3+ year-old T500--should HDD be replaced because of age?

I bought my T500 a little over three years ago and intend to use it for a good while longer. Lately, I've been wondering if I should replace the HDD. The hard drive is causing no problems, though I wouldn't mind more storage. I'm just not sure how much service one should expect and if a disaster can be averted by replacing the present hard drive with a new one.

I've run my computer for probably 50 hours a week since I've had it. Would you replace the HDD or leave well enough alone? I realize a newer one can crash, but is mine more likely to do so with the age/use that it has?

Thanks.

 

As long you back up on a regular basis then you shouldn't worry too much about the hard drive age. Normally it's the mileage that counts not the age, use CrystalDiskInfo to find out the usage info and drive health.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SIII LTE using Tapatalk.

 

There a few reasons for replacing the HDD: (1) new, (2) larger, in terms of GB, (3) faster, in terms of rpm.

After 3 years of regular use, the drive may become less reliable and prone to failure.

Buying a new HDD is easy. The probably harder part (to certain users) is cloning/duplicating the existing drive onto the new drive. This consideration is related to a "backup" discipline.

 

I wouldn't buy a new hard drive just because your other is 3 years old.

Hard drives don't really get less reliable with age. No one can tell you when a hard drive can and will fail. They fail all the time, and mostly with no apparent reason. You could buy a new hard drive to replace your "old" drive and it may fail the next day, a week from then, or 20 years from the date of purchase.

Like Hearst said, make sure your important stuff is backed up regardless of your hard drives age.

 

$60~80 is inexpensive for "preventive maintenance."

There are always a hobbyist perspective and an IT production perspective. If it's an important part of your life, treat it accordingly. If it's only a toy, who cares?

 

I installed and ran CrystalDiskInfo (thanks for mentioning it). It reports that the health Status of my Hitachi HDD is Good, the Power on Count is 4470, and Power On Hours is 9597.

Is there anything in particular I should look for in the list?

 

Those numbers don't look too alarming to me. Back home, I have a 2005-era desktop with the original hard drive and that's still working just fine.

I'd still run backups every few days, just out of habit and in case anything does happen to your T500's drive. I wouldn't bother buying a new drive until the current one starts developing problems.

 

Thanks. That's good to know.

 

how does replacing that hard drive with a new one count for preventative maintenance? The new drive has just as good a chance at dieing as his old drive. We get new drives in all the time that die within the first year.

 

No, just run the drive diagnostics every week or so and you should be good until it tells you it's going bad.

My first T500 drive failed after a little over a year. The second one is going strong 2+ years later.I am not messing with it until I need to.

 

Eh, honestly I wouldn't even think about the drive until it starts the Click of Death or anything that points to "uh oh...". I'm assuming regular backups though.

Anyway... how about that rain today Broadus? Just had to drive through that crap for about an hour or so lol.