[desi]

I've had a VST 20 GB portable HD for a few years now and wondered how long the life-span on somthing like that is, or how about a LaCie 120 GB firewire drive? I'd just like to know so when the end is near I won't be surprised one day when the things just dies on me.

[MickS]

The drive mechanisms usually have 5 year warranties on them. Check the warranty on the drive.

[DrBoar]

Heat and mechanical & electrical shocks are the enemies. A hardisk can last 10 years or more in a nice environment. Tossing it around, leaving it to freeze in the car and all that will shortent the lifespan. All harddrives I have had dying on me was Quantum (as I recall) so different brands have different quality, at least in SCSI days. No IDE has gone belly up so far.

[chabig]

In my experience, hard drives have started to make noise before failure. I've always been lucky enough to get the data backed up before failure.

If it's a relatively recent hard drive, it is capable of predicting its own failure using a feature called S.M.A.R.T (elf-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology). You can check the SMART status of your drive in Disk Utility. When the drive is selected in the left column, the status is displayed in the info portion of the right panel.

Also, you can have your computer automatically check the SMART status at regular intervals and report to you. See this hint:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...31122041138373

Chris

[-Q-]

Although of late, drive manufacturers have been shortening their warranties, so a lot of the IDE drives sold today only have a one-year warranty on them (down from three). Always a good idea to back up the stuff that's important so when the day comes (and with drives it is 'when' not 'if') that the drive dies.