing to try and rephrase it for you. But really?? You don't get what buying the drives at same time mean? As to batch, look on the drives are serial numbers close, do they have a date code on the drives, were they manufactured same time?

Cycle - what is your native language? Yes cycle means turn them on and off again many times, no you don't want to do that.. Yes you can run a computer for months if not years at a time without having to reboot. Depending if you update its software, etc.. So don't you have like a DVR that has HDD in it, only time those things turn off is if you have a power outage or you unplug it, it might reboot if they update the software - but they are on 24/7/365.

As to tool for monitoring smartinfo, pick one there are a bazillion to choose from. I run http://stablebit.com/Scanner on my fileserver, it will email me if it finds an issue. But this is not maint on the drive, this is just monitoring smartinfo - you can do it with a scheduled task and a couple of commands.

Since your reinstalling your OS every couple of months - when you boot the machine it should be telling you if there is a problem with the disk

Grab smartmontools from here http://sourceforge.n.../smartmontools/

Then whenever you feel like it, or create a job to run and report on health

"C:\Program Files (x86)\smartmontools\bin\smartctl.exe" -Hc C:\

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-w64-mingw32-win7(64)-sp1] (sf-5.43-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

Here this seems like something that will make you happy http://code.google.com/p/hddguardian/

[nub]

NoUserName, on 07 September 2012 - 14:24, said:

I lost 2 TB drives WD Green lables

Which is why you should avoid green hard drives.

[NoUserName]

Tyler R., on 07 September 2012 - 16:42, said:

Ohh...OK. My fault. Are you a teacher or something? What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe try getting a grant to replace all the computers?

no i am in a media production business and using these computers to record streaming for various local TV channels here in Egypt and then upload thee videos to its associated YouTube channel and website server. (this is in short).

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

"You mean using any maintenance tool will not increase the HDD life?"

What do you think this maint software would do to increase life?? Come on - really, what would it do??

Ok, I got the answer

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

You don't understand if the drives were bought at the same time? Clearly english is not your native language, so I am willing to try and rephrase it for you. But really?? You don't get what buying the drives at same time mean? As to batch, look on the drives are serial numbers close, do they have a date code on the drives, were they manufactured same time?

Oh, sorry for mis understanding, then NO the date or code were not the same while I did bought them in the same date.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

Cycle - what is your native language? Yes cycle means turn them on and off again many times, no you don't want to do that.. Yes you can run a computer for months if not years at a time without having to reboot. Depending if you update its software, etc.. So don't you have like a DVR that has HDD in it, only time those things turn off is if you have a power outage or you unplug it, it might reboot if they update the software - but they are on 24/7/365.

My native is Arabic!
Does the 24/7/365 apply as well for the normal desktop I am talking about (dell optiplex gx 620) so no workstation and no server here!.
If you are sure about this piece of information then I am really glad to know so because this will help me a lot and reduce the work pressure I do face because I am running a various schedule to start record and stop record and boot computer and turn off computers on a daily base for each single computer in the lab which is really not good in my personal opinion but the guy in the local market where I bought these computers told me that these computers need to get a rest daily to keep them for a long time, and this is the reason for my question in the 1st place.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

As to tool for monitoring smartinfo, pick one there are a bazillion to choose from. I run http://stablebit.com/Scanner on my fileserver, it will email me if it finds an issue. But this is not maint on the drive, this is just monitoring smartinfo - you can do it with a scheduled task and a couple of commands.

ok, I will check it out.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

Since your reinstalling your OS every couple of months - when you boot the machine it should be telling you if there is a problem with the disk

I will not do it again and will study how to do this imaging stuffs as it sound good to save time and effort.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

Grab smartmontools from here http://sourceforge.n.../smartmontools/

Ok, Will check this one as well.

BudMan, on 07 September 2012 - 16:44, said:

Then whenever you feel like it, or create a job to run and report on health

"C:\Program Files (x86)\smartmontools\bin\smartctl.exe" -Hc C:\

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-w64-mingw32-win7(64)-sp1] (sf-5.43-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

Here this seems like something that will make you happy http://code.google.com/p/hddguardian/

Ok, will check this as well

nub, on 07 September 2012 - 16:55, said:

Which is why you should avoid green hard drives.

Please may you tell me more about this topic?
and if I should avoid it, which one I should get? I remember that I found the Green, the Blue, and the Black ones. Which one I should get!?
Also sometimes the guy iin the local market here telling me that Segate is better now because Samsung and Seagate is one company now and Western Digital is not the same good as it used to be.

[Tyler R.]

NoUserName, on 07 September 2012 - 18:02, said:

Please may you tell me more about this topic?
and if I should avoid it, which one I should get? I remember that I found the Green, the Blue, and the Black ones. Which one I should get!?
Also sometimes the guy iin the local market here telling me that Segate is better now because Samsung and Seagate is one company now and Western Digital is not the same good as it used to be.

Black. They are more expensive , but they are better-- faster and more stable. If not Black, you want to buy blue, then green. You you've currently got the bottom of the barrel drives. Green drives are used for backup purposes and aren't meant to be used everyday like that. I use them in my server. I have 6 3TB Green drives in RAID 10. I use these Green drives because if one drops, It is cheap to replace it and all I have to do is just put it in and rebuild my RAID in BIOS.

Long story short: Buy black drives. These:
http://www.amazon.co...S/dp/B001C271MA