Hi!
After a long time, my Dell SATA II 2 TB HDD has started showing yellow on CrystalDisk.
The recommendation seems to be to get data out of it sooner than later and replace it.
My main usecase for it is as the main space where I install Windows programs and store Plex media. My C drive is SSD but much smaller. This HDD is D drive.
Seagate's selling an 8 TB SSD for CAD$189 and a 2 TB one for CAD $101.
Question for you good folks -
- Anything I can do before I consider throwing money at this problem? Bad/Unrecoverable sectors seem to be at 100. But is there still a way I can get more life out of this drive? Or is it living it's last breaths?
- What HDD should I go for? I'm optimizing for price and the use cases I mentioned above.
- If I do go the replacement route, what's the best way for me to move drives? Should I clone the old to the new or copy files one by one? I do want to maintain the Program Files status of D drive. So I would be making the new drive as my D drive. Any FOSS tools for this transition?
Thanks!
The SMART table is not necessarily an accurate representation of the disk’s condition - I get a lot of disks that come through with a “GOOD” condition yet they’re on the brink of data loss.
Disks in a caution state should have replacement and data recovery prioritized.
The appropriate approach to data recovery will vary based on the condition of the disk.
A good place to start would be to download the free Victoria disk diagnostic software, run the “quick” surface scan, and post the result here. Note that any disk interaction / usage during the test will negatively bias the result.
As far as replacement is concerned, provision for whatever falls within your budget plus a second disk to use for periodic backups.
In Windows, I use two disks in a mirrored storage space to tolerate one disk failure, plus an offsite backup.
The quick result looks like this -
I ran the test and have attached a screenshot of the results here. Does this make sense to you? The "quick" scan took well over 3 hours! 😅
Update: I see the screenshot now. It seems I ran the full scan instead! Damn!