MTBF is mooseshit, according to study.

CougTek

CougTek

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http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6404

According to Carnegie researchers, manufacturer MTBF ratings are highly overrated. Take for example the Seagate Cheetah X15 series, which has a MTBF rating of 1.5 million hours. This equates to roughly over 171 years of constant service before problems. Carnegie's researchers said however that customers should expect a more reasonable 9 to 11 years. Interestingly, real world tests in the study showed a consistent average failure of about six years.

The average replacement rate of drives ranged from 2-percent to a whopping 13-percent annually, indicating that there is a need for manufacturers to reevaluate the way a MTBF rating is generated. Worst of all, these rates were for drives with MTBF ratings between 1 million and 1.5 million hours.
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Also, scuzzy drives with a high price premium aren't any more reliable than their cheap SATA conterparts, always according to their study. With a 100,000 drives sample, I'm quite confident that their results are fairly accurate.
 
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paugie

Storage is cool
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The first time I read Drive SpecSheets I was so impressed with the MTBF ratings. Impressed or no, I was sceptical, and took it to be a marketing ploy.

When most of the manufacturer's dropped their warranties to 1 year, I said, that seems like a better indicator of drive longevity than the MTBF ratings.

Today? I don't care about what they print in the brochurs. When I picked up an 80Gb Seagate SATA drive weighing less than what a Maxtor 1-platter drive of 4 years ago, I just pray.
 
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