naseem142

Well you are correct, if it's not being used it will less likely to fail. But a thread on Reddit explains that 10 years is the average lifespan of an HDD even if it's turned off;
 
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dxq7b/what_is_the_lifespan_of_data_on_a_hard_drive_if/
 
So it might survive that long or randomly change in less than expected.

The Seag
Yes! I have loads of them. Inc. 4 separate 8TB HDDs! However, all HDDs have the potential to lose data, so I back-up by archive drives. Which is why I have so many. If I lose one, I have another to fall back on. You could go on backing up each drive a dozen times, but I think twice is what I need, you might want more/less?
 
I don't agree with the Reddit post referred to above. Maybe that might be the case on military HDDs, but I doubt it. HDDs haven't yet reached the data density where 0 & 1s will spontaneously and randomly change between those two states (on & off), as the switch is physical and all way way above 22nm, where those effects might start to become a factor. However, thinking about it can be more time consuming for the lay person than it's worth (you should be thinking about backing up data and working on whatever causes you to have data, eg work). I prefer to be more aware of the likelihood of the drive living or dying. So I look to industry standards:
 
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/
 
 
No there is no such thing as an absolute guarantee on anything that has moving parts (2nd law of thermodynamics, everything tends towards disorder). Its like asking for a car that can drive without stopping or breaking down. Obviously there isn't! So again, make a decision based on facts, like the mean time to drive failure, as given in the above link! 

Well that is the purpose of an archive drive. You could also take a look at tape drives which are specifically meant for long term data storage.
 
Edit: Warning, tape drives are expensive af.

They should be fine, but I would fire them up every year to be sure. Id also use a filesystem like zfs or btrfs or refs to check for bitrot and repair it. You will probably have to replace a drive in the next 10-15 years.
 
If you want a good cheap long term storage look at tapes.

My old Gateway laptop came with a Hitachi 5400rpm Sata2 drive
and its been heavily used for 6 years now without issues

i dont really see a reason for a HDD to crap out if its only being used to archive 

wow such science
i didnt know about this at all, should be a good read

ps. why cant those damn 1's and 0's just chill the f#*k out

For a moment i thought it said rx 480 , i was confused lol

For a moment i thought it said rx 480 , i was confused lol

For a moment i thought it said rx 480 , i was confused lol

For a moment i thought it said rx 480 , i was confused lol

Why do you think it was 5 dollars

No i did replaced the stock fan of that case , it was noisy as hell when it came , i think it was defective or something ? Current blue on is a Corsair AF120 ( blue led ).   The exhaust fan is actually pretty good , really quiet and high air flow.      
Do you mean the zip tied fan? It's a noctua NF-F12 industrial PPC

Temps for CPU are 34 ~ 36 Idle and 40 ~ 50 ish under load
for gpu 38 ~ 42 idle and 50 ~ 60 under load