Silly Sunday: I was promised drive failures

TrueNAS General
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Backblaze states that after 6 years, 35% of their drives have failed. They expect after 6 years and 9 months, 50% would have failed. How Long Do Disk Drives Last?

My math may be extremely rusty, but I think that means that with a 65% chance of one drive being alive, the chance of all five 6-year old drives being alive is 11%.

And yet, all five drives are fine, and so are the three that are 4 years old. I feel cheated. I was supposed to have drive failures by now and be able to see ZFS replace in action, which I’ve never done.

Knowing my luck, a drive will fail, I’ll replace it, and then during the resilver two more will fail, taking my pool with it.

I know, it depends on the model. I guess shucked WD Elements are particularly sturdy. Or something about the Backblaze environment (heat, vibration) makes their drives fail faster.

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You just happen to get the 6 drives out of 100 drives that are good to last another 4 years.

I prefer to take a preemptive strike when replacing drives. I am ready for the first sign of failure and replace immediately. If the drive turns out to actually be good, it can become useful elsewhere. I always consider the drives and fans consumable items. We know they will fail. The electronics are one of those, it could last you 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Electronics have gotten so good that they actually last, provided they are not struck by lightning or dropped onto the floor.

Seriously, that is good to hear that your drives are running well.

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