The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Hard Drive durability

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Darth Bane, Jan 5, 2009.

  1. Darth Bane

    Darth Bane Dark Lord of the Sith

    Reputations:
    506
    Messages:
    2,103
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Has anyone ever had a hard drive fail because of vibration/shock?
    I don't mean falling off of tables, but just normal usage, like using a laptop in a car on a bumpy road. My laptop sits on a desk like 100% of the time because im afraid of damaging the hard drive. I have the seagate 320gb 7200 rpm drive.
     
    Darth Bane, Jan 5, 2009
    #1
  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

    Reputations:
    2,962
    Messages:
    8,231
    Likes Received:
    63
    Trophy Points:
    216
    I think you really have to shake a laptop pretty darn hard in order to break the HDD... even a 7200RPM unit. I've used several laptops on bumpy roads or in turbulent skies and I've never had anything fail to due that. Short of an outright drop, most laptop hard drives are pretty durable with respect to the abuse of day to day life.
     
    Commander Wolf, Jan 5, 2009
    #2
  3. Brian10161

    Brian10161 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    110
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    At my company, we have computers in the truck (For the mechanics to do paperwork and email and that) and we don't have that many die each year. Maybe 1 at the most, and we have 20 guys on the road.

    The laptop I'm using is an old Toshiba (Celeron 2.0ghz) with a 20gb hdd, and its probably close to 5 years old and it still works. Computers in rough shape mind you (I didn't get it new, I got it about 6 months ago, just started).

    I have many laptops of my own and have never even had one drive fail to be totally honest. Not even a desktop drive.

    I think your pretty safe in terms of the drive, they build em really well now. Just don't drop it when running (like you said) and you should be fine.

    Happy computing!
    -Brian
     
    Brian10161, Jan 5, 2009
    #3
  4. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

    Reputations:
    4,740
    Messages:
    8,513
    Likes Received:
    3,823
    Trophy Points:
    431
    Hi.

    I turned a lacie external hdd upside down when it was working and it died, no impact or nothing!

    Just to show my uncle the centrifugal force :eek:

    Regards

    John.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Jan 5, 2009
    #4