hard disk reliability

[dmanddmer]

Todays hard drives are rated with MTTR's and MTBF's in the 5000+ hours. 
In my career of 21 years in computers, the number 1 failure item that
can have devastating consequences has been memory, #2 is hard drives.

My .02

David


Rob Ross wrote:
> 
> Actually, I have found that power supplies have been the least reliable
> components of our systems.
> 
> Rob Ross
> Parallel Architecture Research Lab, Clemson University
> 
> On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Christoph Wasshuber wrote:
> 
> > Some days ago someone mentioned that one of
> > the big benefits of running a diskless cluster
> > is the increased reliability. Hard disks are
> > the most unreliable part in PCs. Does anybody
> > have manufacturer numbers like MTBF (mean time
> > between failure)?
> >
> > I would also be interested in comments from
> > people running beowulfs with 100 or more
> > nodes, where every node has a hard disk. Do
> > you guys exchange a hard disk every month?
> > Or even every week?
> >
> > How serious is the hard disk reliability issue
> > in reality?
> >
> > Chris....