Fine. I am very aware of the negative effects of ESD and other extrinsic or operating environment defects. However, the Google study was done on drives in Google's server farms, which are climate controlled to within a degree or so of their specified operating temperature and who have trained techs (WITH proper equipment) to install the drives. The power is as well regulated and controlled as almost anything a HD manufacturer would have in a lab. And yet they still fail at 4x or higher the rate that the MTTF would predict. I don't think your hypotheticals explain that.

In ANY case, claiming an MTTF that is essentially impossible to hit in practice by your customer is disingenuous at best and outright lying at worst. I know that I don't get to pretend some 'ideal operating environment' when I have to give MTTF numbers. Instead I have to assume the worst case environment that we warranty.

Anyway you slice it, HD manufacturers are playing GAMES with MTTF and their numbers need to be looked at with a grain of salt the size of Gibraltar.

You mean crap a$$ studies like the one this just proved are BS?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/uk-health-cellphones-crashes-idUSLNE7BC01G20111213

TEXTING on a cell phone is crazy, crazy dangerous, no doubt, but talking hands free on a cell phone is no worse than many, many other activities that take place in a car.

I work in the electronic Q&R field, and I realize my sample size is small in what I just quoted. However, there is more than just my small sample size to go off of here. Several studies (below is only one) conclude that the HD manufacturers overstate their MTBF by a factor of 4-20x+. Actually the more correct term would be MTTF, since HDs are essentially never 'repaired' just replaced.

Technically speaking the MTTF is the MEAN time to fail, I.e. the time point at which 50% of the sample has failed. Even given this, no industry study has EVER verified or even come CLOSE to verifying the 'as documented' MTTF/MTBF numbers given by the hard drive manufacturers.

Anyone assuming they will have an MTTF of 170 years is in for a RUDE awakening. And frankly I think the HD manufacturers are putting out numbers that border on fraudulent.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/129558/study_hard_drive_failure_rates_much_higher_than_makers_estimate.html
http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder.html

For mechanical HDs (once you get out of the infant mortality area, that is). At least 3 out of my 4 RAID disks failed in year 4.

A long, long way from the manufacturers insane 80-170+year MTBF estimate.

That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. How is allowing our Senators to be picked by a bunch of LOCALLY corrupt politicians any better than what we have now?

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

The US is one of the least taxed developed countries in the world and the federal government in the US spends much less as a % of GDP than any comparable developed country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

You are right that the rich tend to hide their wealth, but technology is making that more and more risky. Go ask the former customers of UBS how they feel about that. :)

The max tax rate under Kennedy was 90%!!!!!! It is one thing to talk about reducing a 90% rate and another thing to talk about reducing a 33% rate that often times winds up being 7%!

Wrong. You are correct that wealth naturally flows to the top in capitalism and even more so in American capitalism. However, the ONLY method of keeping that wealth in the hands of the middle class and poor is for the government to tax the super-rich at high rates. Otherwise the super-rich get super-richer every year and the middle class and poor get poorer. This can be shown empirically. Look at the last time the US had a growing middle class. What was the max tax income tax rate on the rich?

Reagan started the destruction of the middle class when he simultaneously cut the max tax rate from 70% to 35% and also reduced the max income to trigger the max tax rate from ~$1.1M in income to ~$330,000 in income back in the 80s. This was a brilliant move, because it grew the number of people affected by the max tax rate by an order of magnitude, and hence gave the super rich a bunch of allies in the upper middle class to help them fight any higher income tax.

Obama is just trying to reverse this, which makes LOT of sense. If we continue at the rate we are now, the middle class will continue to shrink while wealth continues to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands until we look (wealth-wise) like a 3rd world country.

I call bull***t on your defense of Big Oil. Aside from singlehandedly trying to kill every sustainable energy technology, Big oil ALSO gets BILLIONS (~$5B/year at this point) of dollars in government SUBSIDIES that basically mean that they pay close to zero taxes ($5.7B in taxes roughly).

All government IS evil... but the GOP is far, far more evil (if you aren't rich), than the Democrats are.

Amen. If I wanted to switch from T-mobile to AT&T, I'd do it myself.

You can't reduce the # of nationwide GSM carriers in this country from 2 to 1 and try to pretend that somehow 'improves competition'.

Peter needs to submit a complaint to the California bar, because the corporate counsel that signed off on these actions need to be disbarred for ethical malfeasance.

Actually, they need to be in jail, but disbarred is probably the best that can be done.

I know that I, and I hope that everyone else on this board, will never buy a Cisco product again.

EVER.

In fact, I will go out of my way to make sure that all of my friends in the tech industry NEVER EVER BUY their stuff AGAIN.

And I know a lot of folks who buy a lot of network equipment.

Cisco, you are evil with a capital E.

Spoken like someone who doesn't have a child and has no clue.

Congrats on your ignorance. Hopefully one day you will have a child a realize how imbecilic you sound.

What the heck does Seattle have to do with it?

Lots of players from Florida are women.

Lots of players from Arizona are women.

Ad infinitum....

The Japanese are absolute STICKLERS for the rules.... Doesn't matter if the rule doesn't make any sense... if it is the rule, it should be followed.

That attitude is good and bad...