NAS drive life expectancy?

[vong]

Hi all,

 

I've had a new Qnap NAS with 4x 6TB Ironwolf's for about 2 years now and just wondering how long I can expect the drives to last for before any go bad and need replacing. NAS has been on for about 98% during these 2 years. I don't feel like I really need to back up since it's mostly just media and I wouldn't put it that high on the priority list but it's still up there, but it's nothing I can't get again. Should I buy a spare drive now in case of a failure?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Well failure is random, so there isn't really a set time. I normally say around 50k hours is my max for drives, but also it depends on use.

 

If you can easily buy another drive, you probably don't need to have one on hand, but if data loss is important, id really just back it up.

 

Also run scrubs/partrol reads so drives don't have hidden issues that could appear during a rebuild.

[Semper]

I believe Ironwolf drives are rated for a million hours MTBF on the low end.

As with anything mechanical, however, the risk of failure is always present.

[vong]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well failure is random, so there isn't really a set time. I normally say around 50k hours is my max for drives, but also it depends on use.

 

If you can easily buy another drive, you probably don't need to have one on hand, but if data loss is important, id really just back it up.

 

Also run scrubs/partrol reads so drives don't have hidden issues that could appear during a rebuild.

Only way to get a new drive is online so may be best to buy a spare now I guess. It's running in a RAID 5 config, is the NAS still usable if a drive is failing? I guess not?

8 minutes ago, Semper said:

I believe Ironwolf drives are rated for a million hours MTBF on the low end.

As with anything mechanical, however, the risk of failure is always present.

Yeah true. I've only ever had 1 drive fail on me and it was only about a year old with hardly any use.

[PineyCreek]

Judging by the way warranties work, roughly 1 day outside warranty.

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 hours ago, Semper said:

I believe Ironwolf drives are rated for a million hours MTBF on the low end.

As with anything mechanical, however, the risk of failure is always present.

For reference, 1m MTBF is 115 years or so, which is obviously non-sense...

 

Given no modern tested drives have been operating for even 20 years.

 

But point being is that if nothing else goes wrong, the drives are supposed to last a long time...