“What is the MTBF for this drive? That's an important number since this drive capacity signals it's for archival purposes. Disks are cheap. The data they hold, not so much.”
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Drives these days proclaim MTBF in the hundreds of thousands of hours (250,000 typical). However, heat is the number 1 killer of drives. Keep them cool and don't turn them off. There is mechanical wear and electrical failure. Mechanical wear can be minimized by not cycling the drive on and off. The heads land on the surface when stopped. They don't like that. Electronics fail when turned on or off. Things left on keep working. Avoid surges by turning them on & off. Needless to say, don't move spinning drives. Things fail so always have backups and backups to backups.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Hi, We no longer measure the reliability of our hard drives using Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF). Our current drive reliability is measured using Component Design Life (CDL) and Annualized Failure Rate (AFR). https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/16964 Need Help? Please see our "'Contact Us" page for information.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Good luck with that. It seems to be a 7200rpm drive inside. At the Black Friday prices just buy 2. That said people have great success with these on r/datahoarders.
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