old vs new hard drives

[camner]

I have a number of older drives (3-5yrs old) that I use to store data that isn't necessary to have available all the time. Some of the data is backups of data that's on my internal HDs), and the rest is stuff that is NOT on my internal HDs but that I back up (so I always have 2 copies).

These older drives don't get a lot of use. I don't know enough about how drives fare over time to know whether the hours of actual spin time are more important than the elapsed time since manufacture. The drives that spin most the time I replace on a 3-4 year cycle.

Because these drives are not used much, the fact that they have slow access times is not important to me.

Is it reasonable to keep the older drives in use until they crap out, or should even infrequently used drives be on some sort of replacement schedule? And how is the quality of current production drives in comparison to that of the their forebears?

 

[ybz90]

I have a number of older drives (3-5yrs old) that I use to store data that isn't necessary to have available all the time. Some of the data is backups of data that's on my internal HDs), and the rest is stuff that is NOT on my internal HDs but that I back up (so I always have 2 copies).

These older drives don't get a lot of use. I don't know enough about how drives fare over time to know whether the hours of actual spin time are more important than the elapsed time since manufacture. The drives that spin most the time I replace on a 3-4 year cycle.

Because these drives are not used much, the fact that they have slow access times is not important to me.

Is it reasonable to keep the older drives in use until they crap out, or should even infrequently used drives be on some sort of replacement schedule? And how is the quality of current production drives in comparison to that of the their forebears?

It depends on the drives. Are they PATA or SATA? I assume the latter since PATA was on its way out around 5 years ago. I tend to use my drives until failure, as drive speeds haven't really increased that much except thanks to higher density. Especially since these drives are backups (or backed up non-critical data), I wouldn't bother personally with the expense of replacing them until necessary.

 

[jav6454]

Is it reasonable to keep the older drives in use until they crap out, or should even infrequently used drives be on some sort of replacement schedule? And how is the quality of current production drives in comparison to that of the their forebears?

If I can use, then I'll keep them. If they have a PATA connection I won't bother (useless).

 

[throAU]

Is it reasonable to keep the older drives in use until they crap out, or should even infrequently used drives be on some sort of replacement schedule? And how is the quality of current production drives in comparison to that of the their forebears?

Use them til they crap out.

However, as with any data, ensure you have more than one copy of it.

Power up/power down is when many drives die.

Quality of production has gone up, however tolerances in newer drives have become finer and areal density is higher.

Thus: old drives are likely to be as reliable or more reliable in terms of total number of hours use before failure, and they store less so are likely to lose less data if/when they fail. New higher tech drives are made with more precision but NEED to be to store data at higher density.



short story: use them, but have backups. that goes for brand new drives as well.

 

[drsox]

I usually sell all my old drives on ebay when I get new ones. By doing this I usually get 30%-50% of the cost back. The cost of a new drive is usually about what I paid for the old one when I bought that.

Easier for me in the long term than trying to recycle. Plus I don't have the aggro of dealing with older access times, capacity etc.