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I don't seem to have very good luck with hard disk drives these days; 3 side-by-side (non-RAID) drives on my machine, replaced 5 drives in the last 4 years. My problem of the moment is that my largest drive (3000GB) seems to now be having some pretty serious read issues.

At best, accessing it comes up with erratic read/write speeds, but for the most part, I can’t even really access the data for anything meaningful and testing it seems to fail out after a bit. The SMART test on it lists two warnings under “Reallocated Sector Count” and “Current Pending Sector.”

The drive itself is a Seagate Barracuda bought in 2013. Installed at the same time was a SSD which seems to be functioning just fine (I run performance and health tests on it every once and a while as it is my primary drive). The machine is a custom build with 1000w power supply and Cooler Master case. The machine and drives stay relatively cool and have good ventilation.

Is there anything I can do to save my drive, or am I looking down the barrel of yet another hard disk drive replacement?

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    Looks like it's time for a new drive.
    – Karan
    May 25, 2015 at 22:25
  • @Karan Dang, that's what I was afraid of :( May 25, 2015 at 22:29
  • Seems seagate has been making some shi*t drives lately. According to their specs, this drive is only rated for 2400 power on hours ( wtf? ) and yours has 7151. Combined with all of the bad sectors, looks like the drive is shot. I guess the lesson here is don't buy seagate.
    – psusi
    May 26, 2015 at 0:56
  • Spinrite from grc might buy you some time, and recovery lost data, but it is not full fix. The long term fix is new hard drive.
    – cybernard
    May 26, 2015 at 3:08
  • Desktop drives were never intended or designed to work well in raid packs.
    – Moab
    May 26, 2015 at 22:30

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What specific kind of drive/model is this? Are your previous drives the same type of HDD? I assume yes if your running a RAID (what you meant by 3 parallel drives?) Regardless, this seems to be a reoccurring issue and simply "replacing the drive" isn't going to help. There's clearly an underlying issue that isn't being addressed, drives shouldn't be failing this frequently.

Perhaps it's an issue with the specific brand of drive. For instance Western Digital's green drives tend to have more "erratic" usage than others, especially if your settings or the way you access them isn't necessarily in tandem with their intended operations.

If you require this many drives perhaps consider educating yourself in HDD health, the difference between "Reallocated Sector Count and Current Pending Sector", more importantly basic HDD diagnostics and repair tools.

Here's some stuff to get you started:

Hard vs. Soft Bad sectors (part of what your SMART is flagging): http://www.howtogeek.com/173463/bad-sectors-explained-why-hard-drives-get-bad-sectors-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Free/Purchasable HardDrive diagnostics and scans that will tell you more than the surface scans of your SMART. They also offer potential repairs based on the Hard vs. Soft sectors mentioned. HDAT2, MHDD, SpinRite, HDDRegen, Hiren's Boot CD, Ultimate Boot CD.

EDIT: Seagate (3TB) drives have been notorious for some of the least reliable drives.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089464/three-year-27-000-drive-study-reveals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html

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  • I clarified. It's actually not a RAID, I just meant 3 drives in my machine. A SSD primary, and two HDD for regular storage use. Thanks for pointing me in the direction for the SMART info, that was definitely my next step. I'll read up on those as well. May 25, 2015 at 22:50
  • Whelp, from the looks of that, looks like I've been buying the wrong brand :( May 25, 2015 at 23:16
  • Yea... 1/2, 1/3 failing drives within a year is not very good odds at all. I would suggest HGST/Hitchi (as seen above) I have them installed on 3-4 personal computers and every one is still kicking strong after 4+ years of usage. Not to mention none of the clients (that I've witnessed) of the company I work for has experience drive failure after we've replaced them with HGST's. Perhaps you can still contact Seagate inquiring about warranties? With emphasis on your experience concerning their unreliable drives? Also, why not buy 3x1TB drives rather than 1x3TB?
    – user431052
    May 25, 2015 at 23:31
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    Yeah, I was looking at that and will probably go HGST this time around. They look to be very stable. And in terms of 3x1 vs 1x3, I do that mostly for space in my case. I like to space them out so they can run without the heat compounding. I may downgrade to a 2tb instead this time (my 3tb only has about 1tb full at the moment, and I still have ~700gb free on my 2tb) but we'll see. I have a NAS RAID for backup now too, so it may be a smarter choice. May 25, 2015 at 23:41
  • I see, I see. I recommend running even one of the free scans I mentioned since I've seen SMART diagnostics give flat out FALSE readings. The scans do have a potential of repair and all it takes is a CD/USB and an overnight scan. Well worth it considering the time, experience and money you may still end up spending. Most importantly, these drives may no longer offer peace of mind regarding a backup but if the HDD scans fix some sectors and are still operational, why not keep them as "worst case scenario" or off-site backups? I have 2-3 drives like this that were "out of commission" years ago.
    – user431052
    May 26, 2015 at 0:15
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First you say this:

I don't seem to have very good luck with hard disk drives these days; 3 parallel drives on my machine, replaced 5 drives in the last 4 years.

Then you say this:

Is there anything I can do to save my drive, or am I looking down the barrel of yet another hard disk drive replacement?

The bad and simplest news about this? You are definitely looking down the barrel at yet another hard drive replacement.

That said, it seems like the drive failure is a symptom of a larger problem since replacing 5 drives in the last 4 years is a tad unusual for everyday usage for a desktop system. If it’s a server running 24/7/365, then yes, drives will fail on a regular basis. But if this is a basic—albeit souped up—desktop system then that is something else entirely.

Are you sure your overall setup is working well? A faulty power connection or even data cable can contribute to conditions that would put additional unwarranted stress on the drives. Heck, does the case have decent cooling? Keeping three drives in one box with bad ventilation can cause overheating which—again—can put unwarranted stress on the drives.

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  • Yeah, it's been pretty bad. I lost two and a video card to a faulty power supply a while back, which I replaced with a 1000w. The machine is a custom build, heavy use desktop. I used to run it 24/7 but haven't for several years now. I'll open my case up and see if there might be an issue with the wiring or anything. Things looked fine when I had a HDD failure a month or so back, but clearly two in a row indicates that it may not be. Thanks for the tips. May 25, 2015 at 22:53
  • Absolutely correct. Needs a little more info as to the setup. Completely valid point in regards to cooling and temperature. if you have 3 drives operating full blast, a standard desktop setup isn't going to be equipped with adequate cooling without some additions or modifications. Frequent heating/cooling is a MAJOR contributor of drive failure, next only to frequent spin ups/spin downs. Additionally, 3TB drives tend to have the highest RPM's out of any other drive which also causes them to have smaller life spans. If all of these things are true you have a brewing pot for drive failure.
    – user431052
    May 25, 2015 at 22:54
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    @BiTinerary, no, 7200 rpm is the "standard" speed these days ( well, for the last 10 years nearly now ) for desktop marketed hard drives, regardless of capacity. Drives marketed for backup, near line, nas, or low power ( like WD green/red/purple ) operate slower ( 5400-5900 rpm ). You can tell these drives because the manufacturers avoid specifying the rpm. Also drives use less than 10 watts, so even with 3 of them, that is still far less heat than you are going to get out of a busy cpu or gpu -- quite easily cooled unless they are all crammed tight with lots of cables blocking airflow.
    – psusi
    May 26, 2015 at 0:51

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