<![CDATA[On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already.]]>On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. Damn! I was trying not to, but here I am looking into buying hardware in 2026.

Do the fine folks of @homelab have any crucial hints for me? How do I not buy fakes or relabeled ones? Any way to save some bucks or is it just what it is?
I'm looking at CMR NAS-grade HDDs with about 6-10 TB.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/4f7ae4c0-81ca-4bfb-b7a3-684e9692a491/on-of-my-hdds-in-my-server-has-a-power-on-time-of-5.7-years-already.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 08:24:51 GMTSun, 19 Apr 2026 11:36:26 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:51:58 GMT]]>@b00g13 @jakesmolka @homelab imma need to see evidence (even a preponderance of anecdotes) to back up the ‘magnetic decays’ statements. Show me that a few days on a year is riskier than on-perpetually. Because we all see the lifespans of these drives when on. And I *have* old sub-terabyte drives going back decades that still read.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431933824624962https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431933824624962Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:51:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:49:47 GMT]]>@b00g13 @InkomTech @jakesmolka @homelab Only if they are flash/SSD storage. Unpowered HDDs are fine.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://meow.social/users/woof/statuses/116431925249334290https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://meow.social/users/woof/statuses/116431925249334290Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:49:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:42:55 GMT]]>@b00g13 @InkomTech @jakesmolka @homelab Exactly. Unpowered drives decay. If you want cold storage look into tape or M-Disk.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.chrispelli.fun/users/chris/statuses/116431898229679203https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.chrispelli.fun/users/chris/statuses/116431898229679203Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:42:55 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:42:01 GMT]]>@b00g13 @jakesmolka @homelab good q, but I’d planned magnetic, redundant and scheduled full validation reads periodically. SMART can warn me if I’m being foolish.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431894725452552https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431894725452552Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:42:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:33:05 GMT]]>@InkomTech @jakesmolka @homelab doesnt data on unpowered usb drives decay?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.com.pl/users/b00g13/statuses/116431859611507264https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.com.pl/users/b00g13/statuses/116431859611507264Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:33:05 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:17:10 GMT]]>@ithoughtisawa2 @jakesmolka @homelab I agree with this suggestion that you can save money by simply not buying a replacement now (wait when/if you have a failure).

Personally, I just get the cheapest drives I can get. But the amount of critical data I have is low enough that it's all at least triplicated. So I'm okay with two simultaneous drive failures.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://spacey.space/users/isaackuo/statuses/116431797017803532https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://spacey.space/users/isaackuo/statuses/116431797017803532Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:17:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 13:49:44 GMT]]>@woe2you @jakesmolka @rachel Yeah… you know how the DRAM and NAND markets have been (violently) reshaped by datacenters? HDDs have too.

QLC flash had been price competitive with HDDs on a total cost of ownership basis for a lot of applications for a couple years prior to *gestures around*. 6-10 TB HDDs haven't really made sense in volume – what's the market? – but hey.

Now, add a supply crunch. As QLC goes up, it shifts the bulk purchasing calculations and thus the HDD manufacturing plans. HDDs are sellable even at higher prices, especially if you can pack 28 TB into the same power/heat/size envelope.

My solution is tiering. I run a mix of TLC, QLC, HDD, and LTO-8, letting me add capacity over a wide a range of IOPS and $/TB. This is getting increasingly impractical at small scale, and IMO there just isn't a great answer for homelab capacities in the 10-40 TB range.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/willglynn/statuses/116431689094549506https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/willglynn/statuses/116431689094549506Sun, 19 Apr 2026 13:49:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:28:01 GMT]]>@jakesmolka @homelab I’m looking *hard* at pivoting a bunch of my info into ‘cold’ storage: usb3 drives that are off unless needed.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431367813726482https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/InkomTech/statuses/116431367813726482Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:28:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:09:00 GMT]]>@jakesmolka @homelab Beats me. The disks I used to get for £65-70 are now running to £150-180.

I'm starting to think the play is to disappear into the woods and never touch anything newer than a vacuum tube again.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://beige.party/users/woe2you/statuses/116431293004553972https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://beige.party/users/woe2you/statuses/116431293004553972Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:09:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:01:32 GMT]]>@jakesmolka

I have one that now has 8 years of power-on time, and is showing no issues. It's part of a ZFS RAID10, so I can survive if it goes down.

I would only replace when needed - but you do need to have redundancy and backups in place.

@ithoughtisawa2 @homelab

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedi.kcore.org/users/jan/statuses/116431263656926657https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedi.kcore.org/users/jan/statuses/116431263656926657Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:01:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:58:26 GMT]]>@ithoughtisawa2 That's a good hint. Thanks.
No problems so far, but I wasn't aware it was running so long already. SMART looks okay. Maybe this HDD will still last some time. But at those prices and how they just get higher and higher, it'll probably be wise to buy something and anticipate the failure.

Re data protection: my server runs Unraid and this HDD is the parity drive. So no problem. Same, if it would be one of the data drives.
With this setup I could even use the new drive already as second parity drive and just increase the level of fault tolerance.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/jakesmolka/statuses/116431251448069401https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/jakesmolka/statuses/116431251448069401Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:58:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:51:58 GMT]]>@homelab I'll also try to implement the UPS strategy I got up my sleeve ASAP. Can't risk no head crashes at this rate.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/jakesmolka/statuses/116431226057752676https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/jakesmolka/statuses/116431226057752676Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:51:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to On of my HDDs in my server has a power-on time of 5.7 years already. on Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:49:03 GMT]]>@jakesmolka @homelab just because it's old doesn't mean it needs to be replaced. It is showing any issues or SMART warnings? Your data protection strategy should be able to survive a single drive failure. When/if it fails you can replace it then

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/ithoughtisawa2/statuses/116431214570370720https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/ithoughtisawa2/statuses/116431214570370720Sun, 19 Apr 2026 11:49:03 GMT