How long will a fairly modern hard drive last unused (in the anti-static bag)

[tradde]

I have some NAS replacement drives I bought many years back in case one of mine died. I did have one die but it was replaced under warranty. It's likely one of the spares I hat sitting on a shelf. These are likely hitting the 4 or 5 year age. I am curious if there is much information on if these remain Ok as they are? I tried searching
online but most topics were for drives that had been in use, but were later stored. Any information will be useful and interesting. Thanks.
Tim

 

[krebizfan]

Of course, the hard drive may have been shipped without the ability to work in the first place. I expect (based on the NOS SCSI drives I had picked up in the past that had not been used since manufacture) that a drive stored properly should be able to go 10 years without suffering mechanical failure just from waiting. There may be drives with worse lubrication that would fail sooner though.

 

[tradde]

I have yet to experience a drive that did not work when installed. I know this is a possibility.

 

[LiqMatrix]

I'll just put this out there. I had about 100 twenty year old NOS/sealed Seagate 80-pin SCA enterprise HDDs I got from a huge Pentium Pro lot. I had about a 40% failure rate. One literally blew up when powered on (the smell of burning electronics, mmm...), but most of that 40% failed during a format. Each drive was sealed in their factory box with a large amount of foam surrounding every drive.

My post about it at Vogons >> https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=764561#p764561

 

[Unknown_K]

I purchased a factory box of 20 sealed 50 pin 2GB SCSI drives around 15 years ago that had been sitting in a tech schools storage for a long time. Every one I tested worked just fine (the last one I pulled was probably a year or so ago) and they were legit 0 hour drives.

I think quite a bit of it has to do with storage conditions and how well the drives were made to begin with.

 

[LiqMatrix]

Great news for you. I wont miss spinning platters myself.

 

[Unknown_K]

Great news for you. I wont miss spinning platters myself.

I like the noise of a smoothly running drive (HD or floppy) on retro gear.

 

[tradde]

I have to give you that, especially those large drives that sound like jets ready for takeoff. Or course the sound of a TTY is nice
too and of course the oil smell.

 

[Timo W.]

They say a hard disk either goes bad in the first year or - if it does not - will easily work >10 years.

For new, unused drives, no one can tell you. But if you have more than just one of the spare drives in storage, chances are very high at least one is working when you need it.

 

[maxtherabbit]

They say a hard disk either goes bad in the first year or - if it does not - will easily work >10 years.

this is the belief I subscribe to, though I'd maybe amend it to "first 2 years"

 

[creepingnet]

I think it really depends on the drive and it's specific construction.

I have landed a few new old stock drives 10+ years old or more from a place called Computer Surplus in Redmond - most of those are still going strong in my vintage machines (286/386/486) currently, some running 24/7/365. Most were still shrinkwrapped in a anti-static bag.