Windows 10: Multiple Hardrive failure over the course of a year

Sorry but I don't understand the logic of the above post.

If you can't afford to lose any data then you should be running RAID 1 not RAID 0.

RAID 0 is striped RAID 1 is mirrored.

 

You are correct mam or sir. I did not mean raid 0. I did indeed mean to say raid 1. They are mirrored

 

Possible explanations regarding original post:
1. PSU is causing damage to the HDDs
2. Mis-use
3. Hard Drives aren't actually dead
4. Heat damage

Option 1 seems the most likely
Option 2 is possible, but SSDs are especially hard to abuse so I doubt this
Option 3 is plausible, what symptoms did the drives give?
Option 4 is more plausible with the HDDs than the SSD I think, whats your PC setup like? Do the hard drives sit where fresh (cold) air comes in, or is there no fan? Or are they near the exhaust?

 

OK, let us clear up the configuration and what actually happened. From what you have said, your computer is a laptop which has an SSD as the main drive. The SSD had to be replaced after about 3 months because it went bad. In addition, you have two external drives that were previously Barracudas but are now WD Black 1TBs. One of the Barracudas went bad so you replaced both with WDs. Then shortly after, one of the WDs went bad. So in the last year or less it sounds, you have had 3 drives go bad; 1 internal SSD, 1 external Barracuda, and 1 external WD black. Is that correct? Now, as for the physical setup; the external drives, are they inserted into some sort of external bay with its own controller? If so, how does this controller interface to your laptop - with a USB cable? If the external hard drives are in their own, self-powered bay and are not powered from your laptop, then I don't see how a power supply problem can take out both the internal and external drives. In that case the only likely way I see that power could affect both the internal and external and cause damage is if your laptop is not using a battery but is instead running only off the charger with no battery (or a bad battery) and your externals are running off wall power also. Then if wall power is shut off, both the internal and externals could be negatively affected if they are in the middle of doing an operation. It is not good to shut off power to hard drives while they are operating without having your computer go through the normal shut down sequence. So, a couple questions:
1. You are not shutting on/off power to everything with a switch (or unplugging) while things are running are you?
2. Is your laptop running with a battery installed so that if 120V power is shut off, the laptop does not immediately shut off while the drive is in the middle of an operation?
3. Is the above assumed number of failed drives and configuration correct?

 

I will retell the story I am sorry for the confusion.

This is on a desktop that I built myself.
It originally had 2 2tb baracudas in it. One went bad I repaired it then they both went bad (one went bad 2 times) they worked for maybe a year before the first failure. Then two weeks after the repair they failed.

I went and got one WD SSD Internal and two wd blacks also internal.
Got that build all set up with windows on it and about two or three days later one of the wd blacks failed. (the blacks are part of the raid. The ssd is not)
I got the failed black RMAd and put the new one in. My computer worked fine for about 3 months and then the ssd failed.


MY CURRENT PC SPECS ON MY ACCOUNT HERE ARE FOR MY LAPTOP NOT THE DESKTOP THIS PROBLEM IS TAKING PLACE ON. (I have to get the desktop running again before I can run the tool that updates my PC specs here. But I am wanting to figure out and fix the underlying cause so I can not ruin this fresh ssd I just got.

Now to answer your relevant questions with this new information I have given.

1. I always use the button and I have it set to safely shut down the computer when pressed once and let go.
2. Not relevant any longer
3. Also not relevant (sorry about the confusion, words are hard)

Any more questions Ai will answer them asap *Smile

 

I dont know how to check the psu. Other then someone mentioned to take it to a store.
I dont use them for any over locking or ridiculous read write, except a Minecraft server.
The drives I am almost certain were bad. On all cases except the ssd I tested with a hard drive checking utility and got read bars. (failures in sectors) and with the ssd windows 10 wouldn't boot and kept telling me to check the status of my drive. And it would act as if it wasn't plugged in sometimes (go to a screen asking me to select a Boot media.)
Lastly my setup is like this:
The hard drives are in a from cavity area with a fan sucking in fresh air across them on one side of them and then on the other side a fan sucking air from the cavity towards the back of the machine. Which then flows across my CPU fan. There is another fan blowing air put of the case at the back and then two on top blowing air out of the case as well. And one additional fan sucking air in on the side toward my CPU (i5). I dont think heat damage is likely but you never know.

I also do not let it go more then about a month without blowing the dust out of my fans and other hardware.

 

Be sure to understand that the purpose of RAID 1, or any other form of RAID for that matter, is NOT to protect your data. There are a variety of situations in which it will not do that. The purpose of RAID 1 is to maintain access to your data in the event of drive failure, not to protect the data itself. To protect your data you need to maintain backups. 1 backup copy for data of any importance, 2 or more backup copies if the files are of particular importance. There is no other way.

