[Dixielandjazz] 3-year life of hard drives?

[Charlie Hull]

That's the first I've heard of recommended replacement life period for a 
hard drive. It depends on the manufacturing quality of the unit, the 
frequency of use, how well the drive was maintained, and it's operating 
environment; High heat will hasten it's demise.. It's true that the 
typical drive has moving parts, which make it eventually susceptible to 
mechanical failure. Non-moving parts such as electronic components are 
also subject to failure.

They're now making hard drives using memory instead of rotating disks 
and heads. No moving parts. They're now available only in relatively low 
capacities and haven't been out long enough to judge their long-term 
reliability.

Routinely backing up to an external hard drive or to an Internet backup 
service will continue to be good insurance with any kind of internal 
storage device.

Charlie Hull
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Ringwald wrote:

I recently lost my hard drive.  A computer tech was able to save it and 
save the info on it.  He told me that he suggests getting a new hard 
drive every 3-years.  This is because the hard drive is the only moving 
part of a computer. The question is not "If it will fail" but "When will 
it fail." Of course he also suggests doing backups faithfully.