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Hard Disk Quality and Reliability

"Every drive dies; not every drive really lives." -- Braveheart meets 20th century technology. :^)

A hard disk's performance is its most important characteristic--right up until the point where it stops working. Then, suddenly, you don't care how fast it is--or rather, was. You just want it to start working again. (OK, stop groaning already about the quote. :^) )

Many people take their hard disk drives for granted, and don't think about their reliability much (other than worrying about their disk crashing some day). While the technology that hard disks use is very advanced, and reliability today is very good, the nature of hard drives is that every one will, some day, fail. It is important to understand how drives fail and why, and how to interpret what manufacturers claims about reliability really mean.

Next: Hard Disk Quality: Luck of the Draw?

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