There really is no practical way you can test the PSU yourself. If the PSU is not of good quality it should be replaced, whether it is causing this specific problem or not, no matter what it's ratings might be. If you could tell us what PSU you have someone can advise you on that.

 

Etetherin. Your system spec's do not show up in Tapatalk, so you need to post them.

 

Again, I suggest you try a utility such as Hard Disk Sentinel; it keeps track of all your hard drive temperatures, including min and max over lifetime, etc. With that many failures I would definitely want to check the max temps to rule that out. It also lets you know if there are bad spots or SMART errors. You can usually find it offered as a freebie, or you can try the trial software. Thanks for clarifying your system configuration. So it is a desktop and it does sound like everything is powered by the same power supply. And if I understand correctly you actually had 5 hard drive failures within a year; that certainly seems extreme to me. I am curious - you say you had one drive fail and you repaired it and then it failed again. What type of failure was it that you were able to repair (or do you mean you replaced it)?

 

So I should go ahead and risk installing and setting up the new ssd?

When I said I repaired it. I ran a repair utilitity on it that "said" it repaired its sectors. Reinstalled windows on it and like a said not long after it had mechanical failure. Or at least I figured it was a mechanical failure because it started bsoding again. And then I tried to run more tests on it again and it would start red baring across the screen (indicating errors). And then the computer restart. (incomplete test) and that was in a bootable utility not run inside windows. So I just assumed it was mechanical.

 

That is not a decision I am willing to make. That is something you have to decide based on what your other options may be (as far as perhaps trying a different power supply and weighing the cost of that vs possibly burning out a drive, etc., or verifying that the drives really are bad.) I am just saying that when you do get up and running, you should install the utility so that you can check on all the disk temps and status so you can see if something unexpected is going wrong. That is easy to do and can eliminate some variables. BTW, do you still have the damaged disks, and is there any way you can take your "damaged" disks and try them on a different computer and run tests on them to make sure they really are bad? You can get drive docking stations pretty cheap these days. There is some chance that there is something else going on in the system, perhaps intermittently, and the data is not being transferred properly making it look like the drives are bad. It is just hard to believe so drives would die on their own. There must be some connection between the failures of all of them.

 

I think joedaman stated the possible explanations pretty well. I agree that 2 (mis-use) is unlikely, especially considering how many and how fast they are dropping, and assuming you aren't recklessly banging them around. From your setup description, 4 (heat) is also unlikely, although once up and running I would definitely monitor the temps to be sure. That is not something that will instantly kill them, but it can shorten their life. So that leaves you with first trying to verify 3 (whether the drives are actually dead) before tackling 1 (psu causing damage). If you can verify 3 that will tell you whether to go ahead and restart as-is or to first buy a new supply. If you don't have the option to verify 3, then you have to decide if you want to replace the supply (assuming it is considerably cheaper than drives, I think I would do that).

 

Unfortunately I dont have the drives anymore, I scrapped them. But when I get the chance I will peak inside and take pictures of the labels on my psu and post them here.
I will say that alot of super users go to micro center and are very happy with that place. They have great reviews as well. So I dont think they would sell me some piece of crap. But you never know.
I am not the best at this stuff but I do know a whole bunch and have been self teaching for 6 years now.
I dont think I got a crappy psu, but you never can be to sure.

Just throwing this out there, is there anything setup wise (software) that could cause this?
To be more clear, I have always used Intel's rst to build and control the raids. But when I go to my mfg website of my motherboard they are telling me to use marvel.
I know I asked earlier but I didn't understand the difference.

I will go ahead and restart my PC, and get it all set up.
And just to rule it out. This is what I should be doing.
Installing windows
Updating windows.
Install necessary drivers from.mother board mfg website
Installing video card drivers from mfg website
Installing all peripherals drivers from mfg websites (Lan card, wifi card)
And then lastly reinstalling all apps that I had previously?

If I missed anything or its not in the correct order please do tell. Like I said I am and have always been self taught from reading and just figuring things out on my own. So my information may be incorrect.

And lastly thank you all so very much for trying to help. This is the very reason the internet was created!

For those asking about my PC specs in tapa talk. I dont know what that is. But as soon as I get my PC that this thread is about I will update my PC specs in my profile on this website.

 

Tapatalk is for accessing the forum from phones and tablets.

 

How do I make it show up on there.
I mean for when I get it running again? The specs for my laptop are posted here and they aren't showing on tapatalk? The laptop isn't the problem right now but just as a reference of how to get them up on tapatalk I could use them to learn.