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Disk Drive Failures 15 Times What Vendors Say

Posted by Zonk on from the cough-sputter-wheeze-choke dept.

jcatcw writes "A Carnegie Mellon University study indicates that customers are replacing disk drives more frequently than vendor estimates of mean time to failure (MTTF) would require.. The study examined large production systems, including high-performance computing sites and Internet services sites running SCSI, FC and SATA drives. The data sheets for the drives indicated MTTF between 1 and 1.5 million hours. That should mean annual failure rates of 0.88%, annual replacement rates were between 2% and 4%. The study also shows no evidence that Fibre Channel drives are any more reliable than SATA drives."

13 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. it's relative. by User+956 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The data sheets for the drives indicated MTTF between 1 and 1.5 million hours.

    Yeah, but I bet they didn't say what planet those hours are on.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:it's relative. by bigtangringo · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or what percentage of the speed of light they were traveling.

      --
      Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
  2. And that's a really wide range by VampireByte · · Score: 2, Funny

    I feel sorry for anyone buying drives on the low end of that range. A MTTF of 1 hour really sucks.

    --

    Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.

  3. Re:Repeat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I read so much from the firehose these days, I can't tell a dupe from the scoop anymore. I guess I need a new tag - dejavu.

  4. Redundancy by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought storage-related redundancy was supposed to be a good thing ;)

    1. Re:Redundancy by georgewilliamherbert · · Score: 5, Funny

      Redundant Array of Irritating Discussions?

  5. No way by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    High rate of failure? That's a bunch of

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  6. Re:Seagate by CelticWhisper · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well, duh. Why do you think they used to call them Fireballs?

    --
    Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
    http://www.tsanewsblog.com
  7. Re:Personally I am SHOCKED by binarybum · · Score: 4, Funny

    yeah, I used to think they were dirty bastards, but they just work on a different scale than the rest of us.
        The trick is to purchase your HD in pennies.

      "100,000 pennies! why that's 1024 dollars!!"

    --
    ôó
  8. Re:Repeat? by Detritus · · Score: 2, Funny

    There's also a non-zero probability that all of the air molecules in a room will rush to the corner of the room, suffocating the occupants.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  9. Re:Repeat? by Baddas · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just think what a fantastic way to die that would be. You'd get all kinds of notoriety.

  10. Re:Personally I am SHOCKED by Ryan+Mallon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why do you think FORTRAN is one of the oldest computing languages in existence?

    Because it was invented before most other computer languages? Is this a trick question ;-)

  11. Re:Even better ... by vux984 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Alrighty then... I'll just replace them before I install them ;)