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From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.misc
Subject: Disc reliability
Message-ID: <15376@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Aug-87 15:58:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: onfcanim.15376
Posted: Wed Aug 26 15:58:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 08:56:31 EDT
References: <1246@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <768@custom.UUCP> <202@ttrdd.UUCP> <261NU013809@NDSUVM1>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Organization: National Film Board / Office national du film, Montreal
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Xref: mnetor comp.sys.ibm.pc:7180 comp.misc:1117

Are all small hard disks unreliable compared with good large ones?

The context: We have a VAX with a few Fujitsu Eagles on it.  The specified
MTBF for these drives is 40000 hours (about 4.5 years), and I'm willing to
believe that because, other than one HDA that suffered from infant mortality,
they have been running for more than 2 years, 24 hours a day, without a
single failure.

On the other hand, we have a few workstations with Vertex 70 Mb hard
disks (5 1/4 inch full height) that seems to have a MTBF of something
under 1 year.  The major problem seems to be drive bearings that get
too stiff for the motor to turn.

Now, is this just a bad example, or are there 5 1/4 inch disks that do have
MTBF's in the range of several years when run 24 hours a day?