Stop using older disks before they fail

We recommend replacing older disk drives even if they have not yet failed. As disks age, the chance of failure increases significantly. It is always better to replace a disk proactively than to wait for it to fail and face an emergency restoration from backup.

SSDs and Flash Media

Most SSDs contain wear indicators that show how much usable life remains, counting down from 100% to 0%.

• Replace when media life remaining drops below 10%
• The media life remaining for each SSD is shown in the disk tile in SoftRAID
• SoftRAID Monitor will warn you when any SSD falls below 10% remaining life
• Do not certify SSDs below 10% — intensive write operations may accelerate failure

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) — Recommended Replacement Thresholds

Laptop HDDs are smaller and less reliable than desktop drives, and are subject to additional physical stress from being carried and moved.

Desktop and external HDDs are more reliable but are subjected to repeated power cycling stress. External drives that are frequently powered on and off age faster than those left running continuously.

Server HDDs are typically well-cooled and not subject to power cycling, but often experience periods of intense activity. In a 24/7 server environment, 25,000 hours corresponds to approximately 2–3 years of continuous operation.

SSDs in Laptops

We recommend replacing laptop SSDs after 20,000 hours of use. SSDs last significantly longer than HDDs in laptops, but the combination of heat, power cycling, and sustained workloads in a laptop environment does reduce lifespan compared to desktop SSDs.

Important Notes

• These are conservative, proactive recommendations — a disk may continue functioning beyond these thresholds, but failure risk increases substantially
• Always monitor SMART data in SoftRAID regardless of age — a younger disk can still develop problems
• RAID is not a backup — even with redundancy, replace aging drives and maintain current backups

For more detail on SMART warnings and failure indicators, see our FAQ: ”Replace a Disk When SoftRAID Reports Disk Errors“.