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How long do hard drives actually live for?

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Stoic Joker:
Intel has published a good paper on the differences between enterprise and desktop disk drives. 10-pages of good reading for any who might be interested. (Copy attached. It's small.)
 (see attachment in previous post)-40hz (November 13, 2013, 08:59 PM)
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It starts a bit slow, but has some good points on why one should not skimp on hardware. So while the enterprise class drives have sticker shock price tags...there apparently are actually valid technical reasons for them.

40hz:
So while the enterprise class drives have sticker shock price tags...
-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2013, 07:02 AM)
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I didn't think they were that much more expensive than standard drives for what you were getting when I quick price checked a few online.

Seagate Constellation 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0 @ $115 / 2TB @ $196 / 4TB @ $358

WD WD2000FYYZ 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0 @ $199

etc. etc. etc...

I guess it's all about expectations and what you're used to seeing?

mouser:
Let me summarize some conclusions from this and other threads:


* The chance of a catastrophic hard drive failure in any given year is always non-trivial -- people who think there is a one-in-a-thousand chance of hard drive failure are fooling themselves.  Hard drives still fail pretty frequently.
* Sometimes you get some warning -- which is why it's useful to have a SMART drive monitor tool, and to be aware of sounds, etc.  At the first sign of trouble, clone and replace the hard drive and put the old one on the shelf.
* One key question that is a little closer to being answers is one I raised in my post "Should we preemptively retire old hard drives".  This latest article would seem to suggest that after a few years, the rate of failure seems to start increasing, and it really might be a good idea to preemptively replace drives that are 4-5 years old, rather than to assume that a long-lasting drive is something special that will run forever.
* Because it seems clear that for almost all pc components, very high temperatures are bad, and because this is one area where we actually have a little control over -- it's the one area i have started paying more attention to in last years.  So I run tray-resident temperature monitoring software that shows temperatures of all hard drives as well as the cpu, and alerts when they get too high.
* We do not have good data about whether some drives will just run forever.  And we have no good data about which brands and types live longer.

Stoic Joker:
So while the enterprise class drives have sticker shock price tags...
-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2013, 07:02 AM)
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I didn't think they were that much more expensive than standard drives for what you were getting when I quick price checked a few online.
-40hz (November 14, 2013, 09:04 AM)
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For sourcing your own perhaps not, but if you're configuring a server from Dell/HP/etc. the price jump between it's a disk (300GB $120) vs. nearline (300GB $250) vs. enterprise (300GB $380) 10k/15k speeds) will make most people wince visibly. Now prices given are approximate (based on memory), but the jumps are within $20 of what I ran into last time a configured a server from HP ... And are why I go (7200rpm) nearline for storage arrays.

40hz:
For sourcing your own perhaps not
-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2013, 11:54 AM)
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To which I say: DIY or Die! 8)

And our clients love us for it! ;) ;D

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