Sunday, February 18th 2007
Google Claims Hard Drives Don’t Fail Because of High Temperature or Usage
One common argument in the world of computing is that high temperatures make hard drives more likely to fail, and the same is said for high usage levels. However, when conducting internal research, search giant Google suggests that this is only true for hard drives in their first months of operation or once they are over five years old. According to Google, there are so many other variables that the biggest factor in the lifetime of hard drives is actually the model itself rather than the conditions. In fact, Google saw a trend suggesting that drives are more likely to fail at lower temperatures or extremely high temperatures, and generally speaking, hard drives failed less as temperature increased (until these extremes were reached). As for high usage, the research showed that hard drives only seem to be affected by high usage in the first months or after it is five years old, and other than that the rate of failure was the same as drives in low-usage environments.
Source:
TG Daily
40 Comments on Google Claims Hard Drives Don’t Fail Because of High Temperature or Usage
i have had exp with HUNDREDS of not THOUSANDS of drives, and in my exp WD has the highest fail rate (non raptor drives) the rest are pretty even on fail rate, a bad batch here and there but nothing drastic.
the IBM deathstar drives where made by hitchi, so some people infer that the hitchi deskstar is a "deathstar" when this isnt true, hitchi made those drives to IBM SPEC, they had a high fail rate because IBM ORDERED CRAPPY IC's the burnt themselves out, you could make them worth for YEARS with a simple SMALL heatink on 2 of the IC's.
i still have 3 deathstar ibm drives out in the wild on systems i setup for people, 15-30gb drives, the 15-20gb where the most prone to burn out, and with a small sink stuck to those ic's the fail rate went down to the same level as other brands.
also after hitchi stoped making drives for IBM i conntacted hitchi about a dead ibm branded drive(problem model) they took down the seiral, got back to me in 3 days and sent a replacment NO CHARGE didnt even want the dead drive back, the replacment was 1/3 larger then the one it replaced, and came with full retail kit(5.25 mounts,cables,the works)
the drives i truely miss are fujutsu, great drives and CRAZY GOOD SERVICE!!!
they are south of me maby 1hr drive tops, they sent an airmail container fedex to puckup the drive, then sent one back the next day after fedex drove it down( i would have driven it down, but noo they wouldnt let me drive down and get a tour as they rma'd my drive :P )
(Plus, I am interested in HDD technology myself - slowest part of a PC or not, I find it the MOST fascinating & largely the work I do depends on FAST disks, as its mostly file based in nature, writing code)Well, you make a point on WD & in your personal experience (pretty vast, decent sized sample set)? It may be right... for SOME lines they may have made. Most every diskdrive OEM has had, 'bad runs' from what I have seen...
(& I'll make one later that I did earlier here iirc, about WD doing ME right once, REALLY right in fact on RMA)...
The reason(s) I went w/ Raptors is the speed first, but also the "enterprise class" warranty - anyone that put one out like they did for SATA FIRST mind you, of THAT length (5 yr. length - was a precedent/a first for THAT class of disk) is VERY CONFIDENT in their hardware imo... a good sign!
Also, as far as WD disks (edit part here)? I have a shoebox FULL of 242-424mb WD IDE Caviars that STILL RUN FINE to this very day... I put them into a 486 I have here (one of my first machines in fact: VLB Diamond SpeedStar 64 Windows Accelerator, 486 Dx/4 133mhz, 32mb FastPage 30-pin RAM 70ns speed, ISA/VLB mobo, & VLB TekRam Caching IDE controller w/16mb RAM onboard in SIMMS (fastpage 60ns ones))Yea, I remember that 'scenario/shenanigan'... reminds me of the Micheal Douglas film "DISCLOSURE" in a way, & what happened to the Cd-Rom readers the company in the film had problems with.
AND, what Hitachi did, also reminds me of the "Mazda Rotary Engine" in a way too... Wankel (its designer for use in automobiles) tried to sell it to the US "Big 3" Chevy, Ford, & Chrysler in the 1970's iirc (I used to see it advertised in comic books no less, believe it or not, on the pages between the panels for the comic where adverts are).... none of them 'bit'.
Mazda did, debugged whatever it was that the "Big 3" were unable or unwilling to do, & made a HIT of it.I have a tale to 'regale you w/' on that note also, but from WD, & regarding 1 of the 1st 2 raptors I bought (first gen. 36gb units, back in 2002-2003 iirc): 1 went belly up in 3-4 weeks time or so, & what did WD do?
LOL, they did me WAY right - they did me an RMA & sent me back a FASTER & 2x as large 74gb unit SATA Raptor... gratis/NO charge!
Can't beat that!
:)
I am still running BOTH disks, to this day mind you, almost 5 yrs. later in fact, nearly NON-STOP on the 74gb unit in fact, in an external drive SATA/SATA 2 capable external enclosure... in my 2nd home lab machine here, the original 36gb unit also runs, but not all the time. ONLY when I need to do some learning work here, or playing catch up ball @ home for jobs.
