On 18-Apr-2013 16:03, Alex Chekholko wrote: > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:01 PM, mathog <[email protected]> wrote: >> How do they come up with the MTBF values for disks anyway? Clearly >> it >> is not based on watching a large >> sample of disks for countless years!
> How would you do it? On a brand new design, I have no idea. On an incremental design, which mechanically is what most disks are, I would take into account the failure rates of the components in the previous generation and extrapolate that to the new design (where possible). For instance, one could tear down and carefully examine the moving components to measure the wear they suffered over several years. They could also do "accelerated aging" studies (running the drives under less than ideal conditions). That method is good for testing paint, but I would not have a lot of faith in it for a device as complicated as a disk. Regards, David Mathog [email protected] Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
