Chronological Age and HDD Life

[SimplyComplex]

How much of a factor do you think Chronological age plays in the lifespan of an HDD? Obviously powered on time/utilization are the primary factors, but what about external drives?
Would you expect a drive with 100 powered on days from 2004 to outlive a drive used continuously since 2017?

I have owned about 15 HDDs over the years, and I just had my first drive fail. I tend to swap them out if they hit > 4 years of power on time. The dead drive is a 400gb Seagate from 2006 with only 200 days of powered on time. I have 6 1.5/2TB drives from 2008-2011 and I wonder if their time is about up? Some of them are not actually backup drives and have primary data on them.

Is there a chronological death clock for hard drives, and what would you estimate it to be?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

How much of a factor do you think Chronological age plays in the lifespan of an HDD? Obviously powered on time/utilization are the primary factors, but what about external drives?
Would you expect a drive with 100 powered on days from 2004 to outlive a drive used continuously since 2017?

I wouldn't expect anything. It's more down to pure luck how long a drive lives. Though start-stop cycles, temperature and handling (shock/vibration) play a large part too. I've had top-of-the-line drives fail in two days, while a cheap **** drive was in continuous operation for >10 years. You just can't know, bar the occasional "DeathStar" model (In case you're wondering, it's the nickname for the old IBM Deskstar 75GXP's).

In my, admittedly anecdotal, experience over the last 30 years, a drive either fails very quickly in the first month or two, or it runs for years without issue.

I have owned about 15 HDDs over the years, and I just had my first drive fail. I tend to swap them out if they hit > 4 years of power on time. The dead drive is a 400gb Seagate from 2006 with only 200 days of powered on time(mostly from the previous owner). I've just used it as a backup drive since I purchased it about 10 years ago. The last time it worked was probably 3-4 years ago. I don't know exactly when it failed. I have 6 1.5/2TB drives from 2008-2011 and I wonder if their time is about up? Some of them are not actually backup drives and have primary data on them.

Is there a chronological death clock for hard drives, and what would you estimate it to be?

Since HDDs are inherently mechanical they will have an expiry date. Eventually the mechanical parts will fail. But when is going to be a guesstimate.

I still have an IDE Western Digital Caviar 1210 200MB with a manufacturing date of 1993 that still works flawlessly. So it's at least 25 years in some cases.