Worth using this drive as an External to backup?

[Tech Reprise]

Is it worth using this drive in an external enclosure as a backup drive? I have an Adata Enclosure lying somewhere.
This drive was salvaged from a dead satellite television stream box.

[tkitch]

probably got a metric fuckton of hours on it, so...  i'd lean towards "no"

 

[Dutch_Master]

Won't hurt investigating the SMART status report of that drive. Mind you, if you decide to use it, all data will be lost as you'd likely have to format it for PC use. And as said: running hours will be quite high, depending how old the device was it came from. Storing valuable data on it is indeed a bad idea. If you're after backup storage, 60-70 bucks gets you a 1 TB SSD, brand new. Much safer for your data.

[porina]

It should be ok for a backup, since it is only an additional copy of something that is already somewhere else.

 

I'd connect it directly to a PC initially, since external devices don't always pass through all the SMART data. Check that for any obvious red flags before continuing. Biggest ones for me will be bad sectors, uncorrectable errors, pending sectors. If they appear clear, then I'd do a full surface write, followed by a full surface read. Check those values are still good. If so, then use it.

[Tech Reprise]

3 hours ago, tkitch said:

probably got a metric fuckton of hours on it, so...  i'd lean towards "no"

 

 

2 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

Won't hurt investigating the SMART status report of that drive. Mind you, if you decide to use it, all data will be lost as you'd likely have to format it for PC use. And as said: running hours will be quite high, depending how old the device was it came from. Storing valuable data on it is indeed a bad idea. If you're after backup storage, 60-70 bucks gets you a 1 TB SSD, brand new. Much safer for your data.

 

2 hours ago, porina said:

It should be ok for a backup, since it is only an additional copy of something that is already somewhere else.

 

I'd connect it directly to a PC initially, since external devices don't always pass through all the SMART data. Check that for any obvious red flags before continuing. Biggest ones for me will be bad sectors, uncorrectable errors, pending sectors. If they appear clear, then I'd do a full surface write, followed by a full surface read. Check those values are still good. If so, then use it.

Here is the smart data

 

The usage is lower than my laptop inbuilt Seagate HDD lol. I don't know much about smart sata so I will leave that to you guys to decipher.

I already have the backup data on a 1tb WD external, a 2tb Seagate external, mostly same data on desktop and laptop and now this will be the third full copy lol.

Edited May 20 by Tech Reprise

[Dutch_Master]

If it really has 2345 hours on it, it's a steal.

[porina]

No reallocated sectors and no pending sectors is good. I'd still do at the least a full read on it, preferably a full write first followed by the full read, and make sure there remains no reallocated or pending sectors.

[tkitch]

that's shockingly low for a drive like that...  that's confusing.

 

but if that's the real number?  you're probably fine

[Blue4130]

6 hours ago, Tech Reprise said:

Is it worth using this drive in an external enclosure as a backup drive? I have an Adata Enclosure lying somewhere.
This drive was salvaged from a dead satellite television stream box.

 

You have the drive, you have the external adapter. So the "worth" is just the 5 minutes of time it takes you. Is 5 minutes of time expensive for you?

[Tech Reprise]

10 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

If it really has 2345 hours on it, it's a steal.

 

10 hours ago, porina said:

No reallocated sectors and no pending sectors is good. I'd still do at the least a full read on it, preferably a full write first followed by the full read, and make sure there remains no reallocated or pending sectors.

 

10 hours ago, tkitch said:

that's shockingly low for a drive like that...  that's confusing.

 

but if that's the real number?  you're probably fine

Already making a fourth offline backup of the files lol. The more the merrier  

 

[kokosnh]

Just remember, do not move the hdd when it’s working, the BF is already high as it is, no warranty on that HDD because if it, don't risk it any further.

[Tech Reprise]

Also one more thing, while I was copying a folder of 280GB consisting of mixed file types from another Seagate External HDD (Seagate Expansion 1tb) to this WD Drive, the Seagate External heated up to 58°C.

Is that normal or is that drive dying? 

Edited May 21 by Tech Reprise

[tkitch]

2 hours ago, Tech Reprise said:

Also one more thing, while I was copying a folder of 280GB consisting of mixed file types from another Seagate External HDD (Seagate Expansion 1tb) to this WD Drive, the Seagate External heated up to 58°C.

Is that normal or is that drive dying? 

with no active airflow, that's pretty normal.

[Tech Reprise]

12 minutes ago, tkitch said:

with no active airflow, that's pretty normal.

So reading from the drive is also equally stressing as writing to the drive?

[tkitch]

as far as the drive operation is concerned, there's almost no difference in reading vs writing.  

[Tech Reprise]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

as far as the drive operation is concerned, there's almost no difference in reading vs writing.  

I see. Thanks. 

[Tech Reprise]

16 hours ago, tkitch said:

as far as the drive operation is concerned, there's almost no difference in reading vs writing.  

I opened up the drive plastic casing and saw that an Aluminium Tape attached behind the drive came loose. I reattached that and then again copied around 250GB of data from that drive. This time max temperature was 50°C in a closed space under my laptop stand and lower by 3-4°C in the open. 

 

I guess the drive temperatures are fine now.

[jmwhite33]

@Tech Reprise

It should be fine.

Western Digital HDD's from that time were rock friggin' solid. Much more dependable than what is offered today.

Last week I pulled out all my old HDD's and checked each one. I used Disk Genius for testing. I did a cylinder test.

Out of 4 2.5" drives ranging in age from 8-15 years, 0 errors or bad cylinders.

Out of 5 3" HDD's only two showed bad cylinders, the other 3 were all excellent and some good cylinders.

Of the two that had bad cylinders one is a Maxtor 80 gig DiamondMax ATA133 IDE drive. Out of almost 10,000 cylinders only 130 were bad. Not bad for a drive that is 22 years old. 

The other failure is a WD Green drive out of a MyBook Live. That drive only has 10 bad cylinders. That one is 13 years old. It basically "cooked" in the enclosure. Bad design.

 

I was able to copy files off each drive, reformat, copy files to them, etc. with no errors whatsoever.

So bottom line, as long as not submitted to excess G-forces "dropping it" or strong magnetic fields, HDD's are pretty friggin' durable and reliable.

Much more so than SSD's.

Personally I wouldn't trust a SSD for long term storage. 

 

If you test a drive and it shows bad sectors/clusters/cylinders, back up your stuff and retire the drive. Once one sectors fails, it begins to "creep" to adjacent sectors. Like a magnetic cancer.

Also on older Western Digital HDD's they are normally noisy and "chatter" during use, bur are fine.

IF you happen to hear a "BOING" sound (like a spring) coming from the drive when it spins up, replace ASAP.

It was an issue with read/write armature and was one of those that "it worked fine two hours ago" type of things.

Any other old farts remember that?

 

 

So to all those in this thread expressing trepidation concerning the reliability of HDD's, well I would say you are greatly mistaken, at least concerning older drives.

[OddOod]

On 5/20/2025 at 3:05 PM, Tech Reprise said:

Here is the smart data

Wow, I've never seen a drive with more spin ups than hours on...
That's a 2.5" drive, right? If so, it's HIGHLY likely that it's SMR which has significant downsides for write speeds. 
As for reliability? Nah, no worries! That thing is built to be kicked around in laptops and external drives and it's spent its entire life essentially sitting on a shelf. 

[NumLock21]

As long the drive is fine, can still use it for backups, but do a backup of a backup, when your datas are really important.

[Tech Reprise]

10 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

As long the drive is fine, can still use it for backups, but do a backup of a backup, when your datas are really important.

I have four offline backups of the same data