2006-08-16 08:48:18 · 4 answers · asked by charlie 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
IDE hard drives are stated right on them the length they are expected to last, by the maker! 1 year, two years, three years, usually! You get what you pay for, most the time...
But, realize something about IDE drives. They are rated to run 40% of the time! That means that you turn them off for 14.4 hours each day!
Now. SCSI drives are warranteed for 7 or 10 years, to run 24/7/365! They have a 100% duty cycle!
I run SCSI and IDE, but, the SCSI drives are 10 year Waranty Seagate Cheetah drives, spinning at 10,000 rpm, and can be accessed on 16 tracks concurrently. Great for multi-tasking, multi-processing, and multi-user OSes, such as Linux. http://pclinuxos.com
Great for Linux, Unix, BSD, and Mac! Another reason that Microsoft virus magnet runs upto 50X slower than all the other 800 OSes. Most of which are FREE, and, free!
FREE is freedom of Speech, and the source code is there, also released to the users. So that you have the power to change it.
While 'free' means you can go download it on the internet for free.
I get Scsi drives, used, on ebay, and, after procuring the controllers, and cables, they cost me about 40 cents per Gigabyte of storage. Yep. I am a bargain hunter... I restore "Curbside and Dumpster Donations"!
2006-08-16 09:21:19 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I could last 10 years.. but then again it could theoretically go out at any time. Best to always have a backup of everything.
2006-08-16 08:54:38 · answer #2 · answered by Heatmizer 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5, 10yrs or more in some cases
depends on the kind of environment and usage
2006-08-16 08:54:02 · answer #3 · answered by malung786 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Depends on usuage
I have seen brand new hard drive go bad in a week.
Hard Drives go malfunction
Typically they will last several years
Keep this in mind. 100% of hard drives will fail....................................................eventually
2006-08-16 08:57:16 · answer #4 · answered by timmi900 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