hard drive woes

[Gerald Combs]

On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

> There seem to be four failure modes:  
> 
> Fails within hours (Usually caught at the factory)
> Fails within two years (Annoying for those of use at corporate sites)
> Reaches an expected lifespan, then croaks (less than half?)
> Keeps going, and going, and going, until you wonder how anybody ever found a
> use for something that small and slow.

You've just described the Bathtub Curve:

    http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/apr/section1/apr124.htm

I wonder if newer hard drives have a shallower (and therefore longer)  
infant mortality slope, or a higher intrinsic failure baseline, or both.