backup. backup. backup.

then also check the SMART stats on it and run the internal tests. if you don’t know how, gsmartcontrol is a good place to start.

i’ve had a couple disks fail right away, and others that just go forever–and one of those is a deathstar, even.

There are only. 2 kinds of people:

1. Those who have lost data
2. Those who will lose data.

Plan accordingly

Always make sure that important files and folders are backed up at least twice! Even when drives are new, they can and do fail at random without warning. My HDD’s are the better half of a decade old and I had no issue with them at all until last year. They’re now starting to experience random corruptions that will sometimes compromise entire folders.

2 of my main system drives have been powered on for 5 and 7 years respectively and are therefore much older.

Just don’t wait for them to start clicking before thinking about backups.

I have old 500 gb drives from 2009 that i ripped out of beaten laptops still working 24/7 and i’ve had new drives grenade themselfs two weeks in use, there are too many factors to properly gauge how long of a life a drive has, the best option is to have backups, even something as simple as a copy on a flash drive is better than nothing.

I get people saying follow the 3-2-1 rule, but there are places like mine where storage is prohibitively expensive, so just do what you can, anything is better than nothing in this cases.

a HDD can fail at any given time. It could fail within a week of buying it, could last over a decade.

What I’m saying is, if you have data you don’t want to lose, yes you should be worried. Keeping backups is the only safe option.