Old Hard Drive Challenge & Fun Poll

[zenon1823]

Every so often I see a post on here challenging for the oldest healthy hard drive. I have one that's been going for a long time and I thought I'd share it.

This drive has been in a computer I built around 2008. This computer spent a good amount of its life running without sleep which explains its unusually low start stop count, and probably contributed to its long life, that being said its temperatures have usually been in the mid-high 30's so not ideal conditions for long life. All in all I am pretty impressed by it. Its still in use, but recently threw a couple un-correctable errors and now has a pending sector so despite its still HEALTHY SMART status, I feel its time to declare its good health questionable, and while its still alive I'll put it out to the community for the fun challenge of posting the stats of their faithful drives.

This drive is an 80GB Seagate ST380815AS
72752 Hours down to 17% life remaining, i kinda disappointed, I was hoping it would make it all the way to 0%
I don't have its manufacture date, but ill post back with it when I get around to replacing it.

LASTLY!
Don't have an old drive to boast about? Participate in the poll for the age where you either replace or plan to replace your hard drives!
I allowed the selection of multiple choices in case more then one apply, please use responsibly and don't skew the results

 

[Ericloewe]

I have two 1 TB WD Greens from 2010 in Intel FakeRAID 0 (yes, zero) that have been running more or less continuously since then. They're not likely to be the oldest in continuous use, but I'm sure they're worth a consolation price.

(Yes, they're backed up).

 

[Alecmascot]

Code:

########## SMART status report summary for all drives ##########

+------+---------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-------+--------+------+------+------+-------+----+
|Device|Serial         |Temp|Power|Start|Spin |ReAlloc|Current|Offline |UDMA  |Seek  |High  |Command|Last|
|      |               |    |On   |Stop |Retry|Sectors|Pending|Uncorrec|CRC   |Errors|Fly   |Timeout|Test|
|      |               |    |Hours|Count|Count|       |Sectors|Sectors |Errors|      |Writes|Count  |Age |
+------+---------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-------+--------+------+------+------+-------+----+
|da0   |WD-WCC4M7AXXXXX| 31 |19644|  791|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|   0|
|da1 ? |WD-WCAVY229XXXX| 35 |73854|  902|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|2731|
|da2 ? |WD-WCAVY229XXXX| 36 |73877|  879|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|2731|
|da3   |WD-WCAZAE14XXXX| 32 |56083|  752|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|   0|
|da4   |WD-WCAZAE47XXXX| 33 |56045|  733|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|   0|
+------+---------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-------+--------+------+------+------+-------+----+

 

[droeders]

This one's a 500GB Hitachi taken from a Sun machine around 2008. It's still running today in a Linux server. It has run too hot for most of its life (and way too hot sometimes), but otherwise pretty healthy.

I'm going to run it until it finally dies - 10.5 years and counting!

Code:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model:     HITACHI HDS7250SASUN500G 0733KPA5LF
....

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   156   156   050    Pre-fail  Offline      -       221
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   143   143   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       529 (Average 445)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       62
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   067    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   136   136   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       31
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   087   087   000    Old_age   Always       -       92211
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       62
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       259
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       259
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   134   134   000    Old_age   Always       -       41 (Min/Max 16/59)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       1

 

[CraigD]

Code:

########## SMART status report summary for all drives ##########

+------+---------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-------+--------+------+------+------+-------+----+
|Device|Serial         |Temp|Power|Start|Spin |ReAlloc|Current|Offline |UDMA  |Seek  |High  |Command|Last|
|      |               |    |On   |Stop |Retry|Sectors|Pending|Uncorrec|CRC   |Errors|Fly   |Timeout|Test|
|      |               |    |Hours|Count|Count|       |Sectors|Sectors |Errors|      |Writes|Count  |Age |
+------+---------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-------+--------+------+------+------+-------+----+

|da1 ? |WD-WCAVY229XXXX| 35 |73854|  902|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|2731|
|da2 ? |WD-WCAVY229XXXX| 36 |73877|  879|    0|      0|      0|       0|     0|   N/A|   N/A|    N/A|2731|

I dare you to run a SMART test...

Have Fun

 

[Alecmascot]

I dare you to run a SMART test...

It's running short smart tests every day.
The "2731" age is a bug with WD drives and SmartCtl and/or the script when the drive age is over 64K hours (0xFFFF)

 

[droeders]

I dare you to run a SMART test...

Your comment sparked a memory for me. A while back I noticed the Power_On_Hours attribute didn't match the SMART test log LifeTime(hours) field on my drive. I ran a short test today to compare the hours and it's off by 65536. Looks like it wrapped around at 16 bits in the test log hours:

Code:

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   087   087   000    Old_age   Always       -       92229
 
  SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     26693         -
# 2  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     26678         -
# 3  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     26364         -
# 4  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     25767         -

 

[hansch]

Disk 1

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar family
Device Model: WDC WD400BB-60DGA0
Serial Number: WD-WMADK4062097
Firmware Version: 05.03E05
User Capacity: 40,020,664,320 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 5
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Fri Sep 13 21:01:14 2019 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 093 093 021 Pre-fail Always - 2725
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 040 Old_age Always - 274
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 116564
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 271
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 200 051 Pre-fail Offline - 0

116564 hours - that's 13 years and almost 4 months...

