“Disappointingly, Google omits to mention what might be the most important piece of information of all: which manufacturers have the most failure-prone drives. Perhaps the search giant doesn’t want a lawsuit on its hands, or perhaps it doesn’t want to risk compromising any juicy discounts it might receive from hard drive makers. Nevertheless, Google claims differences in failure rates between drive models or brands are not significant. “In contrast to age-related results, we note that all results shown in the rest of the paper are not affected significantly by the population mix,” the paper says.”Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales @ The Inquirer
- Maker version of a car alarm – The Tesla anti-theft fevice: Eye of Sauron @ MAKE:Blog
- Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales @ The Inquirer
- D-Wave demonstrates quantum computer… or a black box in a fridge @ Ars Technica
- Word on the Street: Is Microsoft Vista Living up to its Hype? @ Futurelooks
- Targus Voice Recording Presenter w/ Laser Pointer @ Legit Reviews
- Vista “Express Upgrade” anything but express @ Ars Technica
- The “New” DRM @ TheTechLounge
- D-Link DI-604 Broadband Router Review: Inexpensive, but is it for you? @ OCModShop
- Identification out of this World @ PC Mechanic
- Paint.Net @ PC Mechanic
- Setting Up a Virtual PC @ PC Mechanic
- Nokia’s New Strategies and Newborns @ Hardware Zone
- Nvidia releases world’s second DX10 app @ The Inquirer
- Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn Herd 4 @ Phoronix
- AMD offers prize on Second Life site @ The Inquirer
- Cooler Master Contest @ Overclockers Online
- Spraycans at dawn! Win an Alphacool LCD Display in our latest competition @ Overclock3d
- Name the Game Contest – Only One Week Left @ NGOHQ
Mommy, where do hard drives go when they die?

The Tech Report has linked to a .pdf article on the failure rate of hard drives. Not many independent studies have been done, so it is hard to say how accurate manufacturers MTBF stats are. Google ought to know as they use an enormous amount of HDDs and they are constantly running, and they are the ones who did the research.