# How long is a modern hard disk readable?



## michaelrmgreen (Mar 13, 2013)

Is there any useful indication of how long the data stored on a hard disk bought today might be relied upon?


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## Uniballer (Mar 13, 2013)

I dunno.  Similar thread.


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## SirDice (Mar 14, 2013)

It depends a bit on the disk and how you handle them. I have some old IDE disks lying around, 80GB and less. Some are at least 5 years old, maybe more. They still work. They're noisy but they still work.


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## nekoexmachina (Mar 14, 2013)

My dead HDDs died at about 5->7 years of usage.


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## expl (Mar 14, 2013)

michaelrmgreen said:
			
		

> Is there any useful indication of how long the data stored on a hard disk bought today might be relied upon?



That depends on so many variable things, like case cooling quality,  power supply quality (current stability), strength of magnetic fields.

Same sector on disk can retain integrity from couple weeks to 50 years depending on the things mentioned.

Also keep in mind if the disk sits unpowered for a very long time it can cause fatal damage to storage when it spools up due to to mechanical components binding. So its best practice to keep using them once in a while.


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## vaibhavyagnik (Mar 14, 2013)

http://static.googleusercontent.com...arch.google.com/en//archive/disk_failures.pdf

It's a white paper which google published showing hard disk failures in their server farms. There is no conclusive evidence on what wears the hard disk more, but in general, the more temperature delta a hard disk faces, the more likely it is to fail.


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