Pagefile Constantly Being Accessed

[NyteOwl]

Those are pretty decent for being stressed in Crysis. What is the HDD temps like?

[Stolm]

Just had a message pop in the middle of playing Crysis saying my Hardrive was failing and that I should back everything up.

Could the HD be my problem?

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Stolm

Just had a message pop in the middle of playing Crysis saying my Hardrive was failing and that I should back everything up.

Could the HD be my problem?

Of course.

[NyteOwl]

If the drive is failing, the constant access could eb the drive attempting to relocate data to reserve clusters/sectors.

[Stolm]

If this is the problem, then It must have been failing for months and finally has done enough damage where windows is recognizing its failing.

Anyone have any recommendation for harddrives?

[DarKStar]

Use a tool like EVEREST or SPEEDFAN to check SMART attributes - Check your reallocated sector coun / pending / write error / raw error rate and seek errors - One of your smart values might have reached its threshold - you shouldn't wait for this to happen to back up you should back up from day 1. (Note that for Seagates, a high raw error rate and seek errors are NOT unusual) look for the spinup values/retry, write and seek errors (threshold), temps, reallocated sectors and write errors. Overheat will kill your HD! Keep the temps below 60C! (preferably below 55C)

[NyteOwl]

Anyone have any recommendation for harddrives?

I always recommend Seagate. Over the years hey have proven the most relaiable overall, if not always the fastest or quietest. I just finished putting 4 500GB ES drive in my new build. The ES are a bit more expensive but for tight quarters or RAID where the stress may be greater they are more durable.

Overheat will kill your HD! Keep the temps below 60C! (preferably below 55C)

Heat is the enemy of all electronics and I try and keep all drives below 45C, preferably below 40C. Running them at 55-60C on a regular basis and you'll be replacing them on a regular basis as that is right at the edge of their average maximum operating temperatures. Sometimes it can't be avoided in a high ambient but if it can, operating temps of between 25 and 45 (ambient permitting) are decent and the drives will last a lot longer. To be sure, always check the manufacturers recommended temps for the drives in question.

[DarKStar]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

I always recommend Seagate. Over the years hey have proven the most relaiable overall, if not always the fastest or quietest. I just

I use seagate myself now - but they have gone down in quality over the years comapred to what they were back in the days before Maxtor's fiasco :) If you run a search you will see lot of unhappy Seagate customers, everything from noisy drives to clicking/failing drives - Have you ever looked at SMART readings on Seagate drives ? They have an unusually high seek error rates and raw error rates - apparently this is said to be "normal" for seagate drive - but I guess buying Seagate is a gamble nowadays.... I still get them but I buy them in pairs as I chose the lesser of evil.

Heat is the enemy of all electronics and I try and keep all drives below 45C, preferably below 40C. Running them at 55-60C on a regular basis and you'll be

You should never run them that hot - Some of my older MAxtor drives were known to run hot, and I've ran them for years above 55C, 24/7, they ran fine, not a single error! But those Seagates for examples should not run that high, if you do run them in that range then you have air flow problems. The seagates are usually rated at 60C, but that's damn hot ! All my seagates MAX temperature ever run at during stress and extreme hot room temps never exceeded 47C.

replacing them on a regular basis as that is right at the edge of their average maximum operating temperatures. Sometimes it can't be avoided in a high ambient but if it can, operating temps of between 25 and 45 (ambient permitting) are decent and the drives will last a lot longer. To be sure, always check the manufacturers recommended temps for the drives in question.

...and if you cannot find specs or are not sure, then use the magical number "50" as a bseline - and no matter they are rated it, keep everything under 50C and you'll be happy ;)