jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I watch "Ask Leo" on YouTube, and I was glad to hear his comments about the lifespan of hard drives. Followers ask questions, and he answers them.

How long will a hard drive last? It depends. If it gets through the first few months, it will probably outlast the computer. I've had computers for at least forty years, and that has been my experience. The only drive that failed was an external that fell to the floor while doing a backup. When a computer is finally retired to the garage, I remove the hard drive and use it to store files. Of course, those files are also backed up on newer drives, but my point is that hard drives can last indefinitely.

SSDs, on the other hand, have a limited life. Like some stars, they work fast and die young. SSDs are expected to have just so many write cycles, and there is a way to find out what that number is and how many writes your drive has made. I know that CrystalDiskInfo lets you look at the drive, but I don't know how to discover the expected life expectancy of the drive.

Hard drive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IQmn9qhuvs

SSD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBcJD9rUNRo&t=45s

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

My mantra for hard drives: "It will run until it dies.".

Enterprise drives (burned in) will most likely run longer.
(I don't get the $40 ones either.)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I buy HGST Ultrastar (Renewed) drives for around $60, and they've been working for years.

https://smile.amazon.com/HGST-Ultrastar-7200RPM-Internal-Surveillance/dp/B0856WZT3B/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=hgst+ultrastar&qid=1632577574&sr=8-6

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I get Western Digital Enterprise drives (Gold). The last one was about $120. They go through a burn-in process which weeds out early life failures. I suppose HGST would be second on my list, a lot of people like them.

bnsf

Interesting

rck281 Loc: Overland Park, KS

In a little over 20 years I have lost one Seagate and one Western Digital drive. I wouldn't think it would make any difference but each was part of a RAID 1 array. I have also had an Adata SSD go bad and one stick of Corsair RAM. Devices do go bad.