Still, that first & OLDEST 36gb unit saw a GOOD 3-4 yrs. of CONSTANT uptime/turned on use, when my 2nd lab rig (now a SQLServer2005/IIS6.x on Windows Server 2003) was my primary rig, 2002 - 2006.I think much of this is also "luck of the draw", but when a manufacturer has a GOOD line, w/ good reviews & good solid performance plus durability & you have good experiences over time w/ them?
You tend to STICK BY THEM...
(They all have had "bad runs" outta production on various models though, @ least, I would hazard a good guess this is true to @ least SOME extent!)
APK
and seagate had 5 year warr on ALL drives when wd was still 1year or 5 year, the wd put 3 year on SOME drives(watch it some still state 1 year, saw one at frys a couple weeks ago ROFL)
and i stick with anything but wd, really in my exp the seek time diffrance between seagate and WD and maxtor and hitchi and samsung and on and on is VERY CLOSE for normal drives, the new seagate drives(and hitchi based on same tech) are GREAT, but seek times are missleading if you go by the published marketing specs,
seagate lists TRUE avg seek times, hitchi same, WD well in my exp they list Min seek times as avg(this can be done by partitioning the drive so the tests only acctualy done on the fastest parts of the drive for each test)
maxtor, well they use to use avg, then they went to min then back to avg, duno about now, but on a whole i have had good exp with them since the 8gb days, very fast service, very durable drives(ever seen a 200gb get so hot the paint on the bottem starts to peel then the drives still useable? )
anybody with dead hdd's take them apart and remove the magnets ^^ strong little magnets great for all sorts of projects :D
and APK take a look at the SDram drives if you need max speed, i have seen them as large as 300gb recently, that would be INSAIN, ur board couldnt keep up ROFL
I can't knock that.Not for the Raptors I use they're not... 10,000 rpm WAS an "industry first" for SATA, period, & this one I am certain of. Heck, it still is a first - nobody else has this on SATA that I know of, unless you know of another that does & seek time?
HUGELY dependent on revolution rates. This is WHY 15,000 rpm offerings from the SCSI world blow away even my Raptors on that account (seek/access).
Afaik & still (for SATA/SATA 2), an industry precedent by Western Digital.
As far as HDTach testing here though we did?
I pretty much 'swept the floor' on most all tests here w/ my setup, OVERALL!
Seek times were one of the factors where I took a "1st place" in the field of contestants (& here I really "blew away" all others)...
CPU usage was another I took "1st place" in, but I use a CACHING CONTROLLER w/ 128mb RAM on it, that has its OWN "I/O Brain/CPU" onboard for offloading the mainboard general purpose CPU running disk I/O as most systems do... so, that said? I can't claim that first place of mine (2nd of two in the tests) was a result of the drives themselves. It was the controller.
Transfer & Burst rates, the new 'perpendicular recording' disks too me out though... but, not so much I was like "in last place" in those areas, & not by a long shot iirc.
Like I said, overall, in our "real world test" here (as real as benchmark tests get @ least)? Overall, I took the most 'firsts' & overall, had the highest avg. placement of all testers in all categories tested (4 iirc)... some guys came close, but no cigar beating my setup disks wise.My experience isn't solely really based on specs alone though (I know folks & companies tend to 'puff things & bend them up' a bit in their favor, this is natural):
Like you, it's based on actual tests we did here, & an overall aggregate of all the tested areas in HDTach (except writes, this I wanted to do as well, but we didn't)... & of course, years in the field like anyone else w/ time served in it.
My seek times, if you look up the test? LITERALLY were "orders of magnitude faster" due to RPM speed of the raptors I use.I'll take a peek but... I have a Solid-State disk!
It's an older one by CENATEK called a "RocketDrive", how I use them is noted in my signature below!
(I did a review on them in fact they featured for AGES on the front page of their corporate website, done initially back in 2003, which they featured on the FRONT PAGE no less over many others like it from other sources of great respect no less for it & know what they're about, from 2003-2007, but no longer, lol... they must have gotten wind of me talking about the DDR-Drive now, oh well!)...
An Independent User's Review of CENATEK RocketDrive
Page is down now, it was linked from a server I have had some trouble w/ the webmaster 'moving things around' on it periodically & messing that up (3rd time this has happened now)... oh well! Write them if you wish... no biggie. They'll verify it.
Original URL was here -> www.avatar.demon.nl/cenatek.html
(Time to write the webmaster & see wtf happened to it, ugh!)
They knew who I was from the mid 90's when I did a software ramdisk based off the MS DDK prototype driver, w/ a GUI reparameterizing front end for it... when I called them they said "Yea, we know who you are, a competitor"... it was funny when I told them I wanted to do a review of their board & they felt I was 'competition'...
HOWEVER, I am waiting on the DDR-Drive X1 PCI-e 1x to release! I think it's going to be "the superior warrior" out there when it comes out for THIS type of drive.
The maker (DDRDrive/Chris George) has communicated w/ myself in "PM'ing" here directly, & w/ W1zzard as well... they're a bit behind schedule @ this point, but I am patiently waiting for it...
