lifetime of a harddisk

[rookie1010]

Hi
What affects the lifetime of a harddisk?

 

[Kangaroo]

the lifespan of a hard disk is very unpredictable because they are one of the only pieces of computer hardware that is mechanical - along with CD-ROM's.

I normally give every piece of hardware 2 - 3 years, ~2 especially for hard drives. But it all depends on how you treat them.

 

[YourPrinter]

my computer has NO fans except power supply and cpu fan
my hard drives over 4 years old i would say its the heat because my computer never gets hot unless i block the fans

 

[preet2u]

One of the major reason's for hardisk's to fail is improper power supply's .... Voltage fluctuations play a major role in a harddrive's life span..

Another big thing is the way they are mounted ... Improper placement of harddrives,cause both vibration n' could lead to alignment issues...

If everything's fine ....then a harddrive should last atleast 4-5 yrs without a problem.

 

[FireFox]

mine has lasted around 7-10....and it just died......but the other one that is just as old is still going...

 

[rookie1010]

my second hard drive which is a secondary slave is playing up. i dont know if it is the IDE controller or the drive.

yesterday i could not see it, then when i resterted my machine i could see it.

today when i restarted my machine, the computer would just hang in BIOs and not see any IDE devices, till i unpowered my drive.

what do you guys think

hard drive or IDE Controller?

 

[Kangaroo]

I think I renew my components too often

I am practically always updating my computer - but to be honest with you all about the lifespan of components; I have 3 computers dating over 5 years and none of the components have died.

 

[hilowe]

My parents bought a computer when I was 14 that they recently threw out. I'm now 24, and the only thing that was done to it was to add a CD drive, because someone bought a game for me for my birthday one year, and it needed to run off the CD.

Thank god they pitched that thing.

 

[ekÆsine]

i think you guys are low-balling it too much. the average lifespan of a hard disk is probably 10-20 years i would say, depending on usage. i mean really, in schools and colleges they still run those old, ancient machines with the original hard disks from like 1990 ...at least at my schools they still do, and the machines are left on almost 24/7.

i'm sure they do not even have power management on for the HDD's. if they can make HDD that reliable back then, the new hard disks maybe just as good, although they had much lower RPM's back then.

 

[mrsp2man]

I have two hdd's on a pentium one computer that must be around seven years old both were installed at the time that the computer was built and they both still work. The computer was almost always left on untill about one year ago when I finally decided to upgrade to a p4 . I think the trick to a long life of a hdd is to let it run cool and make it so that the drive has to spin up a minimal amount of times in it's lifespsan.