Notebook class hard drive failure rates

[Juddog]

Something I noticed lately is that I seem to be noticing an increased level of hard failure rates over the past year or two where I work.

I go to the hard drive manufacturer site and it will list MTBF at 1,000,000 hours which would be a failure rate around 1%, yet I've personally witnessed a failure rate this past year of around 10-15 % - way way higher than the manufacturer claims.

Now I know that laptops get beaten up going through airports, thrown around during shipping and such but close to ten times the manufacturer failure rate seems a bit high. Has anybody else noticed an increasing degree of failure rates or is it just us?

To me it seems like the increase started somewhere around 2007 or so. We have desktops running the exact same software and image build that seem to have a way lower failure rate. On the positive side though, the hard drives themselves have grown amazingly cheap, so the actual cost to replace (which is typically covered under warranty anyways) is lower for the OEM's like Dell and Lenovo.

 

[shortylickens]

The reason no one responded for 5 hours is this question is in the wrong forum.

 

[thescreensavers]

I have yet to have a HD failure. I hope I dont have any soon.

 

[alkemyst]

I support the hardware infrastructure at my company...I will say in the last few years OEM HD's are proving 3 years is a typical lifespan today. Usually these are all Western Digital in our Dells. Occasionally a Seagate. However, in my personal experience both my WD's and Seagates have proven to live past their warranty period of 5 years that I buy at. Usually by that time I have moved them to non-critical storage.

 

[Fox5]

Laptop hard drives have higher failure rates due to the abuse laptop hard drives go through. They can't dissipate heat as quickly, so even just constant usage or installing things raises temperatures that in a poorly designed laptop will kill the drive.
They also have to deal with operating at off angles and movement.

I've seen very few desktop harddrives fail in my lifetime, but a very large amount of laptop drives fail. IMO, the laptop market is one in which SSDs are almost critical, though normal hard drives are still cheap enough to be disposable.

 

[IGBT]

hwo bouts the new solid state flash drives??

 

[Leros]

My dell laptop is on its third harddrive. Something in the laptop kills them after about 6 months. Its cheaper to replace than buy a new laptop though.

 

[RU482]

Hitachi 5k160 series. SUCKS ASS!!! PATA and SATA

Not to talk bad about Hitachi. the 5k100, 5k250, and 5k320 series are all very reliable in my experience (we have ~3k in the field of the various flavors).

I also heard Panasonic Toughbook customers are having big problems with the 5k160 series.

 

[thescreensavers]

Once SSD's do come down in price I am going to buy one for my laptop. Or maybe 2 and raid them

 

[funkymatt]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I support the hardware infrastructure at my company...I will say in the last few years OEM HD's are proving 3 years is a typical lifespan today. Usually these are all Western Digital in our Dells. Occasionally a Seagate. However, in my personal experience both my WD's and Seagates have proven to live past their warranty period of 5 years that I buy at. Usually by that time I have moved them to non-critical storage.

large OEMs such as Dell get top tier drives that will last much longer than an equivalent Fry's or other retailer's product with a lower failure rate.

 

[thescreensavers]

Originally posted by: funkymatt

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I support the hardware infrastructure at my company...I will say in the last few years OEM HD's are proving 3 years is a typical lifespan today. Usually these are all Western Digital in our Dells. Occasionally a Seagate. However, in my personal experience both my WD's and Seagates have proven to live past their warranty period of 5 years that I buy at. Usually by that time I have moved them to non-critical storage.

large OEMs such as Dell get top tier drives that will last much longer than an equivalent Fry's or other retailer's product with a lower failure rate.

what are you talking about. There is no Supply A and Supply B. HD-XY will always be HD-XY regardless of were its bought.

 

[Eli]

The only HDD I've ever had fail was the IBM Deathstar.

Anyway, how do you translate MTBF into a percentage? It's measured in hours, so do you know how long the laptops are on throughout their life?

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Juddog
Something I noticed lately is that I seem to be noticing an increased level of hard failure rates over the past year or two where I work.

I go to the hard drive manufacturer site and it will list MTBF at 1,000,000 hours which would be a failure rate around 1%, yet I've personally witnessed a failure rate this past year of around 10-15 % - way way higher than the manufacturer claims.

Now I know that laptops get beaten up going through airports, thrown around during shipping and such but close to ten times the manufacturer failure rate seems a bit high. Has anybody else noticed an increasing degree of failure rates or is it just us?

To me it seems like the increase started somewhere around 2007 or so. We have desktops running the exact same software and image build that seem to have a way lower failure rate. On the positive side though, the hard drives themselves have grown amazingly cheap, so the actual cost to replace (which is typically covered under warranty anyways) is lower for the OEM's like Dell and Lenovo.

MTBF doesn't mean what you think it means.

http://www.dansdata.com/raid.htm
http://www.dansdata.com/gz075.htm
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger...apers/mtbf.description
http://searchwindowsserver.tec...d68_gci1171104,00.html