Why Are Mechanical Hard Drives Prone To Damage? An Article Explaining In Detail The Lifespan And Failure Symptoms Of Mechanical Hard Drives

Many friends often find themselves in trouble when choosing computer accessories or upgrading old computers.

Especially after hearing the saying that "mechanical hard drives are easy to break", I became increasingly entangled: on the one hand, I coveted the large capacity and low price of mechanical hard drives, but on the other hand, I was worried that the data would not be secure. I was always afraid that one day the hard drive would suddenly break, and all the photos and important documents that I had collected for many years would suddenly become non-existent.

On the Internet, there are many discussions about the service life of these two hard drives. Some people say that mechanical hard drives will not have problems for seven or eight years, while others claim that solid-state hard drives will suddenly break without warning during use.

So, are mechanical hard drives really that fragile?

Behind this rumor, there are actually many truths hidden that we can easily ignore.

One relies on "transfer" and the other relies on "saving". The underlying principles are very different.

To understand why there are such rumors, we must first start with their "physique".

In essence, a mechanical hard drive is an extremely sophisticated mechanical device. You can think of it like a vinyl record player with an ultra-high rotation speed.

There is a high-speed rotating disk inside. The common rotation speed of this disk is 5400 or 7200 rpm. There is also a magnetic head suspended above the disk. The distance between the two is thinner than a hair.

When working with power on, magnetic head and disk They rely on airflow to form a dynamic balance.

Assuming that at this time, the computer is hit, dropped, or experiences severe vibrations, the magnetic head will most likely lose balance and directly "smash" against the disk, causing the disk surface to be scratched, eventually leading to physical bad sectors, or even direct scrapping.

This kind of damage is almost impossible to reverse, and data recovery requires a dedicated opening operation, which is extremely expensive.

and solid state drive It's another thing entirely.

It uses NAND flash memory chips, which do not have any mechanical moving parts inside, and are all electronic circuits.

This means that it is naturally extremely shock-resistant. Whether you carry your laptop to and from get off work every day, or throw a mobile hard drive into your bag, you don’t have to worry about it being damaged by vibrations.

In this way, in terms of "manufacturability", solid-state drives are really more suitable for mobile scenarios than mechanical hard drives, and this is why most laptops today are equipped with solid-state drives.

The fault performance is "sound" and the other is "silent", and the impressions are very different.

The reason why the rumors spread widely has a lot to do with the "bad ways" of the two.

Mechanical hard drive damage often has a gradual process, and the symptoms are very obvious.

For example, you will hear a "clicking" sound or other abnormal sounds, which are called "knocking sounds". Generally speaking, this is a signal that there is a problem with the head or motor.

For another example, the computer suddenly becomes very laggy, and it takes a long time to open a file, otherwise the system will directly give a prompt of "the hard disk cannot be recognized".

This intuitive failure performance will repeatedly deepen our impression that it is "easy to break".

On the other hand solid state drive , its damage is often "without warning".

You know, once there is a problem with its main control chip or electronic components such as capacitors, the situation is like this. It can be used normally one second, but the next second the computer will suddenly have a blue screen, and then the hard disk will "disappear" directly after restarting.

Even if the flash memory unit has reached the end of its life due to wear and tear, ordinary users rarely take the initiative to use SMART tools to monitor their health. They often don’t realize it until the data cannot be read.

Although such a feeling of "disappearing easily" is also very bad, due to the lack of early warning processes such as "abnormal noises and running lags", on the contrary, the reputation has not left users with such a profound "feeling of vulnerability".

Psychological 'visible risks' more worrisome than abstract concepts

Technical aspects aside, there is also a psychological factor at play.

Mechanical hard drives have the impression of being "perishable". To a large extent, this comes from our instinctive understanding of mechanical devices.

When we know that there are needles inside the hard disk that are rotating at high speed, and that a slight shake is very likely to "scratch" the disk, such "visible risks" will cause us to feel that it is very fragile at the psychological level.

It seems that we naturally feel that a mechanical clock with a fine structure is more likely to be accidentally damaged than an electronic watch.

The life problem of solid state drives is mainly reflected in the Number of erasures superior.

In the early days, solid-state drives had imperfect main control algorithms, and there was also the problem of short lifespan due to the use of low-quality flash memory. However, after so many years of development, the wear-leveling algorithm has become very mature, and the redundant capacity technology has also become very mature.

Generally speaking, for users in ordinary families, they go online every day as usual, work as usual, and play games in their daily way. In this case, the write volume is far from reaching the upper limit of the life span stated by the manufacturer.

For example, the DWPD indicator of enterprise-class solid-state drives, that is, the number of total disk writes per day, is now quite high, and its durability has long exceeded the requirements for daily use.

However, this concept of "number of writes" ultimately seems abstract and is not as intuitive and clear as "fear of falling". Therefore, in the process of dissemination, people are more inclined to remember the "fear of falling" feature of mechanical hard drives.

How to choose? The key depends on your usage scenario

After all, there is no such thing as a hard drive that is absolutely "easy to break", there are only products that are used in the wrong place.

If you want to provide cold storage for your desktop computer, such as storing movies, photos, and backup files, and the computer is placed in a fixed place and rarely moved, then a mechanical hard drive is still a cost-effective choice. As long as you prevent vibrations and pay attention to heat dissipation, many people have used it for ten or eight years.

If you are using a laptop, or you often need to carry a mobile hard drive, then it is undoubtedly wise to give priority to a solid-state drive. Its shock resistance can save you from many potential risks.

In addition, there is a concept that must be established. No matter what kind of hard drive you are using, data security should never rely entirely on its own quality.

To back up important data, such as work documents and family photos, you must follow the 3-2-1 backup principle, that is, keep three copies, placed on two different storage media, of which at least one copy must be placed off-site.

It can be a mechanical hard drive plus a network disk, or a solid-state drive plus another mobile hard drive.

Only in this case, no matter which hard drive fails, you can deal with it calmly and calmly, and you no longer need to get entangled in the question "who is more likely to be damaged?"