WOM.... 54 years old using PCs since 1980 (PET, TRASH80) etc... Can't count how many personal PCs I've had over the years.... I lost one HD in law school in 1986..
At the law firm we had about 60 PCs networked, replaced them once after about 6 years, never lost a hard drive. Did lose one in the server running an early raid in the early 1990s.
At home to store photos and other data I have 3 Thecus NAS drives (8800 Pro), each has 8 drives in it (24 HDs so far). Backup is on another 8800 PRO (8 more drives -32 Drives so far); 2 7700PROs (14 more drives - 46 total) 4200PRO (4 more - 50), 5200 (5 more = 55 hard drives).
I keep several spares on hand and never pull them out... Most of the exact types of drives in the NASes are out of production (combinations of 2TB and 3 TB drives). Also have a handful of older 1TB bare drives I make images of the computers boot drives on (not counting those)
I'm also not counting all the drives I've upgraded overthe years, where we went from 1TB to 2TB in the NASes, etc. Those drives I put in cheap cases and use them to send large amounts of data to people who need it.... (give them away as they become obsolete.
I probably have 8 more external HDs, some with multiple drives (LACIE) say 15 more HDs there....(70 HDs so far)
Desktop has 1 3TB and a 1 TB Boot drive; Laptop has 1 1GB and a SSD... Girlfriend has 2 laptops with 2 HDs; son... well I have no clue how many computers he has. His dorm room at college looks like a data center....
So 75 Mechanical HDs and 1 SDD that works. I have 2 other SSDs that dropped dead... Brands I use for mechanicals are seagate and WD, with one 8800 with 8 Toshibas (which are pretty darn fast)
I've lost 2 mechanical HDs in my life (one in law school in 1986 and one at the law firm in the mid 1990s).... Lost 2 SSDs (2/3 of my SSDs I've owned) while only 4% of Mechanicals have failed. When you are talking 100,000s or millions of hours MTBF, its rare one is going to go out.
I can say I'm impressed with SSD speeds, some work well and apparently some don't...
Mark H
Too Much Camera Stuff......