Disk 2

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: SAMSUNG SP0802N
Serial Number: S00JJ20YB23666
Firmware Version: TK300-06
User Capacity: 80,060,424,192 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
Local Time is: Fri Sep 13 21:04:15 2019 CEST

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 097 051 Pre-fail Always - 55
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 100 100 025 Pre-fail Always - 4096
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 110
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 011 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0025 100 100 015 Pre-fail Offline - 8786
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 078 078 000 Old_age Always - 13380800
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 73
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 097 070 000 Old_age Always - 47
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 294882557
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 1210
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 001 001 000 Old_age Offline - 1210
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0


13380800 hours... Seems a bit too much.
I guess it's not 1527 years old... Who has a clue?

 

[zenon1823]

13380800 hours... Seems a bit too much.
I guess it's not 1527 years old... Who has a clue?

@hansch
As I recall the RAW Power_On_Count on some of the older samsung devices counted 30 second intervals rather then hours. Using that metric would put your drive at 111,506 hours which is in alignment with the other drive you posted. Both of those drives are very impressive hour counts for having no errors especially given the somewhat higher then ideal drive temp.

Thanks everyone so far, I love reading about how far some of you are pushing your hardware.

@Ericloewe when you mentioned about your 1TB WD greens, you reminded me! I too have one still spinning in a server that I'm getting ready to decommission. This has been running in an enterprise datacenter since 2007. Everyone told me I was crazy to use a green drive in a datacenter for storing backups. but this drive has written GB's of daily backups for 12 years and is still showing strong! So while not the highest hour count, its got to be up there for total data written. (too bad its not SAS so we would have that stat).

Code:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Green
Device Model:     WDC WD10EACS-00ZJB0
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   189   189   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       7525
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       32
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   200   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       97514
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   253   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       26
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       313876
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   130   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       22
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   051    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

 

[hansch]

13380800 times 30 seconds is... 12.7 years.
The devices are in a HP server, I think a ML110 G2.
These are IDE drives, and the server is running Ubuntu.

 

[drinking12many]

I have a 1TB drive at over 5.6 years. Other than that I have a few drives in boxes that just got too small to use. I have a 74GB raptor and a 300GB raptor just laying around. Not that either was bad but with flash getting so cheap etc just not worth keeping in something that was running.

 

[diedrichg]

5 years, 3 mo. The temps have been a little high this late summer as we have had the house open and the a/c off not cooling the basement. They are usually around 25-26°.

 

[cobrakiller58]

I was stunned to see this on a system I'm getting ready to decommission

Code:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda ATA IV family
Device Model:     ST340016A
Serial Number:    3HS8EGKD
Firmware Version: 3.19
User Capacity:    40,016,019,456 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   5
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Mon Mar  9 10:40:45 2020 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                                        was completed without error.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                 ( 422) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x1b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  31) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   079   067   043    Pre-fail  Always       -       58061294
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   071   070   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   099   099   020    Old_age   Always       -       1132
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       16
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   087   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       639079767
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       96954
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   020    Old_age   Always       -       1368
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   041   052   000    Old_age   Always       -       41
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   079   067   000    Old_age   Always       -       58061294
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 TA_Increase_Count       0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     20951         -
# 2  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     17804         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     17803         -

 

[drinking12many]

If my math is right over 11 years...yep thats pretty good ...lol

 

[zenon1823]

I was stunned to see this on a system I'm getting ready to decommission

Code:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda ATA IV family
Device Model:     ST340016A
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       96954

We have a new record holder! This one will be hard to beat! The spec sheet is from 2001 so it could be as much as 19 years old, but certainly 15+ thats impressive. Some fun calculations based on the power on hours, based on the datasheet assuming 25% activity time it would have averaged about 10.5w power draw so that drive has consumed more then 1000KwHr in its life - that's more power then my house uses in a month, or about $150 in power assuming an average rate of $0.15/KwHr.

Just curious can you share what the drive was running in/as?

The drive I started this post with is still going, ill post back when it dies or when i decom it, but for the moment its up to about 76000 hours now, still 2+ years behind this one.

 

[Heracles]

No specific plan for me. Not only because of ZFS, but because I enforced the 3 copies rules. Each copy by itself is very robust and with 3 copies, the residual risk of loosing all of them at once is low enough (close to 0....).

 

[cobrakiller58]

If it isn't clear with this I normally don't replace until they show signs of failing or can't keep up with the task anymore, this machine has been serving me with the original ram,motherboard and CPU since it went into service (don't remember when late 2001 or early 2002) hesitant to shut it down to be honest.

 

[CraigD]

I would love to the SMART after an extended test

I was stunned to see this on a system I'm getting ready to decommission

Code:

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       96954


SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     20951         -

Have Fun

 

[cobrakiller58]

funny thing is that WAS after an extended test and it did not log it, it's a weebit senile.

 

[zenon1823]

funny thing is that WAS after an extended test and it did not log it, it's a weebit senile.

try running smartctl with -x instead of -a. I have one drive right now that doesn't show logs of recent smart tests when viewing the output of -a but it does with -x. I've been meaning to write a post this behavior asking for ideas as i can't figure it out. I'm curious if yours is perhaps behaving the same way.