What causes then when the drive has always been secured in the case. There was no power issue, and I don't know of a single thing that would stress the components past the specs. I got a fan in my case just for the HDD's. The reason for the question is my Raptor went and decided to die on me. After checking a lot of things, it's been verified. Thing is, it seems to be the PCB that went bad because it powers up, and I can hear the platters spin. Everything else in my system is fine. (Unless I connect the HDD, then no SATA devices are found because of an ID issue.) Obviously I am not going to unscrew and look at the PCB, but a HDD saying it's constantly reading/writing, can't be ID'd in the BIOS, and spins up tells me something with the PCB went. On a side note, it IS under warranty, and I already got the RMA process started. Also, for the use of my PC I got a Linux Live OS running. The 500GB drive is kinda filled.
That has happened to me a couple of times so far. The HDD spins up and appears to be working but even the BIOS cannot detect it. Had my data "rescued" once and the guy who did the repair told me that the PCB was fried. He replaced the PCB and extracted the data out for me. Cost me a fortune though. If you have a similar HDD, you can always give that a try. Otherwise, an RMA can get you a replacement HDD but the data's lost.
Where's mikegas whenever you need someone to answer this kind of question? IMHO, it could be a faulty component on the PCB... or a bad power supply. Static electricity could also be a culprit if you have a habit of taking it out of the case, and touching the drive without first grounding yourself.
Well, I find it odd that I had the drive for about 2 years with no issues, good power supply, and the only time it's been moved around was when I did my system rebuild with new case. I kept grounded for everything then. Last thing I would want would be to fry a new C2D CPU. lol That, and the fact it is supposed to be an enterprise drive I would think the PCB would be something put under some additional testing.
That's the thing about HDD warranty. They may give you a warranty of 5 years but that doesn't help your data. They should offer customers the option of having their technician transfer data from the dead HDD to the replacement HDD if the damage is merely to the PCB. Of course, there is the issue of data confidentiality. Some people may prefer that their data is lost for good than have someone poke through it while trying to retrieve it from the dead HDD.
Another culprit could be heat. The PCB would suffer heat stress under prolonged use. My internal hard disk are placed in front of the fan, keeping it cool all the time. So far no problem yet. (touch wood) My previous external hard disk failed (WD MyBook) probably due to overheating (no airflow) as well as abuse from travelling It was usually on for most of the time. Got it replaced, and now I am keeping it off all the time except to backup data.
I also believe heat is a contributor to HDD death and I have a fan blowing on all my HDDs. However, the Google study says that heat doesn't affect HDD reliability...
Mikegas is here ... been slumbering .. Ok I'll give you some facts:- 1) heat does play a part on realibility in terms of MTTF (means time to fail) 2) cooler is better. Spec drives is usually under 60C ambient 3) Care when putting fan near drives as rotation of fan would rotation vibration to drives. This would cause of track write and then fake relocation (soft errors). 4) PCBA failure usually cause by power spike, so get a regulator if really kiasi 5) At times, even drive spin-up but not detected by BIOS, maybe the firmware already corrupted or some reserve cyclinder corrupted make it unsuable. This case is bubai .. RMA it. That's all folks ... internet kinda slow ...
3. the fan and hard disk is not directly connected, separated by hard disk cage though. but in that case, having another hard disk nearby would have greater effect. hard disk itself tends to vibrate more than the fan. 5. hard disk might be failing or there was a power interruption. had this one before.. hmm.
I think he's refering to those cases where fans are directly attached to the HDDs. Some fans tend to vibrate more than the HDD too! But you are right, HDD usually vibrates more.
Correcto. Chai is correct. I have cases that fan rotate at 16k rpm, totally destroy the drives! Yes, placing lots of drives together and active at the same time does has the same disaster, that's why is only recommended for single or at most dual drive in a PC. Else go for enterprise class HDD where they have build-in firmware and sensors to take care of this as enterprise grade usually used in RAID environment.. lots of rotational noise there!
My PC is "naked" so my fan's actually hanging 1-2 cm away from my drives and not connected at all. Hmm.. In that case, it would be better NOT to use a drive cage? I'm using one right now to hold my three HDDs. Would layers of foam be better?
PCB failures these days generally are due to environmentalists. True story bro! Lead free is not better, as a non eutectic solder blend has lower reliablity and has the perpensity to form long term tin whiskers and is prone to stretch stress. So generally as the stress reforms the solder joints and they get thinner, the Ohmhic heating becomes higher and higher, eventually burning the damned joint out, or it just breaks due to stress, all the while the joint gets weaker. Or the resistance becomes high enough where it messes with the signalling of the soldered component. The use of more environmentally friendly expoxies and bakelites to package and mount the chips is also an issue. So that is a contributory factor as well. Generally for the same reasons as lead free solders, it has far less temp and stress handling capabilities of earlier materials. There's also the issue of chip failure, but i won't go there this time.
