Trying to understand if this old Toshiba HDD is usable

Question

I just salvaged this very old Toshiba HDD (from 2014). I installed it in my PC, formatted and ran a CrystalDiskInfo. It shows very little usage and is marked as healthy, but all the parameters seem through the roof. I don't really understand what that means, since I don't really know anything about this kind of stuff. Here's a screen capture of the CrystalDiskInfo results:

Please help read into those numbers to figure out if this old drive is worth using or I'm better off just recycling it.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Please do look at the raw values instead of the misleading "normalized values". If you check a brand new disk you will notice that nearly all the raw values start with a figure of zero. Temperature is an exception for instance.

Then only raw value that might disturb you is Spin-Up Time but this figure is most likely a combined attribute like temperature.

I would continue using this drive but as your drive is running at an elevated 7200 rpm instead of a low 5400 rpm it needs more power and therefore generates more heat. It seems that you already reached a temperature maximum of 50° Celsius which diminishes life expectancy. Install a fan - especially when operating in high ambient temperatures above 23° Celsius.

Answer 2

Your SMART attributes are not "through the roof", they are actually quite perfect and show that the disk has no problem.

This is a common misunderstanding of how these normalized values are calculated.

I quote From NTFS.com S.M.A.R.T. Attributes:

Attribute values can range from 1 to 253 (1 representing the worst case and 253 representing the best). Depending on the manufacturer, a value of 100 or 200 will often be chosen as the "normal" value.

These values go down as errors are found, and the firmware will disable writing to the disk when they approach zero.

This disk looks to be in an excellent condition, in spite of its age.

As magnetic values may degrade over time, even if the disk was not powered on, I would suggest to format it using slow (not quick) format. This would also be a good test, so afterward better check again the SMART values, to see if there was any degradation.