mpe wrote on 2021-04-21, 09:45:Life expectancy of hard drives is a well researched problem. […]
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Life expectancy of hard drives is a well researched problem.
There is a spike at beginning of their life and they decrease until it gets up again as the drive gets older.
However, with vintage hardware it gets more complicated as these harddrives are unlikely to be used with the same use patters as normal hard drives especially once they became vintage (typically after a longe period of being in storage). But I believe the same rules apply and more you use the drive greater the chance of failure.
I don't believe there is something in the design of old drives that would make them more durable than newer drives.
good point about vintage hardware and it's very different use profile. I have some very old hard drives, but they are 'younger' on some ways than many server hard drives installed in the last 12 months if going by constant usage (although they have racked up many switch on / switch off events!)
some older hard drives may have been better made back when these were expensive items to replace, not sure
generally I have found hard drives to be surprisingly robust and these days, thankfully, there are various adapters to allow the use of sd, cf or other ssd should one fail in an old machine