HDD Burn-in?

[Dylan]

Basically title (not ssd/nvme drives)

Does anyone burn-in HDD's prior to deployment? I can see the potential value especially when (in my case) I use a few select sized disks very targeted for my specific use-case. My cost per disk is ~$175-$250 (eventually) totaling >8 drives, less spares. Given "bad batch failures" it kind of makes sense - again for my use-case.

However, I've lived in data-center's and managed thousands and 10 to 100's of thousands disks where this wasn't performed. Likely due to a cost/time benefit. Meaning, for a production environment generating $millions it just wasn't worth the time.

Scale that down to me, and maybe it does.

What about you?

[PsychoWards]

Hey,

I just did 24h Mem Test, to be sure that the Memory is stable, but I didn't do any HDD burn in.

My data is coming from a working NAS and I still have multiple copies of the imported files and I'm running a RaidZ2, so I'm taking my chances and hope that I'm not gonna lose 3 drives at the same time 🙂
 

Technically, I would need to loose at least 9 drives in various different NAS all at the same time before I start loosing my most important data.

So yes, a dead drive is really more a nuisance at this point then a real issue with my current setup.

[Mawson]

I always burn in my disks for 100+ hours so that music sounds better when I stream the files from them. Sometimes I'll do it in the presence of certain crystals if I'm trying to emphasize certain frequency ranges for specific genres.

[ulfn]

  On 2/16/2025 at 3:15 AM, Mawson said:

I always burn in my disks for 100+ hours so that music sounds better when I stream the files from them. Sometimes I'll do it in the presence of certain crystals if I'm trying to emphasize certain frequency ranges for specific genres.

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Now we’re getting into hifi/audiophile territory 😉 In those circles burn-in is a serious thing, The ”truth” there is, it always takes time for electronic products, cables and speaker cones to sound their best, They need sometimes a couple hundred hours to settle in, from new.  

So, with hard drives as this topic by @Dylan deals with, is there a standardized method to do this burn-in? Hard drives are kind of mechanical devices, so could make sense. I guess all this isn’t just ”tongue-in-cheek”?! 

[Mobius]

I've also never heard of burning in HDDs

If i had to guess it probably stems from if its defective, itll fail during the burn in period 
but i could be wrong.

[ulfn]

  On 2/16/2025 at 6:39 AM, ulfn said:

Now we’re getting into hifi/audiophile territory 😉 In those circles burn-in is a serious thing, The ”truth” there is, it always takes time for electronic products, cables and speaker cones to sound their best, They need sometimes a couple hundred hours to settle in, from new.  

So, with hard drives as this topic by @Dylan deals with, is there a standardized method to do this burn-in? Hard drives are kind of mechanical devices, so could make sense. I guess all this isn’t just ”tongue-in-cheek”?! 

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Talking about hifi components and burn-in, The tubes in my (tube 😉) amplifier need a burn-in, before they have reached their optimum performance. They even need a warm up after start, to reach working temperatures. In hifi circles there’s talk of a psychological burn-in also, so it would take some time for your brain to adapt to the sound. I don’t think that would apply to hard drives in any way, though.

[Mawson]

Yeah the only legetimately useful reason I can think of for "burning in"  Hdds is as a stress tess to be sure they won't fail prematurely.

[Dylan]

  On 2/16/2025 at 8:36 AM, Mawson said:

Yeah the only legetimately useful reason I can think of for "burning in"  Hdds is as a stress tess to be sure they won't fail prematurely.

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The point of a HDD burn-in is exactly that, to catch manufacturer defects (usually bad physical sectors) before you write your data to it, especially if you choose to use refurbished drives. It's not witchcraft it's just an extra step one can take to try and be proactive to HDD health instead of reactive to bad HDD health.

[Theo]

  On 2/16/2025 at 7:13 PM, Dylan said:

The point of a HDD burn-in is exactly that, to catch manufacturer defects (usually bad physical sectors) before you write your data to it, especially if you choose to use refurbished drives.

