# Hard Drives; rpm vs life



## okuma (Dec 14, 2009)

Can any one comment if their is a reduced life of 72'' rpm drives over the 5''' models?
Do any suppliers provide MTBF data?

Thanks in advance for your interest,

Allan


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 14, 2009)

If there is, I've never run into it. Hard drives tend to get too small long before they die.


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## clee01l (Dec 14, 2009)

Most MFGs list the MBTF in their specs. I do not recell if there is a difference betweem 54''rpm and 72'' rpm drives. Typical MBTF for a SATA drive is now over a million hours. And some suggest that MBTF is an unrealistic theoretical value that does not reflect real world use. I have had drives with MBTFs of 3'',''' hrs (34 years) fail after 2-3 years and I have older drives that are still going fine after 7 or 8 years.


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## Winston (Dec 15, 2009)

When drives had ball bearing spindles, RPM was more of an issue than it is now. With fluid bearings, the main isue with RPM is heat. With sufficient airflow, it doesn't mean much either.

Understand that MTBF is really MTTF (Mean Time To Failure). It is the time at which half the pupulation is expected to be dead.

It works the same way as lightbulbs. If you look at the "life" number on the package, that is the time at which half the population is burned out.

Full disclosure: 25 years in the disk drive industry.


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## JohnnyV (Dec 19, 2009)

Google collected data on a 1'',''' disk drives, analyzed it, and wrote it up:
http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf
There's a condensed version here:
http://storagemojo.com/2''7/'2/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/


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## happycranker (Dec 21, 2009)

Well I have a new Drobo and two new 1TB 72'' RPM Hitachi drives and one failed within a month, luckily the Drobo had enough space in the other drive!


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