Every hardware damage in a computer has a value. The only thing that can't be measured is the hard drive, because of the data inside. Whether it's an important end-of-year powerpoint presentation or a collection of cute little sisters, these losses can make your head spin. To find out how long different types of hard drives last, follow me on a DIY journey from getting started to giving up.
The data on the hard drive is priceless
01PMR/CMR hard disk
The first thing to mention is the traditional mechanical hard disk, usually called PMR or CMR (traditional magnetic recording). A certain gap is left between tracks to avoid data interference between different tracks. The head does not need multiple trips during read and write operations.
The software can see when the hard drive is powered on
The life of such hard drives is usually determined by the time they are powered on. Most mechanical hard drives have a life span of more than 30,000 hours, which means that with eight hours of daily use, they can accumulate more than 10 years of use.
Enterprise disks last longer but are more expensive
Enterprise hard drives, monitor disks, and other specialized hard drives will last longer, but they will also be more expensive. For most users, a hard drive with a life of 30,000 hours will suffice.
02 SMR Mechanical hard disk
Another type of mechanical hard disk uses the SMR (Imbricated magnetic Recording) technology, also known as the imbricated disk. Different from the CMR, after a large amount of data is stored on the SMR disk, the data in the sector is repeatedly migrated when the disk is written again. As a result, the working time of the disk and magnetic head is prolonged.
Comparison between conventional magnetic recording (top) and imbricated magnetic recording (bottom)
This kind of hard disk life in addition to the current time, but also influenced by writing data, generally speaking, SMR hard disk if is frequent, speaking, reading and writing, can use more than 3 years, probably as a storage tray infrequently, speaking, reading and writing, is close to the service life of CMR, so we suggest only use the SMR hard disk for data storage.
SMR repeat writes affect platter and head lifetime
03 Solid State Disk
The working principle of a solid state disk is different from that of a mechanical hard disk. Therefore, the calculation method for the life of a solid state disk is different. The unit is TBW, which refers to the life that data can be written to a hard disk.
The SSD master cache is also important
For example, if an SSD has a write life of 150TBW, or a total of 150 terabytes of data, it may not seem like a lot, but it's actually very durable.
If you write 10 gigabytes of data per day, which is about the same as downloading two 1080P movies per day, or one 3A blockbuster per week, you write only 3.7 terabytes per year. At this rate, 150TBW is enough for 40 years of continuous use.
Knockoff SSDS have bad black chip life
Of course, the premise is that SSD has no virtual label and no black chip is used. If marking is not safe, you can multiply the erasable life of the particle by the SSD capacity. TLC particles are about 1,000-3,000 times, MLC particles are about 3,000-10,000 times, and SLC particles are about 10,000 times.
, of course, these are the experience data, hard disk technology now is already very mature, while in fact the use of time because of individual different products, but on the whole is much longer than expected time, using 70000 hours of mechanical drive also have a lot of, some of the SSD vendors will provide products with a lifetime warranty, so the players also need not worry too much.
Players need to pay attention to, although we do not need too much care of the hard disk, but also pay attention to the use of the environment, do not put the hard disk placed in a humid environment, to avoid vibration, when the hard disk is frequently wrong, backup data in advance, important data must do a good job of encryption and backup, to avoid damage to the hard disk also lost data.