An old hard
drive can make a good backup device, but you’re right to be concerned
about the reliability of the drive. The best thing you can do to test
them is to perform a detailed scan to verify the disk is operating
correctly. The first step is to connect the hard drive to an external
docking station or open your computer and connect it to one of the
internal ports.
Once your hard drive is connected, download PassMark’s DiskCheckup utility by clicking here. This utility will allow you to see the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T. for short) information and perform a drive test. Once installed, open DiskCheckup, click on your secondary hard drive and click the SMART Info tab.
The SMART information is shown for the drive and while it looks complicated, it’s actually very easy to understand. Only a few columns are needed to diagnose drive health. In general, the higher the numbers, the better; with the exception of temperature (ideally you want from 30c to 50c) and power on time (lower is better).
If everything looks good, I’d use them. Remember that hard drive failure can’t always be predicted. If the drive has suffered damage from electrical surges, it may perform erratically or randomly die without warning.
-Sai Kiran
Once your hard drive is connected, download PassMark’s DiskCheckup utility by clicking here. This utility will allow you to see the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T. for short) information and perform a drive test. Once installed, open DiskCheckup, click on your secondary hard drive and click the SMART Info tab.
The SMART information is shown for the drive and while it looks complicated, it’s actually very easy to understand. Only a few columns are needed to diagnose drive health. In general, the higher the numbers, the better; with the exception of temperature (ideally you want from 30c to 50c) and power on time (lower is better).
- Description: This column describes what data is being displayed.
- Value: The current measurement from the drive
- Worst: The lowest the measurement has been.
- Threshold: The point at which the drive is predicted to fail due to that variable.
If everything looks good, I’d use them. Remember that hard drive failure can’t always be predicted. If the drive has suffered damage from electrical surges, it may perform erratically or randomly die without warning.
-Sai Kiran
