I have a WD Black 3TB hard drive that I've been using for almost a year, and it's currently showing just 10% health, even though it's performing at 100%. It's packed with around 40 games and has about 2.64TB of used space. The drive's manufacture date is January 2015. Unfortunately, I can't afford to replace it right now. What should I be aware of regarding its health and reliability?
3 Answers
It really depends on how you tested the drive health. A 10% health rating usually sounds bad, but I've seen drives that are technically 'low health' still run fine for ages. If it’s just for gaming, it should be manageable, but make sure you really have backups for anything important. Also, steam has cloud saves for most games, which is a plus!
If you're using it solely for games, that's a bit less risky, especially since most game data can be downloaded again. But definitely avoid storing anything crucial on it. Given that the hard drive is aging, any new installs or updates can put more strain on it. Just keep in mind the risk of it failing before you have a chance to replace it.
Having only 10% health isn't great news, and while the performance might still be okay for now, you should tread carefully. Mechanical drives wear down over time, and a significant drop in health can indicate impending failure. You might not see issues immediately, but expect things like increased loading times or unpredictable performance as you use it further. Just be aware it could fail at any time, and try to keep backups of any important data you may have.
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