Disposing the HDD or keep it hooked up for back up?

[komputeridiat]

Hi guys, I just go this Samsung SSD 850 EVO thing. I've cloned all the HDD stuff onto it and I'm not sure what to do with my 10+ year old Seagate HDD. If I was to dispose of it, what is the best way to make sure that all of its contents are wiped clean. If kept, is it still good to use it as a back up? This is what HDTune Pro gave me when I tested it: https://imgur.com/1Jtapjm https://imgur.com/083yyES

 

Thanks in advance

Edited January 12, 2018 by komputeridiat
Title missing a word

[Anghammarad]

first try to run the crystal disk info on your old drive... if it is still fully operable, keep it as "backup emergency" disk... 

 

If you need the space and want to get rid of it... you can use DBAN : https://dban.org/

[komputeridiat]

1 minute ago, Anghammarad said:

crystal disk info

What is that? Is it another HDD utility? I already ran it with HD Tune Pro with results in imgur.

[Evolution.]

if you have sensitive data on that drive people can recover it no matter what you do I suggest throwing it in the ocean so the salt can decompose the internals 

[Anghammarad]

2 minutes ago, komputeridiat said:

What is that? Is it another HDD utility? I already ran it with HD Tune Pro with results in imgur.

Yes Crystal Disk info is a disk information tool... 

 

I just looked at the first screenshot... pending sectors... ouch... then keeping it as a spare drive isn't really an option... run the DBAN over it for a while and dump it.

[komputeridiat]

1 minute ago, VenomZ_ said:

if you have sensitive data on that drive people can recover it no matter what you do I suggest throwing it in the ocean so the salt can decompose the internals 

I'm sorry but that sounds ridiculous. 1. I don't have that sensitive data. 2. I'm not near oceans at all. 3. We have enough garbage in the ocean already, please do not give this similar advice to anyone else.

[Anghammarad]

2 minutes ago, VenomZ_ said:

if you have sensitive data on that drive people can recover it no matter what you do I suggest throwing it in the ocean so the salt can decompose the internals 

or shred it into particles... 

 

It all depends on how paranoid one is with that... 

[komputeridiat]

Just now, Anghammarad said:

Yes Crystal Disk info is a disk information tool... 

 

I just looked at the first screenshot... pending sectors... ouch... then keeping it as a spare drive isn't really an option... run the DBAN over it for a while and dump it.

Can you tell me what that means? Everything else is green, but only one thing wrong can mean bad for the entire drive?

[Anghammarad]

Just now, komputeridiat said:

Can you tell me what that means? Everything else is green, but only one thing wrong can mean bad for the entire drive?

Pending sector count is the number of broken sectors on the drive that still need to get recovered to good/spare sectors. 

 

If the count is high, usually the disk ran out of spare sectors. 

 

And a broken sector usually drags more sectors down, which makes the drive unreliable for further use.

[komputeridiat]

5 minutes ago, Anghammarad said:

Pending sector count is the number of broken sectors on the drive that still need to get recovered to good/spare sectors. 

 

If the count is high, usually the disk ran out of spare sectors. 

 

And a broken sector usually drags more sectors down, which makes the drive unreliable for further use.

It says 98 for current and worst and 57 Data. Does the 98 mean all sectors are gone? and what does the 57 data mean?

[Anghammarad]

From my understanding there are 57 sectors that are pending to get reallocated. But the reallocation count is zero... which then is bad as well, because if there are still spare sectors left, the count shouldn't be 0 but 57, and none pending.

 

I personally won't trust that drive anymore.

[seagate_surfer]

If you'd like, you can download our free diagnostic software SeaTools to give the drive a pass/fail status. If the drive is over 10 years old, then you've more than doubled the average life expectancy of a hard drive which is about 5 years, give or take. If it makes you uneasy, you can ditch it, but as long as it's not the main/only place your data is stored, you could still use it if you want to, just make sure to have a strong backup strategy so that any single drive failing doesn't mean disaster for your data. If your backups are solid, then a drive going down is a simple matter of getting a new drive and restoring from backup.

As far as getting rid of traces of data on the drive, the most widely recommended seems to be DBAN.

[demonix00]

20 hours ago, komputeridiat said:

It says 98 for current and worst and 57 Data. Does the 98 mean all sectors are gone? and what does the 57 data mean?

What does the RAW Values column show?

 

If it has all zeroes, then there are no pending sectors that have to be replaced.

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

I would run Crystal Disk Info like @Anghammarad said above, I would do this simply because I've found that HD Tune sometimes gives wonky read outs. I've had drives that HD Tune said they were completely dead, yet another software said they were perfectly fine. And they were.

[komputeridiat]

On 1/12/2018 at 5:35 PM, NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle said:

I would run Crystal Disk Info like @Anghammarad said above, I would do this simply because I've found that HD Tune sometimes gives wonky read outs. I've had drives that HD Tune said they were completely dead, yet another software said they were perfectly fine. And they were.

Yeah...I guess I can do that. I have my SSD hooked up and mirrored from the HDD. Do I just hook up the HDD again? Would the computer just recognize it?

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

7 minutes ago, komputeridiat said:

Yeah...I guess I can do that. I have my SSD hooked up and mirrored from the HDD. Do I just hook up the HDD again? Would the computer just recognize it?

If you want to hook it up, then do it, it's up to you if you want to use that drive for other things or just throw it since it's over 10 years old.

You'll probably need to assign a letter to the drive.