The DDRDriveX1, imo, has a better BUS (PCI-e 1x, vs. PCI 2.2 on my CENATEK RocketDrive), Faster RAM (DDR400, vs. PC-133 SDRAM) & the RAM is a better match to its bus speed, than is say the others from HyperOS III &/or Gigabyte (IRAM) as well!Could be... I just know about WD putting them onto the 36gb & to me? It was a first, for them @ least. In any event, like I said above? Any oem that does that, doubling (almost iirc) the competition's warranty length has good product odds are, & is confident in it.
Anyhow - time to SLEEP!!! Catch some "ZZZZzzzzz²²²²'s", FINALLY! G'nite, talk to you in A.M. or later if you reply... as usual, nice LONG conversations between us, many GOOD points etc. et al & detail.
APK
P.S.=> I tested the CENATEK RocketDrive here on that test, but in another thread w/ another user, & lol, I think I put the link to it into the HDTach formal test we did... HDTach couldn't even GET a reading (it did but MEGA LOW & MEGA FAST), it got 0ns in fact, for seek time on it... apk
*ahem*
However its unfair to compare regular WD drives to raptors - they ARE enterprise class, and reliability would be a mile above any normal desktop part.
I get busted on for it @ times, & you're NOT the first!
It's largely my use of quoting!
It doesn't help for length, but... it does for me replying to the poster I am replying to - so I don't miss any of their points, because I am replying, point-by-point!
(It makes me wonder, if folks feel my posts are long, what they must go thru reading article's @ say, Microsoft TechNet, or even reviews from various websites for "other things computing" etc. et al?)They're SATA, & just another diskdrive: Albeit, a FASTER one in terms of seek speed & revolution rate being where many UltraScSi drives are is the reason WHY... they go hand-in-hand (rpm & seek/access).
APK
P.S.=> One thing you'll note is, that when AshenSugar & I "go @ it" especially? The conversations get VERY long... lol! I find him interesting to talk to/with, & he generally gives me a HELL OF A RUN FOR MY MONEY, everytime! apk
You will one day, if you have not already made decent money for something you LOVE & UNDERSTAND (ala Lynyrd Skynyrd tune lyric - best place you can be in this life imo!)
Work, is work, is work... might as well make it as enjoyable as you can, because when you come RIGHT DOWN TO IT?
We're ALL 'prostituting' ourselves, & selling the most precious thing there is: OUR TIME (which IS limited)...
:)
* You're "A-OK" in my book...
APK
:)
* By the way - that term's NOT mine, I got it from other coders I have met... it made me laff, because it IS largely true!
(Our pimps? Headhunters!)
APK
I also run Raptors ,74's wanting to get 4more big girlz (150GB):eek:
I absolutely love them !! I have the 74's on my vapo-rig and raid-0 and i clock that wattage sucking baby of mine with crazy crashes when I am a tinkering and putting the fiddle to her and them babies have never -ever failed me in any way!!! The raptors in a array are just the $h1T way better than any single ide I have ever had .
I cant wait to array this rig or maybe my next one with the 4x150's(big girlz):)
PS
normally the whole inside of my vapo rig is a min of 15 Celsius , so any drive would be getting spoiled in there,but still.
Plus, & I knew about StorageReview (great side for comparing disks before you buy - IF you have never stopped by there, & like disks? DO! Their comparison DB is awesome, & easy to use, & tests MANY kinds of use-patterns w/ legit results from some VERY respected testing programs out there (for server types, & end user types too)).They're GREAT disks, I absolutely agree, OR I would not have bought them...
However, there IS 1 feature I would LOVE to see incorporated into them:
Perpendicular Recording Technology that Seagate has... it DOES work, fast transfers!!!
Our HDTach tests here showed me THAT much, I couldn't dispute that...
Only question I have on it, is longevity - it IS a new technology is why I am wondering & waiting to see failure rates on it for... with disks that use it, that is.
My guess is, it was tested by folks @ Seagate & DOES last... hopefully!
Would be NICE to see incorporated into WD 10k rpm disks too, like Raptors!Sounds like it is a hellish system, especially on the 'advanced cooling' stuff!
I am not a Hydro-Cooler OR Refrigeration user etc. (air man here)... & sounds as if you are about to make it "that much better" in time!
:)
* Nothing wrong w/ that!
APK
You'd have to read up on it, & see the illustrations to see what I mean... they can pack a LOT more into 1 area (increasing 'aereal platter density' iirc, is the correct tech term)!
Thus, the heads pass over a LOT MORE DATA in smaller areas than std. disks can put down into the SAME amoutn of area, & it allows them to pick up MORE @ once!
(Something VERY like that, & I don't think you can just firmware change how that works...)
APK
P.S.=> In any event, I'd love to see either WD using that tech (probably can't, patents & what-not) OR to see Seagate intro. a perp. tech. disk w/ 10k rpm speeds for faster seeks... they rule the data transfer area because of perp. tech., but it remains to see how durable that new tech, really is... pretty new, & thus, subject to seeing how long it lasts etc., imo @ least... apk