Your Hard Drive Could be DYING. Here's How to Check!



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Your storage device WILL eventually fail. But what if you knew the signs to look for ahead of time so you could react appropriately and save your data?

Beat It on FLOPPOTRON by Paweł Zadrożniak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B522GbH3D8

Sounds of a Failed Hard Drive by MausolfB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORsMQfINMOA

Discuss on the forum: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1445864-failure-is-not-an-option/

Buy a Seagate Exos 20TB HDD: https://geni.us/Pt3x
Buy a Western Digital 4TB Red HDD: https://geni.us/AmBKIkt
Buy a Toshiba X300 6TB HDD: https://geni.us/D7A1Cn

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MUSIC CREDIT
—————————————————
Intro: Laszlo – Supernova
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfxmFU3lWY
iTunes Download Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/supernova/id936805712
Artist Link: https://soundcloud.com/laszlomusic

Outro: Approaching Nirvana – Sugar High
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsGBSCDwcI
Listen on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/UxWkUw
Artist Link: http://www.youtube.com/approachingnirvana

Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa https://www.instagram.com/mbarek_abdel/
Monitor And Keyboard by vadimmihalkevich / CC BY 4.0 https://geni.us/PgGWp
Mechanical RGB Keyboard by BigBrotherECE / CC BY 4.0 https://geni.us/mj6pHk4
Mouse Gamer free Model By Oscar Creativo / CC BY 4.0 https://geni.us/Ps3XfE

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
0:43 Sound
2:23 SMART
3:33 Software
5:45 Used HDDs
7:26 Backups
7:46 Too late
9:45 Outro

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29 thoughts on “Your Hard Drive Could be DYING. Here's How to Check!”

  1. I regularly check drive status and statistics with CrystalDiskInfo… It's worth noting that EXOS drives are a bit louder than most everything else out there. When i got my first one, i thought there was something wrong with it….turns out that's normal for that line.

    I've had a few drives die over the years. They don't make them like they used to. I've actually got a Conner IDE HDD from the early to mid 90s, that still works just fine.

    Reply
  2. Over the years my past hard drives almost all of them have started making terrible clicking noise and death.
    Even had backup drives die not too long after my main drive died, again with a terrible noise.
    I panic when I hear rough clicking noises now and rush to check my drive health.
    Lately my Seagate SSHD while still quiet happens to work at 100% and disconnects itself, so time for SSD perhaps.

    Reply
  3. Best tip to check if it's dying…. check on the label to see if it's got "Seagate" branding on it, if so it probably is….. I've got 2 pending repair/recovery, and pretty much every data recovery video I've seen so far always seems to be a Seagate product.

    Reply
  4. Why do I still use HDDs?
    Because 48TB of spinning metal is a lot cheaper than 48TB of SSD.

    I've also never had a Seagate drive last more than a few days longer than it's warranty. Meanwhile I have a EIDE WD 4GB HDD that has been powered and in use since the 90s.

    Reply
  5. Could you guys please do SSDs and maybe explain what could cause them to die faster I leave rust running basically 24/7 with nvidas overlay for clips going would that be constant wear and tear on the ssd ?

    Reply
  6. I just had a western digital 10tb nas rated red hard drive lose its file system. I had the thing for less than a year. Luckily I had a data recovery program that was able to scan through the hard drive and reconstruct a good portion of the files. Sadly not all made it through. I was so ticked though. I had to buy another 10tb hard drive just so the program could reconstruct the data onto it. This hard drive that failed contained half my movie files on it

    Reply
  7. I have had bad luck with the WD Black series on them catching fire within five minutes…nearly as long as a Gigabyte power supply doing the same… With all the RMAs and contact with a family friend working in their Irvine branch at the time… The latter actually saw this happen out of the box after having dinner with my family… Within a week…a recall took place…

    Reply
  8. I'm running 6 drives, the operating, systems on an SSD 1tb and I use Crystal Disk, all show GOOD and yes I have back ups using Norton Ghost and Macrium, online and off line. Don't know what else to do. I think I have it covered. Regards Tony from Australia

    Reply
  9. I had a hard drive die on me once I lost all my songs I recorded 🤦🏾‍♂️ I was dumb and should of had back ups on back ups i never bought a hard drive again only SSD

    Reply
  10. I guess I just count myself lucky, because the only hard drives I've ever had die were my own fault anyway. I have never had a catastrophic failure of a drive, mechanical or SSD, dating all the way back to the first hard drive in my win98 first computer. That computer, all original including the RAM and power supply, still works to this day. My grandfather's 1992 MacBook powerbook Duo 230c with the docking station still works, all original hardware. Even my desktop computer with the ti 486 that's all original hardware still works.

    The only mechanical drive I have ever personally had died is one that I dropped

    Reply
  11. I've been running a WD blue 1tb hdd for over 5 years now. According to Google, they often fail after 1 or 2 years. So, if that's true, seems my luck is good. Got a barracuda 2tb as a backup though

    Reply
  12. This guy wipes Linus on the floor when it comes to presentation skills. I'm about as overweight as he is, but he has a very quick wit in front of the camera; I'd say even better than Linus' overall performance. I predict he's going to go into acting and win the 2026 Oscar for best supporting actor in an independent film produced by Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino presumably has gone out of the spotlight when it comes to directing but he's still very much active in producing quality Independent films. Ask me in the future if I'm a time traveler….

    Reply
  13. I love the "avoid refurb HDDs" comment, I have an old 500gb Seagate that's been running perfectly since about 2008, and God knows where it came from or how long it was running prior to then

    Reply
  14. crystal disk tells me the HDD is good but it will ocasionally become unresponsive and get stuck at 100% active time and ocasionally just disconnect itself
    an other takes 5-10 minutes to initiate and be acessible and on on one PC it will be disignated as "write protected", both don't make any concerning noise and are not that old in terms of age and active time

    any way to do some more detailed analysis without specialty tools?
    can formatting help?

    Reply
  15. Cloud storage has a lot of issues, but it's reliable and for a lot of people the best off site solution available to them. It's good for important core files that you can't afford to lose. Just encrypt the files if it's sensitive.

    Reply
  16. I wish I could afford a new computer. My mac mini seems to be dying. It's not the drive either. I hope this tired Mini can hold until I can afford a new PC. Screw Apple and their no repair business model.

    Reply
  17. I’ve never had an issue with my Windows 95 or any tower for that matter. It wasn’t till I got external HDDs that they started failing a year after use and losing all my family photos and docs. I really didn’t think that would have happened. Now I’m stressing over any hard drive no matter what it. I’m not even certain about cloud drives either.

    Reply

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