

Ask HN: I'll be buying a replacement hard disk, what should I check? - znpy

Hello HN!<p>My laptop hard drive (rotational, magnetic hard disk) broke just yesterday and I need a replacement.<p>Since I&#x27;m on a tight budget, I&#x27;ll be looking for a replacement on local offers (craiglist-like websites) and I was wondering:<p>Assuming I bring my laptop with me, and a bootable Usb drive with some GNU&#x2F;Linux environment installed (and possibly, additional tools like smart tools etc) what tests should I run upon a hard drive before buying it?<p>And what are &#x27;acceptable&#x27; ranges if an used drive is not just perfect (this is, you know, a very likely situation) ?<p>Of course I won&#x27;t be buying second-hand SSDs.<p>Thanks in advance!
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znpy
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proactivesvcs
smartctl --test=short /dev/sdX smartctl --all /dev/sdX

Check "SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED" just under
the drive stats. If it fails, the drive is _definitely_ very faulty.

Any non-zero of the following would make me likely to reject. If you're in
real need and can stretch your standards a little, five or fewer of any could
be acceptable. Multi_Zone_Error_Rate Offline_Uncorrectable
Reallocated_Sector_Ct Reported_Uncorrect Runtime_Bad_Block End-to-End_Error

Non-zero Current_Pending_Sector may be a bad sign, but may also clear itself
in time. Treat as above.

Any non-zero, but not very large (i.e. obviously misinterpreted) of
Command_Timeout.

Power_on_hours more than 10,000 means a consumer disk is getting a bit old. If
it runs above 45°C idle (depending on ambient) may also mean it's getting old
or is worn. Any breached temperature threshold that isn't again,
misinterpreted (i.e. 255°C). Any Old_age or Pre-fail attributes that breach
the threshold indicate an old/unwell drive.

~~~
znpy
Thanks! Just the answer i was looking for!!!

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smt88
If you're on a tight budget, I'd suggest a smaller drive rather than a used
drive.

With Ubuntu, lots of dev stuff (big IDEs, big RDBMS), and a decent number of
videos, I'm using about half of my 120GB drive.

If you aren't storing/editing music or videos, you should be fine with ~64GB
SSD on *nix or Windows 8.1+, and then you'll get the manufacturer's warranty.

If you do need to store those things, you should just bite the bullet and buy
a cheap HDD. The major downside is speed. You can then save up some money to
buy a SSD in the future.

Finally, if you have access to one and are in the US, you should buy all
electronics with a credit card that offers defect/damage/theft protection
(like a standard American Express).