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Would not just running a Conveyance + Long smart test be enough? 

[Dylan]

  On 2/16/2025 at 7:20 PM, Theo said:

Would not just running a Conveyance + Long smart test be enough? 

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Maybe? Depends on your risk tolerance, I guess. THIS Google study showed iffy results at best. And THIS guys logic is kinda why I was asking; to get a sense if others in the community were as proactive as the linked article.

I can see the benefit, but it also comes with a PITA factor of time which, if measured against failed drives, potential lost data and stupid RMA's might make sense.

[Theo]

  On 2/16/2025 at 8:41 PM, Dylan said:

Maybe? Depends on your risk tolerance, I guess. THIS Google study showed iffy results at best. And THIS guys logic is kinda why I was asking; to get a sense if others in the community were as proactive as the linked article.

I can see the benefit, but it also comes with a PITA factor of time which, if measured against failed drives, potential lost data and stupid RMA's might make sense.

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Interesting, i guess my 'newbie' approach and outlook would be;

• Buy 2 or more drives
• Run conveyance test to ensure not DOA.
• If passed > Run Long SMART test
• If passed > Ok to deploy inside a Raid Pool with at least 1 drive failure acceptable
• If drive fails within RMA Window > Return / replace 'Quickly'
• if drive fails outside RMA window but Inside warranty window > Return / replace 'longer'
• If driver fails outside Warranty window > Open wallet...
   

Again seeing all the drive failure charts, you'll never be able to predict 'when' a drive will fail. but most likely it'll be DOA / within the first year. OR it could die 5-10 years later...
As long as you've got the built in redundancy and backups, you should be ok.

[Dylan]

  On 2/16/2025 at 8:54 PM, Theo said:

As long as you've got the built in redundancy and backups, you should be ok.

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I think this is the most important consideration, even over personal risk tolerance because, with enough redundancy you're good regardless.

[Sonic]

To be honest, I didn’t test so proactively as described in the articuleren. Only a long smart test. I think I am lucky, I didn’t had major issues with HDDs in the past.

But with new HDDs I expect to run more tests 

[PsychoWards]

  On 2/16/2025 at 9:05 PM, Sonic said:

I think I am lucky, I didn’t had major issues with HDDs in the past.

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Lucky you, I had 3 HDDs and 3 SSDs dying on me, 1 HDD was DOA and have 3-4 HDDs with SMART errors indicating they will soon kick the bucket. 1 of the dead HDD and the DOA were WD Red (CMR) and Red Pro, all the other were consumer grade and I got plenty of lifetime out of them.

Thankfully I never lost any important data or data which I cared about.

[ubergeek]

all of my drives are burned in. They are all well used lol

[Mawson]

  On 2/16/2025 at 8:41 PM, Dylan said:

Maybe? Depends on your risk tolerance, I guess. THIS Google study showed iffy results at best. And THIS guys logic is kinda why I was asking; to get a sense if others in the community were as proactive as the linked article.

I can see the benefit, but it also comes with a PITA factor of time which, if measured against failed drives, potential lost data and stupid RMA's might make sense.

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As someone using used and refurbished drives I would love to hear some instructions on how best to do some burn in testing...

[Sonic]

  On 2/16/2025 at 10:42 PM, PsychoWards said:

Lucky you, I had 3 HDDs and 3 SSDs dying on me, 1 HDD was DOA and have 3-4 HDDs with SMART errors indicating they will soon kick the bucket. 1 of the dead HDD and the DOA were WD Red (CMR) and Red Pro, all the other were consumer grade and I got plenty of lifetime out of them.

Thankfully I never lost any important data or data which I cared about.

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For my important data I always use Raid 6 or SHR-2, so that's my safeguard. And for real important data I also have a external cloud backup

[Dylan]

  On 2/17/2025 at 5:50 AM, Mawson said:

As someone using used and refurbished drives I would love to hear some instructions on how best to do some burn in testing...

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Here is a good jumping off point: LINK