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unlike consumer drives which statistically are never replaced under guarantee They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for repl

unlike consumer drives which statistically are never replaced under guarantee They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?

VLM 12y ago
Yes. I have an old 250 GB sitting on my desk at home. Waste the time arguing on the phone and getting a RMA and package it up and drive out to ship it back to get a "new" 250G drive (uh ... thanks?), or order a new 2TB, about the same cost. And this is only with technologically inclined consumers, most are just going to return the whole computer or get a new computer. At a business that is probably some MBA metric and has been budgeted for and is salaried anyway, and you need to prove I'm not just taking drives home to put in my basement server, so they have to be destroyed or sent back, and there may or may not be PCI / CPNI type concerns, so yeah, they get sent back.
theworst 12y ago
With a shorter guarantee, consumer drives have less time in which to fail and be replaced without charge.
justcommenting 12y ago
i am a statistical anomaly, then, as someone who tracks warranty expirations in a spreadsheet and always makes sure to wipe & sell old drives before they go out of warranty. in the 20 years i've owned hard drives, i've always had failed drives replaced! drives with longer warranties generally cost more in the consumer segment, and data like this could help people identify the "sweet spot" balancing cost with risk of failure, warranty length, and depreciation curves for storage. my "ancedata" suggests somewhere between 2 and 3 year warranties seems about right for consumer drives these days...
- jmulho 12y ago
  In twenty years, how many hard drives have you had, and how many failed? I've had eight or ten (counting home and work) and just one failed. I had one I used daily for over a decade.
larrys 12y ago
"They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?" There is another paradox as well. Some people won't ask for replacement because assuming you have to send in the bricked drive there is the chance that someone might get at your data somehow. What about that? (It's why I would never send in a drive that has failed.) [1] [1] My assumption is that I would have to send in the bad drive (and there is no way to reformat or for me to easily destroy what might be on there). Anyone have experience with what happens here?
- spindritf 12y ago
  I encrypt my drives anyway. If they can reanimate the drive and crack the encryption, well, they deserve to see the data.
  - larrys 12y ago
    Question (not a statement). Doesn't encrypting the drive also prevent you from recovering some of the information on the disk by way of drive recovery utilities? So for example you might want to encrypt something super sensitive (which I do) but decide to not encrypt something less sensitive (say photos or perhaps a wiki with notes or letters to your grandma or wife or sig other). Point being that if the drive isn't encrypted you might be able to get at some of that data. (If you need to). If you've encrypted the drive then can you still do that?
    - spindritf 12y ago
      Yes, the data will probably be completely irrecoverable from an encrypted drive. However, instead of hoping that you will be able to recover data from a broken drive, back it up. I strongly recommend Tarsnap[1] for that. All your data is encrypted before it leaves your machine, it is run by our very own 'cperciva, and the key used for encryption (which you need to store securely somewhere, like your parents' house or a bank) can even be printed so hard to destroy accidentally. The key itself can be encrypted, too. You can use the same password you use to encrypt the drive and now you safely and securely store all your data in such a way that only you can ever access it by remembering a single, longer phrase. (Although to be fair, another backup would probably be a good idea if the data is really important. Maybe another encrypted hard drive kept at work.) [1] https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.tarsnap.com/

unlike consumer drives which statistically are never replaced under guarantee They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?

VLM 12y ago

Yes. I have an old 250 GB sitting on my desk at home. Waste the time arguing on the phone and getting a RMA and package it up and drive out to ship it back to get a "new" 250G drive (uh ... thanks?), or order a new 2TB, about the same cost. And this is only with technologically inclined consumers, most are just going to return the whole computer or get a new computer. At a business that is probably some MBA metric and has been budgeted for and is salaried anyway, and you need to prove I'm not just taking drives home to put in my basement server, so they have to be destroyed or sent back, and there may or may not be PCI / CPNI type concerns, so yeah, they get sent back.

theworst 12y ago

With a shorter guarantee, consumer drives have less time in which to fail and be replaced without charge.

justcommenting 12y ago

i am a statistical anomaly, then, as someone who tracks warranty expirations in a spreadsheet and always makes sure to wipe & sell old drives before they go out of warranty. in the 20 years i've owned hard drives, i've always had failed drives replaced! drives with longer warranties generally cost more in the consumer segment, and data like this could help people identify the "sweet spot" balancing cost with risk of failure, warranty length, and depreciation curves for storage. my "ancedata" suggests somewhere between 2 and 3 year warranties seems about right for consumer drives these days...

jmulho 12y ago
In twenty years, how many hard drives have you had, and how many failed? I've had eight or ten (counting home and work) and just one failed. I had one I used daily for over a decade.

larrys 12y ago

"They're never replaced because regular consumers statistically don't ask for replacement and simply eat the loss?" There is another paradox as well. Some people won't ask for replacement because assuming you have to send in the bricked drive there is the chance that someone might get at your data somehow. What about that? (It's why I would never send in a drive that has failed.) [1] [1] My assumption is that I would have to send in the bad drive (and there is no way to reformat or for me to easily destroy what might be on there). Anyone have experience with what happens here?

spindritf 12y ago
I encrypt my drives anyway. If they can reanimate the drive and crack the encryption, well, they deserve to see the data.
- larrys 12y ago
  Question (not a statement). Doesn't encrypting the drive also prevent you from recovering some of the information on the disk by way of drive recovery utilities? So for example you might want to encrypt something super sensitive (which I do) but decide to not encrypt something less sensitive (say photos or perhaps a wiki with notes or letters to your grandma or wife or sig other). Point being that if the drive isn't encrypted you might be able to get at some of that data. (If you need to). If you've encrypted the drive then can you still do that?
  - spindritf 12y ago
    Yes, the data will probably be completely irrecoverable from an encrypted drive. However, instead of hoping that you will be able to recover data from a broken drive, back it up. I strongly recommend Tarsnap[1] for that. All your data is encrypted before it leaves your machine, it is run by our very own 'cperciva, and the key used for encryption (which you need to store securely somewhere, like your parents' house or a bank) can even be printed so hard to destroy accidentally. The key itself can be encrypted, too. You can use the same password you use to encrypt the drive and now you safely and securely store all your data in such a way that only you can ever access it by remembering a single, longer phrase. (Although to be fair, another backup would probably be a good idea if the data is really important. Maybe another encrypted hard drive kept at work.) [1] https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.tarsnap.com/