Storage Solutions Backup Hard Disks getting defective because of non-usage

IMO, HDDs are meant to be run, keep spinning.
It's like your car tyres, keep them parked for long and they'll get jammed.

Anyways that's my analogy and experience. I have decades old hard drives still spinning attached to a DIY NAS.

Of course it could be just bad luck.

prime said:

I keep backup of my not so important data on 2.5”/3.5” HDDs. Since data does not need regular update, I don’t take out HDDs often and when I take them out (once a year or so), it gets some error.

I bought This 5TB WD passport 2.5” external USB HDD in Oct’21. It shows less than 45 hours but started showing error. Fortunately, it is under warranty (will WD replace it with this error?). Please guide WD warranty process, I have not used it since 2015 or so.

Are SSDs better for this kind of use? How long do they last if not used?

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External hdds are more prone to failures compared to internals esp. when they are 2tb and beyond.
I have once a year backup job internals 1-2tb as old as 15yrs and they still run rock solid.

enthusiast29 said:

IMO, HDDs are meant to be run, keep spinning.
It's like your car tyres, keep them parked for long and they'll get jammed.

Click to expand...

There's no such logic nor science.

enthusiast29 said:

IMO, HDDs are meant to be run, keep spinning.
It's like your car tyres, keep them parked for long and they'll get jammed.

Anyways that's my analogy and experience. I have decades old hard drives still spinning attached to a DIY NAS.

Of course it could be just bad luck.

Click to expand...

even If I keep a 4tb hardrive in stock for my nvr will they jam if I take out after a year?

nRiTeCh said:

There's no such logic nor science.

Click to expand...

Tell that to the administrators of servers or 24x7 POS machines.
A running drive is less prone to failure than a drive which keeps doing start and stop cycles.
This is well proven with machines with mechanical parts.

Anyways since there's no data (as you say) you're free to believe in what you want and so am I. I'm not going to search the internet to prove you wrong or myself right.

enthusiast29 said:

Tell that to the administrators of servers or 24x7 POS machines.
A running drive is less prone to failure than a drive which keeps doing start and stop cycles.
This is well proven with machines with mechanical parts.

Anyways since there's no data (as you say) you're free to believe in what you want and so am I. I'm not going to search the internet to prove you wrong or myself right.

Click to expand...

I had worked on server hardware both in a DC and enterprise incl. data recovery services and they use enterprise grade hardware/ hard drives not desktop ones + servers run in a rack or a dc with AC cooling and zero fiddling in the racks. Still, there's no guarantee that why a brand new RAID drive wont fail in enterprise scenario but possibility is extremely low unless a bad batch and in such scenarios we have got the entire array of disks replaced.
Desktop is all about how the drive is/was handled, stored etc.

enthusiast29 said:

Tell that to the administrators of servers or 24x7 POS machines.
A running drive is less prone to failure than a drive which keeps doing start and stop cycles.
This is well proven with machines with mechanical parts.

Anyways since there's no data (as you say) you're free to believe in what you want and so am I. I'm not going to search the internet to prove you wrong or myself right.

Click to expand...

I would have thought that most of the times it is the lack of proper cooling in these enclosures and power issues when connected (if the port or cable has issues supplying adequate and constant power). In OP's case though, it appears to be bad luck.

Google search : SSD data retention [LINK]

Standard seems to be 1 year for consumer-grade; meaning it's safer to connect and run the SSD at least once a year. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if modern SSDs outperform this spec.

enthusiast29 said:

IMO, HDDs are meant to be run, keep spinning.

Click to expand...

I'm just guessing here: This probably comes from a used-to-be-issue-decades-ago. Apparently some metals do science after a while and get sort of hairy, or that's at least the dumbed-down version that I remember now. I'll try look that up and link here.
Edit : Got it; it's called metal whiskering.

Yes, WD will replace your drive.

All storage media suffer from "bit rot", if the data is not 'refreshed' periodically. Back in the day, there used to be utilities that would scan the hard disk bit by bit and rewrite data after checking the disk integrity. It would also mark any bad sectors and reallocate the affected data. If long term local storage is important to you, then you should buy such software. I was looking for free ones couple of years ago but couldn't find any.

The key point is, the chances hard disks self-failing in the first couple of years is usually high, when they pass this initial time period they are very likely to run for a very long time. (assuming the user handle them well)

Also High density Hard Disks also has higher chances of failing then a lower one.

enthusiast29 said:

IMO, HDDs are meant to be run, keep spinning.

Click to expand...

True. My oldest internal HDD that I use the most is still running fine. Others that were less frequently used have developed issues and died. For e.g.:

A)


B)

Guess which one has developed problems and needs replacement.

The start-stop count seems to matter more than the actual time it spends spinning. Disks that I use to store backups seemed to die sooner than daily used ones. So I've disabled HDDs spooling down in Power Plan settings.

However external drives still spool down after a few minutes of activity:

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enthusiast29 said:

It's like your car tyres, keep them parked for long and they'll get jammed.

Click to expand...

They won't get jammed, but the part of the tyre in contact with the ground will harden and become a flat spot
Wheel bearings are sealed, since they are meant to be driven in dusty conditions, and can last the lifetime of a car.

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Even if you don't need to access data from certain HDDs, keeping it connected will power it up frequently and prevent it from going bad. Couple of days ago I got a WD Black 4TB. They took this anti-jamming thing so far that the head moves every five seconds. And it makes a sound when it moves. Every. FIVE. Seconds! It's not a bug, it's a feature. Returned it since it was driving me insane and got a Seagate instead.

Lost a bunch of old 3.5" HDDs because of this. Fortunately, they did not contain any valuable data to drive me insane. They were neatly preserved in a vaccum sealed pouch and had been sitting idle in that state for more than couple of years. When I powered them on just for the sake of nostalgia, I was greeted with disappointment. So, keep the HDDs powered on and running continuously if possible - especially the ones in which you would store your precious data. On the other hand, my experience with 2.5" drives were completely different. Recently pulled a couple of these drives which were abandoned by my family (for more than 3 years) after upgrading their setups. Upon installing them to my workstation, I did not encounter any problems whatsoever and they both functioned properly as they should. Now I have more room to store my downloaded distros.