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My Debian linux home computer has 3 HDDs :
- 1 for my Debian installation (primary 250GB HDD) using EXT4
- another for Windows (rarely used)
- another which is a clone of the Debian one and is used exclusively as a backup

To this day, I have bought 3 new 500GB 2.5 Inch Internal HDDs and 1 32GB SSD to replace the Debian clone HDD. They break every 1 to 4 months approximately. The backup is done just once a week and consists of copying a single 5GB folder containing 15,000 files. (The other 2 HDDs have never been replaced/broken.) My computer is on 24/7 using the primary Debian 250GB HDD and never has a problem happened. I've bought from different brands: Samsung, Seagate, and Western Digital.

What is going on ?

EDIT 1
- All 4 drives have failed (including the SSD).
- The drives no longer appear in the BIOS screen. fdisk cannot locate the drive either. (I have not opened the CPU box nor have I even touched the HDDs.)

EDIT 2
- I replaced the HDD's cable and the BIOS still does not locate the drive.
- I did not RMA any drive

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  • What are the exact symptoms of the failures? Has the SSD failed?
    – James P
    Sep 28, 2011 at 10:00
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    If they don't show up in BIOS at all, it is more likely to be a power or cabling issue rather than the disks has actually failed.
    – billc.cn
    Sep 28, 2011 at 10:23
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    i'd try popping the drives in another system to be sure. Did you RMA any of the dead drives at any point?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Sep 28, 2011 at 10:24
  • What kind of wattage is your power supply rated for? Sep 28, 2011 at 13:08
  • hm, then we can't rule out anything. From the drives 'working' on USB, i'd suspect your motherboard or Power supply
    – Journeyman Geek
    Sep 28, 2011 at 13:08

1 Answer 1

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One thing I have to assume that these are SATA drives.

The underpower situation can be tested in a very simple way:

  1. Disconnect all drives from the power
  2. Connect Single drive
  3. Power Up the system. See if the drive is seen.

If the drive is not seen then the issue is likely to be the controller.

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