Today I Retired My 13 Year Old 120GB Seagate P-ATA Hard Drive

DeafMutePretender on 15/10/2017 - 23:43

Yes, you heard that right. P-ATA. The one that came before S-ATA (which came before SSD).

https://imgur.com/a/t1UbS

As you can see from the 7000 hour Power-On Count it was my Windows drive in my 10 year old computer. 45000 Power-On Hours is well above average use. You're tempting fate if you don't start backing up your data at this point.

For about 6 months, the HDD started feeling slow and then one day it would read/write 20 seconds, then become inactive/freeze for 20 seconds, and then active again and repeat. So I used that opportunity to back up some stuff and reinstalled Windows to an S-ATA drive. My computer's motherboard has both P-ATA and S-ATA ports. No SSD because it's too old to support it. After formatting the 120GB P-ATA HDD, it still seems usable. I won't be using it again as a system drive though. What things can still support a P-ATA?

As an OzBargainer, I find it laughable to hear people recommend 2 year old computers saying "this should be good enough for your grandma's needs like word processing and looking up cooking recipes." Mate. My 2007 computer is still perfectly usable in 2017 for that plus more. It can even play games! Albeit not at max settings.

Upgrading your computer parts for non-gaming reasons is a mug's game like smartphones. The average person doesn't need to upgrade. Keep using whatever you have until it breaks, whether it's computers, phones, or washing machines. The only computer component that needs to be replaced is the system drive. Your HDD will die before your CPU or graphics card or motherboard does so backup your stuff, install a new HDD, and you can get another 5 years out of your computer.

Poll Options

  • 5
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is <10000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 10001 to 20000
  • 2
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 20001 to 30000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 30001 to 40000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 40001 to 50000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 50001 to 60000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 60001 to 70000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 70001 to 80000
  • 0
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is 80001 to 90000
  • 3
    My System Drive Power-On Hours Is >90001
Computing

Comments

  • hell0 on 16/10/2017 - 00:09
    +4

    This post goes on so many tangents it reminds me of Abe Simpson and his onion belt story

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rzao52ndNA

    • BertieBrown on 16/10/2017 - 07:12
      +1

      Ha! Thanks for the link hell0 I needed a laugh this morning! Also, I love how Burns is sighing but is prob just as old as Abe.

  • altomic on 16/10/2017 - 00:50
    +6

    you need to update your computer. I wouldn't bother with anything less than 200TB SSD, 512 GB Ram, 47" ultra High 4K display, 256Gb video card, quin-octotuplet multi core CPU, 2000W PSU, 7 keyboards, and a sold titanium mouse with diamond inlays…..that should be able to manage minesweeper, word and 2 browser windows open, but only just

    • AlienC on 16/10/2017 - 02:27
      +1

      47" inch only? Why not those new fandangled wall monitors which auto resize to your wall and generate electricity for you while you game on your -9999999's response time and input lag and hyper dimensional colours from quadrant sector ether eight and sector silo banana nine with the split screen functionality of a folmebentiable 100000000Hz monitor running at 1024Z (Zetta you know the SI suffix before the largest SI unit Y for Yotta)

      • dasher86 on 16/10/2017 - 17:15

        Our internet speed in Australia will let you down so no point.

    • DeafMutePretender on 16/10/2017 - 23:47

      47" ultra High 4K display

      …just the 1 monitor?

  • Pumpkin_rrr on 16/10/2017 - 07:39

    How did this happen? Did it die suddenly?

    • DeafMutePretender on 16/10/2017 - 23:51
      +1

      Did what happen? Did my hard drive die? No it didn't, it's still working. It was showing signs of slowness so I didn't want to test my luck any further by leaving it as my OS drive.

      A long time ago I did have a 20GB die. It had clicking sounds but I was too stupid to do backups so some of my data was gone.

  • Presence on 16/10/2017 - 08:13

    No SSD because it's too old to support it.

    Sorry but you're wrong. Theres plenty of SSDs that support SATA. Almost everything made within the last decade, including laptops, will support an SSD.

    Using a PC with a HDD is painfully slow once you've gotten used to using an SSD. You might save $100 over 5 years but you truly are missing out.

    Chrome with a few tabs open chews through RAM these days, i can't imagine using a 10 year old PC.

    • DeafMutePretender on 17/10/2017 - 00:06

      Sorry but you're wrong. Theres plenty of SSDs that support SATA. Almost everything made within the last decade, including laptops, will support an SSD.

      I stand corrected. When did SSDs come into consumer mass-market? Like the first 64GB SSDs or whichever the smallest one was. My 10 year old motherboard supports both PATA and SATA. I specifically bought it so that I can use it to transition from PATA to SATA. The SATA standard was probably a few years old at that time. As for SSDs, it either wasn't readily available yet or still quite expensive at the time.

      I may eventually get an SSD though my mobo will only support SATA-II not SATA-III.

      Chrome with a few tabs open chews through RAM these days, i can't imagine using a 10 year old PC.

      Most of the new web browsers are a resource hog on 10 year old computers I admit, but it's still tolerable (to me).

  • niknah on 16/10/2017 - 10:35

    Mine are anything from 21k-50k power on hours at the moment. But I have various ones that have died. The 50k one is a Samsung Spinpoint(I don't think they make these any more).

    I find that SSDs will warn you when it's had enough usage even before it's failed.
    HDDs will try very hard to read the data when it starts to fail, the first sign of failure is that it's slowing down.

    It's maybe related to the older version of windows that was installed on it back then.
    I find that more recent versions of windows do a lot of overnight updates, virus scans, etc. that works the disk a lot.

    • DeafMutePretender on 17/10/2017 - 00:08

      I find that more recent versions of windows do a lot of overnight updates, virus scans, etc. that works the disk a lot.

      If Windows XP had the stability of Windows 7, I'd still be using XP.
      Or if any of the newer Windows had the speed of XP.

  • Nugs on 16/10/2017 - 13:49

    hmmmm. I wanted to check my portable 2.5" 320GB Fujitsu manufactured in Sep 2008, but it doesn't come up.
    any ideas on how to get it?

    internal drives are not that old.
    C drive 240GB SSD 4559 hrs
    storage 3TB WD green 6273 hrs
    storage 6TB WD red hrs 3920 hrs
    storage 6TB WD red hrs 3867 hrs

    the two 6TB were installed within a day of each other

    • DeafMutePretender on 17/10/2017 - 00:11

      Your hard drive collection are practically still babies.

      Try connecting your portable drive before booting up your computer, and then run the program or whichever HDD program you use.

  • DeafMutePretender on 17/10/2017 - 00:11

    I hope you're all backing up the data on your >90001 hours hard drives.

    Vegeta's scouter says that hard drives that have Power-On Levels of OVER 90 THOUSAND will die soon.

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