[vox-tech] Hard drive Reliability

[Bill Broadley]

On 07/22/2013 07:58 PM, Peter Salzman wrote:
> For the past couple of years I've been buying 2TB drives because they're
> so cheap.
>
> But I think I've lost more drives in the last 5 years than I've ever

Same brand?

I've been buying disks at a pretty high rate for some decades now. 
Brands seem to vary quite a bit over time. When I first started the 
Maxtor 212MB (yes MB) was the disk to have.  Seagate, IBM/Hitachi, 
Western Digital have all had their ups and down.  I'd recommend pulling 
up amazon or newegg and look for the most popular drive you can find 
(300 or more reviews) that are generally positive.

Also to stack the odds in your favor:
* minimize vibration however you can, some nice cases have nice soft
   bushing or suspension straps for drives.
* make sure they don't get hot, they do need some air flow
* make sure they get the voltage they need, don't skimp on a power
   supply.

Sadly I've seen some NAS devices that you'd think would be optimized to 
be nice to their disks... that aren't.

> lost in my entire life.  I haven't been keeping records, but I swear it
> feels like many of my drives last 2-3 years.  Are others finding the
> same thing?

I've had bad batches where 75% of 16 drives die with in a few weeks... 
fortunately that's pretty rare.

> Are there any manufacturers known to be more reliable than others?
> Less reliable than others?

It's highly variable.  Even within the same brand there can be good 
models and bad.